How much money does it cost to run a website?

Mins Blog is the most popular keyword in the recent blogsphere, the way to mins users, we have a lot of opinions, I have been on the BSP is not too cold, so also did not pay attention to, but today saw an article "Rescue sensitive blog or will be ready to accept venture capital offer acquisition", can not help but some The following is a passage in the text:

Mins never received fees from users, and never published a commercial advertisement, the only source of funds is stationmaster Wang Jian. From the establishment to now, Wang Jian before and after the total investment of more than 1.5 million yuan. The defenders of these sites have invested countless hours and energies with enthusiasm, which has never been rewarded with money. Wang Jian says he has a moral responsibility for them.

More than 1.5 million bucks, is that true? is the BSP operating cost so high that a user does not have a large amount? The operating costs of a website can be divided into: hardware equipment, network environment, software development, maintenance costs and personnel wages, if the site is an entity company, then may also need company registration costs and office space and day-to-day office costs. Let's take a look at the cost of sensitive blogs:

First of all, the article says: "In order to reduce costs, mins still do not have their own office, everyone is at home computer work, through Skype Exchange", you can see that the blog is a virtual team, and no own company, then the company registration, venues and day-to-day office expenses this piece of expenses is not. " Then: "The defenders of these sites, with a passion to invest countless time and energy, this kind of hard never have money return", then the meaning is that there is no human resources costs, do not need to pay employees, staff wages this piece of the cost is zero. The article also said: "Although the beginning of two years ago, mins has not made any feature updates," which means that the site's subsequent development costs are zero.

In this way, the operating cost of mins basically only includes the server hardware cost, the network environment expense, the software initial development cost as well as the server daily maintenance cost. Since Min-Si boasts 1 million users, I calculate it by the amount of user. Because the user is not small, so they intend to have 3 servers (2 web,1 database), the Web and the general configuration of the database server does not need to be too high, about 50,000 of the Dell server enough to use, 3 is 150,000. Server hosting 2U is the most expensive between 12,000-15,000, 3 servers 3 years up to 135,000. Think of the blog's team is not it technicians, so it is likely that the blog's program is to ask people to develop, so the development costs this piece to give a sufficient budget, 200,000 should be the top (ASP.net development technology is not very difficult). Server maintenance Even if it is to ask a part-time person, one months to open the wages of 1k, 3 years down is 36,000. In this way, the total cost of three years should not exceed 520,000.

If the sensitive blog team to budget a little, operating costs can save a lot, mins although the so-called 1 million users, but the actual number of active users should not be small, should not be more than 10,000 people, and daily online people should be less, mins Alexa ranked only about 10,000 is very able to explain the problem, So mins can only use 1 servers can provide services, in order to data security and add a backup server is enough, and there is no need to buy brand servers, their assembled 20,000 or so 1U servers can be comparable to 50,000 of the brand server. The minimum cost of hosting the 1U is 3.5k/years, and the cost of 2 servers in 3 years is about 20,000. Mins Blog program and there is nothing very special place to find a small asp.net team to develop the estimated cost can be controlled within 50,000. and server maintenance can be temporarily something to find someone to maintain, estimated three years down the cost will not exceed 10,000. In this way, the total cost is counted down, 3 years not more than 120,000.

Writing here, I can not help but doubt that Min-Si is not in the hype? Is it a journalist or Wang Jian himself exaggerating? Paint yourself a sad color? You don't have to do this for a bit, do you?

After writing to see the zuola provided by the sensitive blog to save the way, I also put forward a most simple way, the sensitization team can find a home is willing to receive the user's BSP, the entire user data transfer out of free, so as to save the user himself moved.

Now let's talk about Min-mi, to explore how much money is needed to maintain a common Web project (for example, the lamp architecture).

First, if your project has just started, basically no users, then you do not need to buy their own server to host, the domestic hundreds of yuan/year or international dozens of U.S. dollars/year of virtual host is sufficient.

Second, if your project user volume has been relatively large (depending on the project size may be 1000 to 10000 or so), then you may need a server of your own, the Web server in fact, the configuration does not need to be too high, memory and hard drive a little larger, and do a good job of data backup. So there is absolutely no need to buy a professional high-end server, which Google can be said to play incisively and vividly. Now in Beijing to assemble a general PC server price can be controlled within 10,000, a little bit better is about 20,000. Beijing Netcom 100M shared bandwidth hosting is the lowest 3500 yuan/year, if you want to visit both North and south, you can choose Unicom or railcom, the approximate price between 5k-7k.

Third, if your site has entered a medium-sized site, the day access IP in more than 100,000, then you should consider using multiple servers for load balancing. But at this point, you don't have to worry about the money.