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Web Hosting for Wiki Sites

The internet was originally made from scientists to transfer information about their experiments to each other. Today, this goal of using the internet to get information to many people is still the primary purpose for its existence. One of the best ways to spread information to the masses, as evidenced by sites like Wikipedia, is the use of Wiki Sites.

A Wiki is basically a special kind of content management system that is primarily driven by user input. Users can register and add their knowledge to the already existing knowledge there is on the site. There are several kinds of Wiki scripts available but all of them do about the same thing. Whether its music, sports, recreation, or anything else, a Wiki is a great way of gathering and sharing information. Since Wiki sites tend to snowball in traffic once some people start using it, the hosting that is powering the Wiki site is highly important to its success. Users will want quick page loads and server speeds around the clock so they can add and edit their information whenever they like. For this you will need to know the hosting requirements of a Wiki Site and do careful research on web hosts before you choose one to put your Wiki up on. In this article we will look at the hosting requirements to run a Wiki and the options there are for such hosting requirements.

To run a Wiki site you need lots of CPU Power and RAM, good technical support, and adequate space and bandwidth(if you are running something like Media Wiki), and certain file permissions for uploading files.

First, lets take a look at the most pressing concern: CPU and RAM restraints. This is an unknown issue to most newbie webmasters as they only look at space and bandwidth numbers and think bigger is better. However, most sites that do go down this route get suspended because of CPU and RAM. Since most sites are on a shared hosting environment(this includes free hosts as well), they are sharing the total CPU power and the total RAM power. Usually these hosting servers have either dual or quad-core setups with 4GB RAM or more, but when you divide that among hundreds if not thousands of users, each individual user only gets a very small piece of the pie. This is dangerous for a community-driven site such as a Wiki which relies on user input to grow. Since Wiki engines are fairly SQL intensive and average more page views per visitor than an average site, each visitor to a Wiki site will use a large amount of CPU and RAM power. Being on shared hosts that have small tolerances for server resource usage will get you suspended quickly or bring your site to a crawl. Hosts also usually have restrictions on the number of simultaneous MYSQL connections you can have open at the same time. The number can range from as small as 5 to 30 or more connections. If you go over this maximum limit, your account could be suspended or the extra visitors will not be able to access your website. When looking for a host for a Wiki site, you need to find one that has lenient CPU/RAM usage rates and SQL connection numbers. This should be your first priority above all else.

The next most important thing is technical support. For a Wiki, good technical support is mandatory. You should find a host that has special expertise in hosting Wiki sites(and trust me there are plenty) and is aware of the common problems that they bring. Support response times should be quick and anything above a 6 hour response time would be considered bad. For this area, you need to look around in forums such as webhostingtalk.com or if you are looking at free hosts, freewebspace.net for opinions on a specific host’s customer support service. You’ll want to look for a host that gets more than just a few responses from members and thats been around for at least 2 years. The responses should generally be positive, although do not let 1 negative response in the middle of twenty positive responses make you not choose a host. If you think that forum opinion has said that the particular host you are looking at is a good host, then the next step is to actually talk to the technical support folks themselves. If they are unwilling to talk to you, you might want to reconsider going with such a host. When you are speaking to them, ask them about server uptime, server load rates, CPU/RAM usage rates, MYSQL connection numbers, and other basic questions that all technical support staff should know. Only if they can answer these questions quickly, should you consider going with that host.

The last thing to look at is space and bandwidth. This should not be a problem unless you are hosting a media Wiki type of site that is streaming music or has links to download that are on your server. If you do, you may want to check how much content you want to upload and then multiply that by 1.3 or 1.5 to get a good number for the amount of space you will need for your site. Giving yourself 30%-50% expansion room is a good idea because you will almost always be uploading more than you originally planned as time goes on. Likewise, if you have many media files, you need to calculate and make sure you have enough bandwidth. Just take the number of visitors you are expecting to get, multiply by number of page views per visitor and then multiply by the size of each page(including all music and downloads) and multiply by .75 to get an idea of how much bandwidth you will need to use daily. Leave 30-50% extra bandwidth for expansion possibilities. Generally space and bandwidth will not be a big problem as hosts give plenty of these resources to draw in visitors. However, if you are going for a higher-quality host(and you should be) and running a media type Wiki site, you will need to keep an eye out for these.

Now that we have looked at the requirements needed for a Wiki site, lets look at the hosting options available.

