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Should You Replace Your Server or Move to the Cloud?

So your web server has gotten old. It’s getting a little bit slower every day, or maybe it’s just finally given up altogether and crashed. Now you’re left with a big question. Should you replace your server or move to the cloud? It’s a big question, and it can seem there’s no easy answer. After all, the cloud can give you greater flexibility in your company and can even cut back on your IT costs, right? So maybe it’s something you should consider. But wait. Before you do, you need to consider the actual costs of the cloud.

It’s true. If you want to move to the cloud, you can find a company that will move your accounting, CRM, databases, and other existing applications to the cloud for you, and some might even be able to manage them for you. And when you first look at moving to the cloud, the initial cost might not seem like that much – especially when you compare it with buying a whole new server. But, the initial costs aren’t what you’re going to be paying when everyone in your company needs to be accessing the code.

In order to actually move your existing infrastructure to the cloud, the cost is approximately $100 a month per user. So if you’re the only one using your server, moving to the cloud might seem like a good option – but it will still get fairly pricey in the long run. However, if you have a company that employs even just 10 people, and those people will need to access the cloud on a regular basis, you’ll be paying $1000 a month just for them to do that. Simple math tells you that that adds up to $12,000 a year, and that’s just for your hosting costs. For that amount, you could buy several servers.

Cloud web hosting can certainly be convenient, especially for companies that have offices and staff in different regions or countries. But in the end, for companies with more than just a few staff members, the cost simply isn’t worth it. And that’s why most small businesses today opt for simply purchasing a new server rather than move to the cloud.

Truthfully though, there are many other reasons to stay with a dedicated server rather than move to the cloud. The performance on dedicated servers is usually much better than what you’ll find on the cloud, and it’s much easier to find bottlenecks on a server, whereas cloud services can often obscure problems involving hardware and network problems. While cost is typically the first reason small business owners give for replacing their server rather than move to the cloud, they have many other reasons to replace their server. And now you do, too!