So I have a really cool idea for a proxy that I expect to get some pretty good traffic.

I have read and heard from friends that phproxy, which seems to be a very nifty little program, is very hefty on cpu usage. This could be a problem as I'm currently on a shared box. Im working on the design for phproxy right now, but am holding back on releasing it until I get the server situation "stable". Last thing I want is to drive a bunch of traffic in and overload the server and get shutdown by my host.

What are other people doing out there who have fairly high-traffic portals? Have you heard of anyone who needed a dedi for just one protal site? Do you just need to get lucky and find a host or a box you can prety much take over?

This is all of course assuming my proxy gets alot of traffic, which i am 98% sure it will.

php proxy is cpu heavy and its cgi counterpart, from what i've heard, isn't any better. this is why i don't do proxy sites... as soon as you get any real traffic, you have to start shelling out money for a dedicated server. kills your profit margins.

You even want a server if your proxy gets NOT a lot of traffic. Running a proxy on a shared hosting account is like icescating with red hot vats. We even have to switch over to a BETTER server because of load issues...

It was very naive to think our current server could handle the load a proxy site generates...

There's no way your host will allow a proxy on a shared server. If you're just starting out with a proxy, I would recommend getting a VPS for about $40/month and when you start getting traffic and money from it, then go to a dedi.

I'm on a VPS right now and my proxy is about 1 month old and I'll probably need a dedi by the end of the month at the rate it's growing (hopefully not though).

But yeah, proxy sites take up a lot of resources so if you have other sites on your box, it might slow them down if it gets picked up by a lot of people.

Good luck with it

VPS's can barely hold up a proxy site unless fully equipped with lots of RAM. Most likely, you will end up getting a dedicated.

proxy offers lots of traffic yeah that's a fact but it's very painful for the web hosting provider and also a cpu hog for that matter. the traffic from it won't cover the server monthly expenses for the bandwidth.

Hmmm so maybe hosting it on my desktop system might be an option? Might be less reliable as verizon pretty much sucks ***, but i do have a static IP and a (reasonably) fast desktop just sitting there.

It depends if you still want to work on that machine

Get a Server. This is the only available option, I'm afraid ...