1. Free hosting - If you can find a decent free host that offers PHP and MYSQL and has decent tech support and you really don’t have any money at the time, then free hosting is a plausible option for you to start. Be careful when choosing because some free hosts only offer advanced features such as MYSQL at an additional fee. Also try to avoid the complete free hosts that require no banners or forum posting to keep a free account as these hosts do not have any income to maintain their hosting service and will often vanish within weeks or even days. Before going with any free host, it is imperative that you monitor them for a while to see what their server’s uptime is like. If you can find a free host with 98% uptime or more, then that is probably a decent host worth looking at. Although 98% is bad compared to paid hosts, it is pretty good for something you are not paying for. Never ever go for a free host that just appeared yesterday that no one knows about who is offering everything and the kitchen sink in terms of features. Those are generally teenage kids who have no idea what they are doing and have no means of providing support or maintaining a hosting service. Two free hosts I recommend are Stonerocket hosting and Zoomcities hosting. Note that both these services give limited space and bandwidth so if your Wiki grows, you will need to seek paid options for hosting
2. Shared Hosting - The next tier up from free hosting offers several advantages that free hosting cannot offer. Paid shared hosting is generally a lot more trustworthy and dependable than free hosting and comes with better tech support. The quality of service varies greatly on shared hosts so you will want to do your research carefully before you pick. Do not look for big numbers in space and bandwidth when you are looking for a shared hosting service. Chances are you won’t be using more than 1% of the 100GB of space that some hosts offer or the 5TB of bandwidth they offer. Big numbers for cheap prices usually means bad customer service and slow servers. The more a host oversells its resources, the more likely that the server will be overloaded and performance will be sub-par. Server uptime and technical support should be the primary concerns here. You also need to make sure that you are on a host that allows uploads of media files from a PHP script if you plan on building a media script around a Wiki. Since a Wiki is a resource intensive application, you should be looking to pay around 50 cents for each gigabyte of bandwidth on a hosting plan. Going with a major overseller like servage, powweb, or bluehost is generally a bad idea for application hosting as server slowdowns and account suspensions happen frequently.
3. Semi-Dedicated - In general, a semi-dedicated hosting solution is really just a large shared hosting plan that offers more resource usage than a regular shared plan. Semi-dedicated plans are usually put on a separate server with other semi-dedicated clients. The account to server ratio is much lower than a regular shared plan and large semi-dedicated plans should not have over 8 users per machine. Although the CPU/RAM limits are much higher, everyone on the server is still sharing the same pool of resources so you can be suspended if your site gets an extremely large amount of visitors within a short time period(digg effect). Likewise, the actions of other users can effect you too and one person can still bring down a server. You also don’t have root access to the server so you will have to rely on technical support to troubleshoot server issues. Support for semi-dedicated accounts is generally better than for regular shared accounts as they cost much more and the hosting staff will go much farther out of the way in order to keep a semi-dedicated client than they would to keep a shared client.
4. Virtual Private Hosting(VPS) - A VPS is a good way to go once you outgrow a shared hosting environment. In a VPS environment, each account is sliced off from the other accounts and has a guaranteed amount of CPU and RAM power and also a higher “burst rate” for emergencies. Since each account is sliced off, the actions of one user will not effect the other users and no one user can bring down the rest of the server. However, this also means you cannot use or “borrow” other users’ resources so if your site is one that peaks in traffic often, you may see consistent slowdowns during that time. However, your account will never be suspended due to usage issues and if you do see these slowdowns, you can simply upgrade to a larger VPS package. For people who feel like they don’t quite need a dedicated server but have outgrown a shared plan, a VPS is a perfect middle-of-the-road solution.
5. Dedicated server - For a large Wiki with thousands of users, a dedicated server is necessary to power the needs of the visitors. On a dedicated box, all CPU and RAM is dedicated to your site so account suspensions and resource over-usage are things of the past. However, there is no burst rate like on a VPS so peak hours might still give you trouble. I recommended getting a dedicated server with at least 1GB of RAM and a dual-core processor for maximum performance. If performance still suffers, you will have to upgrade to a more powerful server. On a dedicated server you have full control of the box and can troubleshoot your own issues if you are experienced in server management. If you are not, you should purchase a management package from the host. Good dedicated hosts are gate2vn.net, wiredtree.com, softlayer.com, and rackspace.com.

These are the requirements and options for Wiki site hosting. Using this article as a basis for research, search around on forums until you find a host that suits you. Keep in mind all the requirements for a Wiki site and pick a host that seems interested in working with you over the long term. Doing this will help you be one step closer to a successful Wiki site.

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