Is a home server good enough ?
ars: Port it to linux, and you'll be able to get hosting MUCH cheaper. If it's already php, and you use .NET just for image manipulation, it should not be hard to do.First see if the built in php image functions http://php.net/manual/en/refs.utilspec.image.php are good enough (you have a choice of three libraries to pick from), and if not, then use the command line program imagemagick (probably the command 'convert').You might even be able to install imagemagick on windows, so you don't have to switch your desktop to linux. Then get linux hosting and work out any porting issues.Another thing to try is some of the personal plans - I've seen some that are just $4 per month. If everything is done internally in PHP you should have a pretty easy time using those. If you need to install extra programs it gets a bit harder.You personal machine is fine for CPU, but not for network. An online hosting place will be good for network, but probably not much CPU.I don't know how much CPU you need, but maybe, if you need a lot of CPU. and you can do stuff offline, write the program in two parts - an online section, and then use your machine to download, and process the images, then send them back up.