Server Hosting - GalaxyWay Network Development Blog #1 - 8.6.22
Hey! I'm Gappled, and I am the founder of a Minecraft network known as GalaxyWay. This blog will cover a lot of information, whether that be the specifics of how I do things, or my general journey as a Minecraft network founder. Enjoy!
Server Hosting
How do I host GalaxyWay? I began with hosting the server (at the time, it was an SMP rather than a network) on my own computer for roughly half a year. Whilst this was fairly cost effective (free excluding energy bills), it gave a laggy experience to our players, and meant the server could only be online at certain hours.
I finally made the decision to switch to a host, and it was so much better! There was a lot less lag, players could join whenever they wanted, I could backup the server, create a MySQL database, didn't have to worry about remembering to start-up the server every day; it was certainly a worthwhile investment for me. The support was incredible as well - for instance, I may or may not have accidentally deleted my entire server files at one point (but we don't talk about that). However, luckily the staff team had a backup of my server at hand, and swiftly reverted to the backup - I was relieved to say the least, and amazed at the incredible support!
Eventually, I decided to have a look at other hosts on the market, and finally made the decision to switch to a new hosting provider I found. Overall, I am happy I moved providers - more cost-effective, a lot of features included, good support, etc. I will admit, I had many issues with the server running out of memory, however it was mainly fixed after a quick upgrade. My primary motive for switching was that I viewed it as more cost-effective, since the server was mostly funded by my own bank account. To this day, I still use that host, and they have been amazing!
However, following the introduction of the GalaxyWay Network (rather than just SMP) I decided to expand. I then setup a Linux Oracle Cloud compute instance, and installed Pterodactyl panel onto it using SSH. This gave me the freedom to create multiple other servers connected to the same network, such as an events server for example. I highly recommend it! You get to decide how many backups you would like to create, the amount of databases, etc.
To conclude, my overall experience with server hosting has been positive! Both hosts were amazing; switching to a hosting provider made a huge difference for me, and I highly recommend it! The main caveat is cost, so I would encourage you to try and monetise your server somehow (ensure it complies with the EULA though). That being said, there are a lot of quality hosting providers that also offer affordable prices - the Minecraft server hosting market is huge! I would recommend that if you do switch to a host, ensure you do your research and look at a wide range of options that would suit you. Anyways, I hope this helps and that you learned a thing or two about the world of server hosting. Thanks for reading!
Many thanks,
-Gappled