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Server recommendations

This article will help give you guidance for the type of machine you will need in order to run Sitebulb Server.

The machines suggested below could be machines that you already have available, or that you rent from one of our recommended suppliers, or that you purchase and own outright.

If you read everything below and have no idea how to proceed, please fill in this form and we'll get back to you with a recommendation.

Min spec machine

We would not recommend running Sitebulb Server on a lower spec machine than this.

Recommended for: Solo consultants: 1 user, no concurrent crawling, rough max of 250,000 URLs per site.

Spec:

  • 6 physical cores (12 threads)
  • 16GB RAM
  • 500GB SSD storage

Small machine

Recommended for: Small agencies and solo consultants: 1-3 users, no concurrent crawling, rough max of 1 million URLs per site.

Spec:

  • 8 physical cores (16 threads)
  • 64GB RAM
  • 1TB SSD storage

Large machine

Recommended for: Agencies and in-house teams: 3-5 users, concurrent crawling, rough max of 2 million URLs per site

Spec:

  • 12 physical cores (24 threads)
  • 128GB RAM
  • 1-2TB SSD storage

Enterprise server

This is for in-house teams, specialist consultants or larger agencies who need to regularly crawl very large sites with millions of URLs - i.e. where scale is a big factor.

If this fits your description, it is probably best to have a conversation with us, so we can properly understand your requirements and come back to you with specific recommendations. It may be that you need a range of servers, or a fully managed solution.

Please reach out to us on [email protected] and we'll set up a call.

How many servers do you need?

We recommend a maximum of 5 concurrent users per machine. This means that 5 users can be logged on and connected to the machine, looking at audit data and reports. So 'how many users need access?' is the first question you need to ask yourself.  

The next thing you need to think about is the number of clients/websites you need to regularly audit, and the size of the websites you need to crawl - all of your websites can't be crawled at the same time.

We'd suggest you start off with a single machine and see if you are able to set up sensible schedules that allow all the websites to be crawled within the required time frame (e.g. weekly/monthly). Then you can always add additional servers to cover all your websites afterwards if you need to.

If you are not sure, please just get in touch on [email protected] and we'd be happy to advise.

Some things to be aware of

You'll need to make some decisions about what solution fits best for your business.

We have some rules and recommendations we'd suggest you follow here:

  • You MUST use a Windows machine, as Sitebulb Server only runs on Windows 10+ or Windows Server 2016+.
  • We recommend you use SDD drives instead of HDD.
  • We don't recommend you go for cloud hosting - while Sitebulb Server will run on AWS or Google Compute, it is a much more expensive solution, and therefore mostly suitable for short term testing purposes.
  • We don't recommend you go for a virtualized solution - it is better to have a dedicated server with no sharing of resources with other users.

Recommended providers

We have been testing out providers, and can recommend the following:

  • Prostack - UK or US enterprise grade servers, where all machines are fully managed with excellent support. Can take a few days to get servers up and running. If you contact them, tell them you want it for Sitebulb, as they understand our requirements.

  • Ionos - wide range of AMD and Intel servers 'on demand', so only take a couple of hours to set up (make sure to select SSD drives and to add a Windows license!). The hardware is not enterprise grade, but they work really well as a cheap rented solution. Most servers available in UK, US, Germany or Spain.

If you'd like more information on the different server options available, we also have a 'pros and cons' guide for all the different server options you could choose.

Next steps

Once you have a server sorted, it's time to move onto the next step: 'Configuring Sitebulb Server'.