Hi all Now this is where I need some info. 1. Why self hosting? Been reading but did not find a solid answer, maybe there was one but I missed it. My aim, at first, is to create low budget App's for schools and community forums, by charging them a monthly fee. 1. If I want to host App's and not selling them, will Self hosting be the way? 2. Do I still need to submit an App to App Store if I self host, or can clients then get the App's through a link on a website? Please inform me? Weidies

1. Yes 2. For iOS you need to submit to the store, for Android you can offer an apk via the self-hosted. I recommend self-hosted myself. More flexible and later it gives you the option to allow your clients to update their app.

Is there any argument to NOT do self hosted?

BT-Hosted up to 50 apps. Self-Hosted unlimited apps.

I actually did a presentation on this topic, which is largely incomplete, but it does cover the basics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvjSONbMrGo Go to about 58:00 minutes and you'll see th presentation.

1) The Ability to use custom Plugins. 2) No app limitation 3) Endless configurability (for those adept at PHP) 4) Over the Air Distribution for clients 5) Multiple users can be authorized for 'your' self hosted, but not your BT account. The 'hosting' part of self hosting will cost another $150 or less additional per year, from your hosting provider (hint: Hostgator seems to be the host of choice for 'most' BT'ers). Any client can get a copy of your app via the OTA distribution, but also remember iOS will require that if the app hasn't been published the 'device' needs to be registered in your provisioning profile. Cheers! -- Smug

I prefer NOT to do self-hosting. I don't want to maintenance on the server. I am lazy. I don't need power of doing my own customization of the server. I can easily upload custom plugins into BuzzTouch.com The best Self-Host reason (for me) is if I had Clients who want to maintain their apps by themselves. Then I would give them an account on my SH Server. However, even that can be done on BuzzTouch.com (perhaps aided by using Chris1's Copy code). Another reason is if you want to put forth your best brand towards Clients. Then the SH server would be cosmetically modified to suit your logo and brand colors. Flip that coin! -- Niraj

How do you upload custom plugins into Buzztouch.com? I always thought you had to be self-hosted to buy/use plugins. For example can Cubbyholes be used in an app hosted on Buzztouch.com?

Thank you for all the posts, a lot to think about! Niraj, on my side is not the lazy, but I have not been working on servers for the last 7 years, I will need a proper brush-up. Red Dog & Smug, no limit is good in the long run. Smug thank you for the info, now I have to look at Plan B too. Niraj, I will keep the coin close.

Thomas, I will have a look at your presentation tomorrow. Thank you.

Sure. It's about ten minutes. It's a bit informal as it was part if a group discussion. This is part of a series I am making about Self-Hosted, however it's not coming out for the next few weeks, if not months.

Two questions about self hosting Do you need SSL? If you have a smaller app (ie not flappy bird or facebook) can you use shared hosting? Thinking about the server load all it really has to do is generate the btconfig.txt file when people open the app or hit refresh. And the app setup screens appear to be pretty simple from a server load perspective.

1) No you don't need SSL. It's nice, but not required. 2) Almost everyone 'is' shared hosting. Depending on the package you get, your 'space' is going to be part of a larger space that many other paying customers use. There is 'free' hosting available, but no serious commercial entity should approach their solution that way. Hostgator, although not 'endorsed' by BT, a whole boatload of BT'ers use them, so they're savvy to the odd requests from time to time. I use someone else, and I'm happy, but I usually have to solve my own issues, which fortunately are few. Everyone has a 'deal' going on, but in the end, expect to pay around $150 yearly for hosting. This should include no connection/traffic limits, a slew of email addresses, multiple accounts for ftp access, remote admin of some kind, and a whole lot of disk space. It might cost a little more, or a little less depending on what features you get and the support that accompanies it. A lot of folks will typically use their hosts for both "Website" and "AppSite". I know I do. I have several domains sitting on the same 'shared host'. Cheers! -- Smug

Yep, I have a stack of sites running and just wanted to be sure I was being realistic about putting self hosted on it. Still haven't decided which way to jump though

If I have my own website and hosting, is it hard to set up? I use dreamhost, not hostgator

Well, every experience can be a little different, due to differences in host configurations, php/mysql versions, things like that. Those can 'sometimes' play a role in ease or difficulty. But for the most part, it's like installing any other PHP/MySql package such as Joomla or Wordpress. Just make sure you have all of your credentials handy. After installation, you'll still need to edit the config.php file and add in some values that are not asked for during installation. And you'll want to get a google 'web api' key for the usage maps. It's not hard to setup unless you run into a problem, but that's not normal. Usually things go pretty smooth, and the 'biggest' problem I see is people not getting their 'path' in the config file correct. The symptoms of that is that the install goes well, but you get a lot of 404 and other errors (because the path isn't correct). Cheers! -- Smug