Pros and Cons of Multiple Sites on One Droplet vs. on Multiple Droplets

July 26, 2017 5.5k views
Server Optimization WordPress Storage Security Configuration Management Scaling Load Balancing DigitalOcean Ubuntu Ubuntu 16.04
athayworth
By:
athayworth

Please excuse any redundancy here, as I am well aware that there have been numerous posts/questions about the issue of hosting multiple sites on one droplet, as opposed to hosting those sites on more than one droplet. However, none of the posts I found quite answered my questions. Also, please note that I'm not so technically inclined (am using ServerPilot to manage my current droplet), so these questions might read as a bit ignorant. But anyway, a couple of questions:

  1. If I host all of my sites on one droplet (let's assume in all cases that the droplet(s) in question are/is resized/upgraded appropriately), would there be much difference in performance as compared to if those sites were being hosted on multiple droplets?

  2. Is there any increased security risk if I have all of my sites on one droplet, barring the fact that if that single droplet were to go down, all of my sites would go with it?

Essentially I'm wondering if there is any significant difference between a single, appropriately sized droplet, and multiple droplets.

Some details that might be relevant:

  1. All of my sites are Wordpress sites, and are public.
  2. I'm using GSuite to route(?)/deliver(?)/not sure how to put it e-mails for each domain. Not sure if this puts extra load on the server.
  3. In total, eventually, I'll likely have 5 or 6 websites.

Any input would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

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2 Answers
hansen July 27, 2017
Accepted Answer

Hi @athayworth

There's no such thing as ignorant questions, just misunderstandings and incomplete answers :)

From the first segment:

  1. Yes, there's a huge difference between hosting a single site or multiple. If you host a single site you need 1GB RAM ($10), but you can easily host 30 sites on 8GB ($80).

  2. Yes, having everything on one server will make it more vulnerable to crashes or connectivity problems, but again, it also makes it easier to maintain, so it's a two-sided coin.

Second section:

  1. Tomato/Tomato - it doesn't work on text, but it doesn't matter which system you're using. As long as you're using different users for each website, then it's not much different than using a shared hosting platform like GoDaddy or SiteGround. Of course WordPress is a very popular system, just like Windows, so it's more attacked than other systems, which means you need to protect your server even more.

  2. If you're in complete control of the G-Suite for each domain, then it's not a problem to add the extra parameter to PHP, but if you're not in control of each domain (example: different customers), then you might want to separate each customer website into their own server, since it would be easier to hand-over each server to each customer without affecting anyone else.

  3. I think I answered this in the first segment, if not, please comment.

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athayworth July 27, 2017

Wow, @hansen, thanks for your reply.

I don't know that I have much to say because you pretty much gave to answer to all I was wondering about!

My situation is easy in that all of the websites in question are mine - not any customer's or client's - so I do have full control. I think hosting everything on one droplet (one that's big enough, of course) might be the best option for me.

I'd like to think I'm pretty diligent about keeping my site(s) and server secure, too, so if I do use only one droplet, I'll have to be sure to read up on keeping things extra-safe.

Thanks again - I appreciate you taking the time to answer everything.

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