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Asked: 2026-05-10T16:59:54+00:00

Is it good, bad, or indifferent to run SQL Server on your webserver? I’m

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Is it good, bad, or indifferent to run SQL Server on your webserver?

I’m using Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005, but I don’t think that matters to this question.

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  1. For small sites, it doesn’t make a bit of a difference. As the load grows, though, this scales really badly, and quicker than you think:

    • Database servers are built on the premise they ‘own’ the server. They trade memory for speed and they easily use all available RAM for internal caching.
    • Once resources start to be scarce, profiling becomes very difficult — it is clear that IIS and SQL are both suffering, less clear where the bottleneck is. IIS needs CPU, SQL Server needs RAM or CPU etc etc
    • No matter how many layers you put in your code, it all runs on the same CPU, therefore a single layered application will run better in this context — less overhead — but it will not scale.
    • Security is really bad, usually you isolate SQL behind a firewall!

    If you can afford it, it’s probably better to shell out a few bucks and get a second server, maybe using PostgreSQL. One IIS server and one PostgreSQL cost about as much as on IIS + SQL Server because of licensing costs…

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