Own hardware vs. VPS
When you self-host something, you face the choice between using your own hardware and using a VPS.
Who has experience with both and what are your main pain points when using your own hardware?
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I'm going to come back and edit my comment later but I want to say first that I think it's really dependent on what you're trying to do.
If your goal is to just for example host a simple Forum or host a self hosted tool that doesn't require a lot of resources and you're comfortable with Linux posting on a VPS is your cheapest and easiest route.
If you're looking to host more resource-intensive projects or are looking at doing things like virtualization media streaming or anything like that self hosting on your own equipment will cost more but you'll get the resources that you need out of it as well.
Edit - host, not post. Also, breakdown below.
I've left out some of the more obvious pro's and cons such as no direct access to hardware from vps because, duh. That's what a vps is.
VPS
Pros
Can be cheap (see digitalocean, linode, ovh, lowendbox)
Scalable to your needs and funds.
Almost immediate setup in most cases.
Usually includes SSD, and high bandwidth abilities.
Some offer cheap auto-backup options or free manual ones (digitalocean) as well as a few collaboration tools for managing your vps.
Cons
Usually limiting in certain options when looking for a very powerful environment, or a specific OS such as windows. (Linux is usually supported very well)
Lot more hoops to work through sometimes depending on what you are looking to do as a lot of hosts have modified versions of common OS's with packages that aren't the most compatible with some of the smaller self hosted applications, though I've only ran into this once and the host helped me resolve.
Own Hardware
Pros
You own it! Upgrade it, replace bits, change bits, whatever. Also gives you ability to branch into other things if you are looking to do homelab things such as networking, virtualization, v-interfaces, and a ton more.
Whatever OS you want, whatever software you want. Your limits are truly your hardware, and ISP.
Can buy bigger, better equipment (see cons on this however)
Cons
Utility costs can be more depending on your needs / equipment. Everything from, electric costs, needing more bandwidth if you are hosting something production based that requires it, and heat depending on how much stuff you really plan to host and run (less of a concern).
Up-time is YOUR up-time. Bad storm? Power outage? ISP down? etc. If you are just hosting for fun for yourself, this can be not a big deal to you.
Upkeep to go along with pro #1. Equipment failure is your task, and your cost.
There is a lot more of course but this is a basic break down. Ask questions as I currently do both, and so do a lot of folks here.
Like everyone has said, depends on your needs.
I use a server at home running Windows 2012 R2 with Hyper-V role. It has a FreePBX VM, MineCraft VM, and some other random VMs I turn on when doing testing. It's also my house storage with 6+ TB of data.
But I also have a VPS @ Digital Ocean. For $5/mo I have a Dokuwiki and a professional resume website I'm building. It's not strained, it's always online, and it's super responsive. I do periodically run a backup script to make an archive of my webroot and Apache config files, then I download the archive to home. But I'm comfortable with Debian so I wouldn't have a hard time getting it set back up.
I have experience with both, by several providers. Pain points of VPs:
Most of the time you pay more than you get compared to your own hardware.
Your performance may vary A LOT.
Depending on the virtualization you ran out of memory without having all your memory used up.
The provider has more potential to fuck your system, I hat several occurrence of the following:
Machine reboots, sometimes to an several hour old state. Machine reboots after an kernel update, services break. Machine stops working, only think that the provider can do is restoring a days old backup.
Pain points of hardware: You pay more, but you get even more. Depending on your providers support, kernel updates and other possible boot-breaking updates may be a pain.
Depending on the definition of OWN hardware you may have to hassle with defective parts.
Hardware machines tend to be less work intensive for us.
I honestly enjoy it when stuff like this happens. It's so damn satisfying to do it yourself. Sure you gotta go out of your way to get it back online but it makes me proud of my small insignificant setup.
I think that truly even if it actually costed more I'd still own my own hardware.
I use a mix. The VPS is my frontend and runs light stuff, while I proxy and tunnel heavy things to my home server. Using VPN makes it easy if your home IP is dynamic.
The middle way: rented dedicated servers
Guaranteed performance in form of dedicated hardware, reliable internet connection, multiple IPs, SLAs, physical actions are only a support call away, more flexibility in expansion and contraction...
What's your general cost on this?
I use several rented VPS and I am very happy thus far. The largest has 8 cores, 24GB RAM and the smallest 1 core with 2 GB. Load-wise I have hosted several MC servers and never encountered a situation where I didnt't get the performamce I payd for. In 3 years I've had some scheduled down times (each lasting a few minutes at night) and one unexpected blackout (~2 hours). At no point in time did my machines get reverted to an older state.
I use both but if I had access to fiber I would only use my own hardware. The VPS is useful because I need to have a fast connexion with quick response time.