So just how many websites can you host on a linode?

Amount of sites doesn't matter much, you could have a few hundred too, if the bandwidth and number of concurrent hits doesn't exceed your resources. I'm pretty sure* that you could host it from a properly configured (default settings rather won't work) Linode 360.

*Well, as sure as I can be with such a vague description.

The answer to your question is: Purple

Seriously though, there are way to many variables there to give you a reasonable answer.

The number of domains is meaningless. The question is, how many requests do you handle, and how much in the way of resources do those requests require?

Nginx serving static pages could spit out thousands of pages a second on a 360. A single poorly configured Wordpress site could bring a 720 to its knees without much trouble at all.

It all comes down to how much you're serving, and what it takes to serve it.

Thanks for the prompt answers to my vague question.

I guess its a suck-it-and-see for me.

:)

Cheers.

The nice thing is, changing plans is very easy to do (and the billing is prorated to the day). It's just a little downtime to transfer your disk images to a different host, but that's only 5-10 minutes, and its a completely self-server process.

So, try a 360 for now, see how it goes, and upgrade if you need to. I'd recommend using the StackScripts whenever possible to deploy, since they'll set you up with a much better default configuration for your given memory allotment.

"Self-server" … I like it!

I'll sign-up and see how she blows.

Muchas gracias.

I haven't had a good look through the stack scripts yet, and I'll be intending to have a quick browse though if I ever blow away my server again…

Last time I blew away my server I used the Virtualmin/Webmin install script, it installs everything you need to get a web server up, and throws on a nice web based control panel.

I had 15 domains set up with it on a 360, with no extra cli configuration. Each domain had its own user and could have its own web panel login, which was nice too.

To echo the above posts, what you host will depend more on the load the sites use, and how well you configure it. MySQL and Apache can use a lot of memory, and CMS's if badly configured (no caching etc) can emphasise this.