Shared or Dedicated Hosting: What’s Best for You?

 

With a plethora of feature-rich web hosting services to choose from, it can often be perplexing to zero in on one particular web hosting service. Need expert help to decide if you should opt for a shared hosting plan or a dedicated hosting plan? Here’s all the information that will aid you in selecting the ideal web hosting plan for your specific requirements, when the choice is in between shared hosting and dedicated hosting.

Is Shared Hosting the Right Hosting Option for You?

Shared hosting is one of the types of web hosting services provided by web hosting companies. This type of web hosting, like any other type of web hosting service, serves the purpose of making websites accessible online and also ensures that the sites are up and running without any interruption. Shared hosting can be Linux Shared Hosting or Windows Shared Hosting and is provided through the various shared hosting plans of web hosting companies.

How does the service of web hosting function? In this service, server space is provided to host the files of websites. These files contain the content of the websites. The necessary technologies and services are also provided to deliver these files over the Internet to the browser that requests for these files from the web server. This function is similar to all the web hosting services, which can be either shared hosting or dedicated hosting or any other type of hosting such as reseller, VPS (Virtual Private Server) or WordPress Hosting. The difference among the various types of hosting services, primarily between shared and dedicated hosting, stems from the way in which the files are stored on the web server. Let us touch upon it in the context of shared web hosting.

In shared hosting, multiple websites are hosted on a single server. The server space along with the server resources get shared among these sites that are hosted on the same server. This sharing of server space and resources among multiple sites results in two things. The individual cost of shared hosting goes down for a single website as the cost gets divided among the hosted sites. This is one of the major benefits of availing shared hosting, as shared hosting is known to be the most economical web hosting solution. The flip side of sharing server resources can often be experienced as limited resource availability, slow speed and security issues.

Now if you have budget constraints which limit your web hosting options, then you should opt for shared hosting which will always be cheaper than the other forms of web hosting solutions. Those with low budget can easily avail the service of web hosting through the service of shared hosting. Moreover, if you have a site that is not resource-intensive and can function optimally in a shared server environment, then you do not need to spend extra money on any other type of web hosting service. A shared hosting plan will serve your hosting requirements perfectly well. The websites that do not require a lot of server resources or dedicated server resources are those sites which receive very less traffic as well as small and simple websites. For such sites, the server resources delivered through a shared hosting plan are adequate. If you are a blogger, then once again your site does not need the resources of an entire server and can function properly in a shared hosting environment, which will prove economical for you without there being any compromise on the performance of your blogging site. The same is true for the sites of businesses that are small to medium-sized. If you own such a business site then it is recommended that you opt for a shared hosting plan, where you won’t have to spend substantially to bring your small to medium-sized business online.

To recapitulate, shared hosting, where server resources get shared among multiple sites, would suffice as a web hosting solution for bloggers and for those with low budget, simple websites and websites that do not receive a lot of traffic and for the sites of small to medium-sized businesses. Apart from a matter of personal choice, if you are one of these, then shared hosting can prove to be the perfect web hosting option for you.

Should You Opt for Dedicated Hosting?

Unlike shared hosting, in dedicated hosting the server resources are not shared among multiple sites. This is due to the fact that in dedicated hosting a single server hosts a single website. Since there is no sharing of server resources in dedicated hosting, it delivers enhanced performance, speed and security when compared to shared hosting. Dedicated hosting also offers greater flexibility with regard to server customization. Hence, if you have a website with strict requirements in terms of its security and performance, then dedicated hosting is what you need. The entire resources of a dedicated server will function exclusively for your site to provide augmented speed, security and performance. The plans in dedicated hosting can either be Linux Dedicated Hosting plans or Windows Dedicated Hosting plans and are provided by web hosting companies.

If you have an application that is business critical, then you need the dedicated resources of a server that are not shared. In this case also a dedicated server will meet efficiently your hosting requirements. Dedicated hosting should be your preferred choice if you own a revenue-generating online store. Such a site will require heightened security and speed to ensure the best user experience of the site. This requirement is catered to perfectly by a dedicated hosting plan. Then there are websites that get a lot of web traffic. Such sites won’t perform well in a shared hosting environment, where the shared server resources can slow down the site and impact its performance adversely. If you own such a site then you will benefit by availing a dedicated hosting plan instead of a shared hosting one. Last but not least, the site of an enterprise definitely needs a dedicated server, owing to its requirement for dedicated server resources.

In a nutshell, dedicated hosting, wherein a single website is hosted on a single server and benefits from the dedicated resources of that server, should be your choice if your site gets heavy traffic or if you are hosting business critical applications or revenue generating sites or own the site of an enterprise.

Now that you know which hosting option between shared and dedicated, will best suit your specific hosting requirements, all you need is to look for a plan that is within your budget and offers high uptime, fast speed, powerful security and 24*7 technical support. All of this and much more are part of our shared and dedicated hosting plans that cater to every budget and deliver top-tier performance.