Hello All,

I am in the middle of developing a new social networking site that will also give users the ability to post videos(like youtube) and pictures(like facebook).

There are many hosts that will not accept a site such as this due to the fact that users may post copyrighted material.
My site will have a flag system in place to get admins to look at the content, and people may email us for removal as well. I would be doing the same thing as youtube and facebook essentially.

Even with this flag/emailremoval system, some hosts I looked at wouldn't take this kind of site.


My questions are: what hosts can be good for this kind of site?
Does anyone have any advice? This is my first attempt at a social networking site so I will gladly take any advice.


I'm using drupal to develop the site btw.

I think that the size of your web hosting account will depend on the activity on your site.
So for the starting project.

You should be fine starting on a reliable shared hosting plan but I'd choose one from a larger provider that can support scalability so that it is easy for you to upgrade your site to larger solutions as needed

Do not go with dedicated hosting yet. You will be wasting money on the speed and power you won't use when you first start up.

For your purposes, go with a cheaper VPS and make sure you read the host's TOS before you sign up. The VPS will save you money and give you just enough power for when you start out. Once you out grow that VPS, there will be more powerful ones out there.

Once you reach the threshold for an upgrade to dedicated server you will know.

shared - VPS - dedicated etc. I believe you need to use that scheme.

start on VPS and when your project grows move to dedicated

If you really want to save money then start off with a shared hosting plan package. I've seen them go for cheap (I paid $4 a month) and got pretty good features. In many cases you can get a free domain with a shared plan (I did).

VPS is once you become established and dedicated servers is for when you are/become a true competitor to Facebook (probably very long in the future if you make it).

Originally Posted by WebhostGIANT-Rob

I think that the size of your web hosting account will depend on the activity on your site.
So for the starting project.

You are right, I was also thinking so.

Originally Posted by janita

Bluehost is best for social media websites.

They offer budget shared hosting, that isn't too fast. It could work for a small social networking website, but anything that gets popular and has some tens of users constantly online, should look for better, more powerful hosting solutions. The alternative is to wait to have your account suspended by the host for CPU/memory abuse, but that can damage such a site's popularity quite severely.

VPS is always good to start off with mate.

Originally Posted by mrzett

VPS is always good to start off with mate.

Not if he is on a limited budget and/or has no server administration skills

Mate do try to start with shared hosting, it is really cheap and when your needs arise shift this on Dedicated hosting.

Originally Posted by corl

Mate do try to start with shared hosting, it is really cheap and when your needs arise shift this on Dedicated hosting.

I think you have forgotten about VPS. Dedicated server is much more expensive. So I think scheme of migration would be: shared - vps - dedicated

Originally Posted by WebhostGIANT-Rob

I think you have forgotten about VPS. Dedicated server is much more expensive. So I think scheme of migration would be: shared - vps - dedicated

I agree with the scheme of migration but I think in his case if he wants to be more aggressive in marketing his social network site, he needs to provide a good user experience.

No one wants to visit a slow social network web site. If he starts off right off the bat with a VPS and provides fast response times and loading, he will already have fans on hand!

You can choose VPS hosting. Because in case of VPS you can install any software as per your requirement. VPS offer you Security, Performance, Protected Mail Service, Customer Installed Applications, Flexibility, Migration, Application Templates and Support, Complete Control & Administration Tools, free back up space and many others but if you can afford some more cost then you select dedicated hosting.

HostGator shared hosting

Here is a host I would reccommend:
http://www.godaddy.com

Their hosting (shared hosting that is) is slow. Definitely not the kind you'd want to use for a social networking website.

In all these there are so many advance features can be possible in all these there are so many things which is great. If you are hosting for the social networking web site in all these there are so many possibilities can be applicable.

Originally Posted by ldcdc

Their hosting (shared hosting that is) is slow. Definitely not the kind you'd want to use for a social networking website.

On top of being slow they don't have CPanel but rather a proprietary control panel that to put mildly, just is horrendous.

I would definitely stick to CPanel @OP.

Originally Posted by cantletugo

On top of being slow they don't have CPanel but rather a proprietary control panel that to put mildly, just is horrendous.

I would definitely stick to CPanel @OP.

I think he wanted to say that shared web hosting is not enough at all for social network web site which he is going to open and I do agree with him.