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See it in action · Hosting & ownership

Your code belongs to you

Where your site and files run shapes cost and control: renting a cloud VPS (someone else’s server, recurring bill) versus a small computer you own on your premises. Same build, different landlord. The numbers below are rounded year-one sketches, not advice. How we like to build →

Rent in the cloud vs own a box in your building

The usual fork: pay a host for a cloud VPS or run on hardware you bought or repurposed—mini PC, thin client, small board. We don’t sell branded machines; you source the box, we spec, install, and configure with you. Real numbers move with your registrar, host, and parts.

Cost breakdown (per year, rounded)

Item Cloud VPS (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode, …) Computer in your building (you own it; we set it up)
Hosting fee ~$60–$120 / yr $0 (self-hosted)
Domain (.com) ~$12 / yr ~$12 / yr
Electricity — ~$5 / yr (tiny draw)
Hardware — (you’re renting the server) ~$50–$100 one-time
Total year 1 ~$72–$132 ~$67–$117 includes your one-time hardware buy
Total year 2+ ~$72–$132 / yr ~$12 / yr mostly the domain

Pros & cons

Cloud VPS

Hosted in a datacenter

  • Up when your place isn’t. Local power or ISP blips don’t take the public site down.
  • Fast pipes. Datacenters usually beat a small-business uplink for raw throughput.
  • Ongoing rent. Hosting keeps billing; if you stop paying, you can lose the setup—and data if you weren’t backing up elsewhere.
  • Data leaves your walls. Your bits live on someone else’s disks—fine for many, worth saying out loud.

Computer you own

On-site—you buy it; we install and tune it

  • You own the metal. No monthly landlord for the box itself; no host flipping a switch over a failed card.
  • Your data stays local. Repos, uploads, and backups can live on gear you control.
  • Tied to power and internet. Outage at the building means anything that depends on that machine waits.
  • Reaching the public internet. Often a tunnel (Cloudflare, Tailscale, …)—real setup, usually one-time, we walk you through it.

One box, several light jobs?

A small always-on PC can run more than one modest service—the point of owning hardware instead of stacking subscriptions:

  • Public site, blog, or waitlist
  • Internal wiki or file drop for the team
  • Guest Wi‑Fi splash or dashboards—off the payment network
  • Other open-source tools you’d rather not rent

Doing all of that in the cloud often means a beefier VPS or multiple bills. On-site, more can ride on one purchase you already made.

Cloud: convenient uptime story, but rent never stops. If hosting lapses, your deploy (and sometimes your data) can vanish.

Your building: you own the machine; we help wire it up. No monthly fee for the hardware itself, and by year two the box often beats a line item on a hosting invoice.

Either path can work—we’ll talk through what fits you.

Illustrative numbers only—not tax, legal, or financial advice. We don’t sell branded PCs; the table assumes you bought or had the hardware. Domain and VPS prices vary.

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