Here’s a question from a little while ago submitted to our quick “ask Mr. Moodle” survey: http://goo.gl/6aU2.
Is a godaddy shared hosting account sufficient enough to be able to host and operate moodle? I know a dedicated server is suggested, but they’re expensive. I wouldn’t have more than 50 people on it at a time, so I’m hoping it would be enough.
This is a great question (and probably better answered by someone more technical). But I’ll take a stab at it from my experience hosting two small sites on similar services.
There are many considerations you should make before settling on hosting for Moodle, here’s a few questions I would ponder (but there are certainly many more),
- how many courses will you have (is this for a school, just yourself with several courses, or just one course?)
- will students all be logging at once to take quizzes or work on assignments, or will students move through individually?
- how will you backup your data? (will the hosting company offer backup?)
- will I have FTP access? (this will be necessary to customize your Moodle and to upload larger files)
According to the shared hosting at Godaddy (https://www.godaddy.com/hosting/web-hosting.aspx), the “economy plan” features unlimited bandwidth and 10 GB of space. The shared hosting also features cPanel-like tool for installation and upgrading of your Moodle (which is handy if you’re going it alone).
There are definitely downsides to shared hosting and not having a dedicated server (and administrator to help you out), but with the improvements that hosting companies like GoDaddy, Bluehost, Dreamhost and others are making (and the low cost) there’s a lot to be said for using their services for small Moodle installations. With a few reservations I would said that the shared hosting, even at the economy level, would be an adequate pilot for a small Moodle site–If you can afford the risks. If things start to bog or there are issues with upgrades or modules then you might have to revisit, hire a consultant or contact a Moodle Partner.
Be sure to backup your course, with user data on a regular basis as well. You never ever know when you’ll need to restore it elsewhere.
One Response
I am a teacher and have a small Moodle hosted in Godaddy “economy plan” since 2007. I haven’t had any big problem, so far. Eventualy, forty of my students were connected at the same time and everything worked. My biggest trouble is that you can’t upload files bigger than 2Mb, so I have to use FTP in certain circumstances.