Self Hosted vs Shared Hosting

Platform for ChurchCRM is flexible. It all depends on your technical ability and your system requirements.

• Self-hosting a CentOS/Ubuntu or running a VPS on something like Linode gives you the most control over the platform. Some hosting providers place weird restrictions on upload sizes and script run times.

• Using shared hosting like "A Small Orange," "Go Daddy," et.al. means less responsibility on your part to manage the platform, but at a possible cost of performance/features.

Another point of consideration is data security - If you're "self-hosting," you're not sharing your platform with other users (but you still have to make sure the server is locked-down). If you're using shared hosting, your data is only as secure as your provider has configured.

In either scenario, you're still responsible for backing up your data.

We maintain a list of issues encountered separated by platform type:

• Self - hosted: https://github.com/ChurchCRM/CRM/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+label%3A%22Platform%3A+Self-Hosted%22+

• Shared Hosting: https://github.com/ChurchCRM/CRM/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+label%3A%22Platform%3A+Shared+Hosting%22+

We have had success with both styles of installation, and the choice is really up to you.