Running a free webhosting business off a reseller

xtek0 · 10-02-2006, 01:35 PM

Hey guys, I am just curious i always hear about companies running servers for free hosting. Is it possible for them to run it off a reseller? What are the effects of running it on a reseller rather than a server. Can you use a reseller and fit over 30k members?

Lets get this topic going....

*uploadpic* · 10-02-2006, 07:02 PM

A reseller would only be able to hold a limited amount of users, it would be possible although not ideal for hosting a large amount of free web hosting users, it would also make forcing ads very hard.

*ZendURL* · 10-02-2006, 08:33 PM

I would not recommend it. You will find out very quickly that you will need to expand, and you certainly will not be able to hold 30k members. Even good reseller accounts probably couldn't hold half of that.
I actually was on a VPS, and was getting downtimes by the time there was 5k members and was forced to switch to a dedicated.

CoreFusion · 10-02-2006, 11:53 PM

Resellers can support maybe 30-50 members before things get out of hand. You won't be able to reasonably stuff 100+ members onto a reseller when there are 40+ others like you on the same server.

xtek0 · 10-04-2006, 01:55 PM

Any good places for a server? Im looking to start a free webhosting business.

*uploadpic* · 10-04-2006, 02:06 PM

You may want to start on a vps, they start quite cheap and allow you to have root access. JaguarPc are good for that kind of hosting, aswell as them providing managed services included in the price.

*ZendURL* · 10-04-2006, 05:01 PM

Before I upgraded to a dedicated server, I used JaguarPC and they are a very good providor. However you may also want to see if the VPS company you go with can upgrade you to a dedicated without data loss. It was a big pain to move from JaguarPC to my dedicated providor, and customers ended up losing their data.

numberonehost · 10-09-2006, 05:34 PM

Reseller in my opinion would not be the best to start on especially when you need to upgrade to a server, you will have some serious transfer problems

Jayso · 10-22-2006, 05:51 AM

Also, the problem with Resellers are that you don't have complete control of them.

Say if the HTTPD process (Apache) buggared itself, most hosts would not give you access to the Restart Services part of WHM (assumption there)

Also, mainly because of that and the limited account thing mentioned above - your hosting company will be shunned by professionals and other people that actually know what a reseller is... (until you upgrade

)

aGig · 10-22-2006, 08:42 PM

Cpanel hates life with 800 accounts or more on the same server no matter how fast it is. At one point we had over 3,500 users on two boxes and it made day to day cpanel operations a chore. It would take a few minutes to setup a new account, a few mins to delete etc...

cPanel will draw in users, but will hurt you overall in the long run. xPanel and other CPs like that seem to work well with large number accounts on one server.

Offering email is like offering a spammer a can of spam, allow them to forward their domain or sub domains, but do not give actual SMTP access to them. By not giving them direct SMTP access it does not stop the spammers, but it stops the kids who want to be spammers.