Pligg Web Hosting

Pligg Web Hosting

To make updating website easier and more efficient, webmasters today often choose to use a content management system to run their websites. One of the most popular content management systems out there today is one known as Pligg. This content management system is popular because of its close resemblance to popular sites such as Digg.com and allows users to vote for stories, bury stories, and comment for increased user interactivity. Like all scripts, Pligg has some resource usage requirements and hosting requirements to run, so before you try installing Pligg, make sure you’ve got the essentials to run such a content management system.

Pligg is a content management system built entirely on PHP/MYSQL so you will need a web hosting service that has those two as standard functions. The ability to chmod files up to 777 in permission is also important for pligg as several of the configuration files need this permission on initial installation. To make installation easier, several hosts offer a one-click install of Pligg in their control panels as one of the auto-install scripts. If you have trouble installing scripts, you may want to look into one of these hosting services.

Like most popular content management systems, Pligg requirements center more on CPU and RAM usage rather than space or bandwidth. Content management systems based on PHP/MYSQL tend to strain servers on CPU and Ram resources during periods of high traffic and it is easy for a shared hosting solution to suspend or delete your account because of this. Because of this, it is advisable that you avoid massive oversellers such as Powweb or Bluehost as you will easily run afoul their TOS agreements for resource usage. Despite the fact that oversellers such as these specifically advertise the ability to run applications such as Pligg on their service, in reality they do not deliver. These hosting services often squeeze hundreds if not thousands of accounts onto one server in order to make a profit. With so many accounts on one server, each account has a very limited amount of CPU and RAM they can use before the usage starts to bog the server down. Since these companies put the integrity of the servers above individual users, they will often suspend or delete troublesome accounts without any specific warning or reason. So you may be wondering, if I don’t go for one of these overselling shared hosts, what kind of service should I be going for? To help you make a better informed decision, I have broken down and explained the several types of hosting below and how they are suitable or unsuitable for Pligg.

1. Dreamhost/Midphase(shared) – Pligg recommends these hosts for entry level hosting and while the reviews from customers indicate that both these services are much better than services like Powweb, both of these companies emphasize plans that feature extremely high amounts of space and bandwidth for a few dollars a month. Furthermore, on examining more reviews, there are numerous complaints about server slowdowns due to heavy script usage on scripts such as Pligg. These hosts might be good for the first few months if you are just starting out on a small Pligg-based site. However, if you are moving hosts due to Pligg troubles, then you would be better served looking elsewhere.
2. Reseller plans – This is not a standard shared plans but reseller plans that are larger and most likely feature less accounts per server. While the CPU/RAM usage allotment for each account is larger than shared hosting, this is still not an optimal environment for application hosting. Most resellers host a number of accounts under their reseller account and oversell themselves which will result in overage uses and server slowdowns. You are still not guaranteed any amount of CPU/RAM on these accounts so if you looking to host a large Pligg site, I would not recommend these solutions.
3. Semi-dedicated plans – Semi dedicated plans are kind of like reseller plans but feature even less accounts per server. There is still no guarantee of CPU and RAM so one account could jam the entire server, although that is less likely. Before you purchase one of these plans, make sure to ask the host about how many of these accounts they squeeze on a server and what the average server load is. You’ll want a plan that is on a server with relatively few accounts and low server-load. While not the optimal plan, semi-dedicated plans are pretty good for hosting small to medium-size Pligg sites.
4. Clustered shared environments(Media Temple/Mosso) – These are a special kind of shared hosting plan. Instead of jamming accounts onto one server, these hosts link many servers, sometimes hundreds into a server-grid. The combined processing power of all the servers provides high burst rates for peak hour traffic. On these hosts CPU and RAM is less of an issue than on traditional shared hosts as it is very unlikely that one site will bring hundreds of servers down. However, you are still sharing an environment with other people and although the account to server ratio is usually fairly low, there can be overage issues. This type of technology is also fairly new and there have been some known database and container issues with this type of hosting. Although it may be worth looking at, the cost of these hosting plans is often the same as a VPS or dedicated solution, which would probably be better at serving a high-traffic Pligg site. Note that Media Temple has special application hosting plans. While more expensive, these plans have optimizations to specifically run resource intensive applications such as Pligg.
5. VPS(Virtual Private Server) – A good VPS plan may be just what you need for a Pligg site. With such a plan your portion of the server is separated from other clients so you are guaranteed a certain amount of CPU/RAM. How big a portion you need depends on how popular your Pligg site is. For Pligg hosting, I recommend at least 512MB guaranteed RAM with bursts at 1GB or more. These resources will be sufficient for you to run a fairly popular Pligg-based site and allow for continued expansion. If you are not good at server management, be sure to get a managed VPS solution with a control panel.
6. Dedicated Server – This is probably the best solution for a large Pligg-based site. You are the only one on the server and get all its CPU and RAM resources. I recommend a dual-core server with at least 512 RAM(1GB preferred). If you are not experienced in running a server, get a semi-managed or fully managed dedicated server.

Choosing the kind of solution, whether basic shared or dedicated, will depend on your budget and the amount of traffic your site is getting. Also be aware than certain extensions or plugins for Pligg raise CPU/RAM usage significantly. While I am not aware of any specific ones, you should keep close watch on your CPU/RAM usage after each plugin or extension is installed and un-install troublesome plugins. Some server optimizations such as Zend optimizer may also improve performance so look for that when choosing a host. Now that you have been informed of the various needs of Pligg hosting and been introduced to a variety of hosting solutions, making the right choice for your Pligg site should be much easier.