There are two main reasons why you want to create your own proxy site: first, you have safety concerns about using public proxies, such as getting virus or spyware; second, you want to start your proxy business and make some money. So, you did some research, downloaded a free proxy script, installed it on your local test server. However, the most difficult and troublesome task one has to face in proxy business is finding a good proxy hosting service. Because a normal shared hosting provider doesn’t allow proxy in their servers, they have to find a special server which is used for hosting proxy only. And because of the resource consumption of proxy sites, proxy hosting is much costlier than normal shared hosting. Besides, one has to find a fast and reliable hosting because otherwise, the visitors will not come again.

Proxy hosting seems like a challenge, especially for beginners. After all, you need to deal with things like Server Types, Bandwidth, and Price.

Based on server types, you will have 3 different hosting plans:

  • Shared hosting means one web server hosts multiple websites. All of those sites are competing for CPU Time, Memory Space, and Network Bandwidth. So the performance of your proxy site largely depends on how well your hosting company allocates and optimizes the resources.
  • VPS provides a virtual private server with guaranteed system resources. Your proxy site still shares the web server with others, but you can get guaranteed resources like Memory Space and CPU Time. Plus you are given a ROOT access to freely install your own software and manage server environment.
  • Dedicated hosting let you own the whole server box, so you have enough power to host more proxy sites. Moreover, you are allowed to adjust some fundamental server settings to gain the maximum system performance.

Obviously, the price of those 3 hosting plans is totally different. While a cheap shared plan may cost you $5/Month, a decent dedicated server often charge you over $200/Month. VPS is often considered as a hybrid of Shared Hosting and Dedicated Server. It offers more resources and controls as Dedicated Server while costs much less as Shared Hosting.

Best choice for beginners is to start with a shared proxy hosting. Doing so, you not only save some money but also avoid the hassle to set up the server environment by yourself. There are a few companies who provide shared hosting for proxies. A lot of hosting providers don’t like hosting proxies on shared accounts because running a proxy site takes too much memory space, CPU time, and network bandwidth. Therefore, before you sign up for any shared hosting plan, just make sure it allows proxy.

The best route to go down would be to purchase a dedicated server or virtual private server (vps). But still there are questions come, as the memory of VPS is still questionable. If you are holding a high traffic proxy then it is really too much vulnerable. In Dedicated the same question comes, as for high traffic proxies, 1 or 2 GB RAM isn’t quite enough untill you run your proxy servers through a VPN. And the last thing comes in mind is pricing. Dedicated and VPS both costs a lot rather then Shared Hosting services.

Once you get some candidates, you need to evaluate them based on some important aspects as follows:

  • Customer Reviews – How well existing customers think about this host, such as Server Uptime & Reliability, Technical Support, and Customer Support.
  • Bandwidth – How much network traffic is allowed per month? For a new proxy site with 100 – 300 daily visits, you may need at least 50GB. If you want to host multiple proxy sites under one plan, 200GB is a good number to start with. A high traffic proxy with 3,000 visits often needs 1,000GB.
  • Price -You need to compare not only the hosting fee but also the server setup cost, domain registration fee, and add-on service charge. On the other hand, check if there are any coupon codes or promotion programs that you can apply. The typical price range for a Shared Proxy Hosting is $5 – $30, for VPS is $20 – $90, and for Dedicated Server is $80 – $500.
  • Policy – How long is the Money Back Guarantee? Can you cancel the service any time? Is there any minimum contract period? How much dose it cost for the traffic over use?
  • Features – How powerful is the web server
    • Memory: Usually for a Shared Hosting Plan, it is hard to guarantee how much memory will be assigned to your proxy, but for VPS and Dedicated server, you will look for at least 512MB, ideally 2GB above.
    • CPU: Proxies have a huge about the CPU usage on a server. As long as the server is not too old, its CPU should do the job well. What you care about is the number of CPU. For shared hosting and VPS, the server should have at least 4-8 CPUs to power multiple sites, for Dedicated Server, you will look for 2-4 CPUs as the starting point.
    • Web Space: Unlike other content sites, your proxy may not need huge hard-drive space. For a medium traffic proxy site, 5GB should be good enough as long as you clean up the temporary files generated by caching and logging on the regular basis.
  • Other features – What platform is it based on (Linux, Windows)? Does it have everything your proxy script requires (e.g. PHP, cURL)?

Based on your budget, expectation, and experience, you may host your web proxy site on Shared Web Server, VPS, or Dedicated Server.