Re: Web server costs?

Hi Abubakar,

Here at California Digital Library, we have a dedicated web production team consisting of a Web Prod Mgr and 2 Web Prod developers.  Here's some comparison costs for some of our static content Wordpress websites.   We're currently moving from Pantheon to a self-hosted solution in AWS.  The Github Pages site is another static site we manage offered as another data point in the comparison.

Hope you find this helpful.  It was a useful exercise for me to go through as we compare costs moving from one environment to another.

~ Marisa

1. Managed WordPress.org on Pantheon. Pantheon is a managed hosting provider for WordPress. This means they handle the server infrastructure, security updates, backups, caching, and other technical aspects of hosting, allowing you to focus on your website's content and development.

  *
Cost: About $2,000 per year for hosting. (recharge costs to UCOP)
  *
Notes: Managed environment, but still requires an engineer to apply WordPress core/plugin updates in a dev environment before pushing to production.

________________________________
2. Self-Hosted WordPress.org on AWS (with dev + prod environments)

  *
Cost:
     *
Average monthly: ~$31.50 (~$380/year)
  *
Costs include Elastic Load Balancing, File System, RDS (database), Secrets Manager, Backups, and CloudFront.
  *
Notes: Lower direct hosting cost than Pantheon, but requires significantly more engineering time for setup, patching, and monitoring.

________________________________
3. GitHub Pages (Jekyll site)

  *
Cost: Free when hosted in a public GitHub repository.
  *
Notes: No hosting fees, but still requires engineering effort to update dependencies (Ruby, Jekyll plugins) and keep the site secure. Limited flexibility compared to WordPress.

________________________________
Cross-cutting requirement
All three environments require engineering oversight for:

  *
Dependency updates (WordPress core/plugins, AWS stack updates, Jekyll/Ruby gems).
  *
Security patching.
  *
Testing changes before deploying to production.

________________________________
👉 In short:

  *
Pantheon: predictable but higher annual hosting fee (~$2k).
  *
AWS self-hosted: flexible, lower raw hosting costs (~$380/year), but engineering overhead is higher.
  *
GitHub Pages: free hosting, but limited features and still requires maintenance.


Marisa Strong (she/her)
Technical Program Manager
University of California Office of the President (UCOP)
California Digital Library / UC Curation Center (CDL/UC3)
[ORCID logo]<https://orcid.org/> http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4229-8939

https://namedrop.io/marisastrong

________________________________
From: Code for Libraries <CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG> on behalf of Stuart A. Yeates <syeates_at_GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 2:51 PM
To: CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG <CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG>
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Web server costs?

CAUTION: EXTERNAL EMAIL

I think you're putting the cart before the horse:

(a) A web server, by itself, doesn't serve library users' needs, but it's
commonly part of a larger system that does. Start with the user needs, then
the system to meet them, then the components.
(b) Almost always it's cheaper and better to work with similar institutions
/ groups.
(c) In any system that involves paid staff, the staffing costs almost
always outweigh all other costs in the medium / long term.
(d) There are many 'free' services which let you put up a a website, data,
etc. for no up-front cost.
(e) There are many collectives with much better medium and long term costs
than the 'free' services.

cheers
stuart
--
...let us be heard from red core to black sky


On Wed, 17 Sept 2025 at 02:42, Abubakar Tidal <JTidal_at_citytech.cuny.edu>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I was curious about your library web server budgets.
>
>
>   *   Do you self-host? How much would estimate the yearly cost is
> including labor/sys administration?
>   *   If you pay for hosting, how much would you estimate the yearly cost
> is to host your site?
>   *   Do you have a dedicated librarian or staff to manage the web server?
>
> Best,
>
> Abubakar R. Tidal, Jr. (he/him/his)
> Chief Librarian and Department Chair
> Ursula C. Schwerin Library
> New York City College of Technology, CUNY
> 300 Jay St.
> Library Building L544
> Brooklyn, NY 11201
>
> jtidal_at_citytech.cuny.edu
> https://library.citytech.cuny.edu

>