Shared hosting does take care of a lot for you

As I build my own server — and this would be the same for a cloud VPS or a local computer, there is a lot to set up and configure.

Shared hosts like NearlyFreeSpeech.net (which I will be using more soon) and Hostgator (which I’ve used for years and will probably be using less) take care of many things in a safe and secure way.

Setting up your own server is very much like reinventing the wheel. It’s better if you like making wheels, have used a lot of wheels, fixed broken ones and rebuilt old ones.

Sometimes you want somebody else to fix your wheel. Other times you want to do it yourself. Both ways are OK.