When you’re setting up a personal or small business website, you might be tempted to leverage your existing Internet connection and a spare computer instead of purchasing a web hosting plan. However, the disadvantages of that kind of set-up far outweigh any benefits. Here are five reasons you need to invest in a web hosting plan instead of hosting your website out of your home.

1. It’s probably against your ISP’s terms of service

Have you sat down and read through the terms of service of your Internet service provider? The terms and conditions may prevent you from hosting it at all. The ISP could also cap your speed, so access to your website is slow. You may have the option to host through the ISP, or you can find a company through a provider such as http://www.webhostingbluebook.com to host your site, instead.

2. It’s slow

Even if your ISP doesn’t cap website connections to your home computer, your residential connection only has so much bandwidth. Site visitors are going to have a hard time accessing your site if there’s a lot of traffic going to it, and a spare desktop computer isn’t going to have the processing power of a server box.

3. Up-time dependent on your box and home

If you have to shut down your computer, your website will be completely inaccessible. You also don’t have the protection against power surges, black-outs, and brown-outs that could take out the computer, as well. An unreliable website is not going to be popular in this connected age.

4. Web hosts are inexpensive

You could go to all that trouble to save a few dollars, but when you can get a shared server hosting account for under $10 a month, the cost savings don’t make a lot of sense. You also get access to more powerful hardware through a web host that blows your desktop computer out of the water. Even if you have the server hardware at your home, it’s going to end up being more expensive overall when you consider other overhead costs, such as hardware and an increased electric bill.

5. It’s complicated

The typical home hosting guide, such as the one at Computer Tech Blog, requires advanced knowledge of Windows IIS and other server technology. This is not the type of skill set someone with his first website is usually going to have and, in most cases, you’re going to have a hard time successfully setting up a home server.

What do you think: is hosting a website out of your home ever worth it? Tell us why or why not in the comments.