The cost of common shared hosting starts at 3$-10$ per month. While this is a cost many can afford, there are many out there that find it hard to spend 120$/year. Well, in the past 4 years I have used the idea of hostMates very successfully, saving money and learning from my mates.
Please note: HostMate is an idea, best practice if you want. It is not a product or a service, although someone might want to provide this service.
The simple idea of HostMate
Share the same host account with other people (preferably friends) in the same manner we use to have a roommate in the university.
Most hosting accounts support multiple domain names, MySQLs, email addresses and FTP accounts.
Why not share the cost and enjoy this multitenancy with a few ‘virtual roommates’?
A very similar set of rules should apply both for roommates and for hostMates:
- Respect the other mates privacy
- Keep the file system/ living room clean
- Don’t do anything that will bring the police
- Do not abuse common resources
- If you bring a date back to the room hang a ‘do not disturb sign’ on the door knob – I guess this is more relevant for roommates than for hostMates
At some stage, very similar to roommates, you will outgrow your hostMate arrangement and move out of this deal into a new, posh hosting all by yourself.
Good luck.
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