Re: Web server costs?

Hi all, 

Thanks for everyone's responses! 

I appreciate the information as it will help me to advocate for resources in the future. 

All the 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




-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries <CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG> On Behalf Of Cary Gordon
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2025 12:54 PM
To: CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Web server costs?

* This email originates from a sender outside of CUNY. Verify the sender before replying or clicking on links and attachments. *

Hi Abubakar,

The answer to your question is it depends.

Cherry Hill hosts library websites starting at about $1,200/year. This is for a fully managed and supported Drupal site that runs on AWS infrastructure.

If you need a simple site, GitHub sites are very good and free of charge.
You need to become familiar with markdown and Jekyll, but those are not high hurdles.

Sitebuilders such as Wix are inexpensive and easy to use. They may need a degree of control over your DNS that might be unacceptable to your institution.

I manage a Wordpress site for my neighborhood association at hosting.com. I inherited it and know little about Wordpress, but hosting.com makes it painless, reliable, and inexpensive. Their fully managed plans start at $30/month.

Self hosting is great, if you are already paying for a systems engineering team who will monitor your site 24/7.

Thanks,

Cary Gordon, MLS
The Cherry Hill Company
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://chillco.com__;!!Lty91_B-8v6fjw!XrRlo3x3Bp0IA473XP6u0O581PJuK8GZgB7yrGD4Ub2-ymMX9e6eYirZ2UmlnTnt4AKdDNUBa1BrNxgt6M5js_22$



On Tue, Sep 16, 2025 at 7:42 AM 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
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.google.com/maps/search/300*Jay*St?entry=gmail&source=g__;Kys!!Lty91_B-8v6fjw!XrRlo3x3Bp0IA473XP6u0O581PJuK8GZgB7yrGD4Ub2-ymMX9e6eYirZ2UmlnTnt4AKdDNUBa1BrNxgt6I1T4OgS$ >.
> Library Building L544
> Brooklyn, NY 11201
>
> jtidal_at_citytech.cuny.edu
> https://library.citytech.cuny.edu

>