Hi,

I need some help on choosing an appropriate webhost solution. I'll be launching a site that will initially serve around 3000-4000 pageviews per day (say 2000-2500 uniques per day) but will go well over 10-15K eventually. Pretty small based on that metric. With just PHP (no dynamic content), my shared host has handled that fairly well for an existing site.

However, this site will need to track search queries...so, each page will do a simple MySQL lookup and either upgrade a count or do a small insert. Again, very simple stuff but not sure how this affect performance and CPU load. Still, I know my provider has pretty low thresholds on max db concurrent connections and they've loaded my server with lots of other sites recently. I'd rather not take a chance after launching.

Based on that simple operation, would you recommend moving to a managed VPS or possibly a semi-dedicated server? The traffic still sounds low but I'm just not sure of the mysql effect :(

If VPS, it seems like 512M memory should be the minimum for this setup or could I get away with something smaller, like 384M/256M?

I've read good things about MediaLayer's "application hosting" but it still sounds just like shared hosting.

Any thoughts appreciated :) Thanks!

I think I would go with VPS, because at least you have better resources compare to shared. It would be better if you prefer managed solution to self managed because you can focus to your business instead of thinking technical matters.

In my opinion 256MB RAM for VPS should be enough, as time goes by and your site getting bigger you can upgrade to bigger plan.

If you expect your site to grow that fast (you talk about double or tripple your current visitors) you might want to look further as VPS or Semi-Dedicated.

For now you could look at a VPS or Semi-Dedicated, where the main difference is that Semi-Dedicated is fully managed. But eventually you may need to upgrade to a dedicated server, that is if your load keeps growing.

I believe that some sites are just outgrowing the shared-business (VPS is also shared) and should be placed on a dedicated platform.

Wish you all the best in making the right decision.

Semi-dedicated= huge shared web hosting account. VPS - virtual but DEDICATED server. I hope you understand difference here.