Shared hosting and dedicated hosting are two different products used to make a website online. In this article, I’ll explain the differences between these two approaches and how to choose between them based on your needs.
Shared Hosting Vs. Dedicated Hosting
Shared hosting is a great choice for beginners because the cost is lower, but at the same time, you don’t get as much control over your site’s performance.
The server resources are shared by other websites that have been hosted on it already, so you will have to share those resources with them.
If your website becomes popular or has a lot of traffic, then this can cause your website to slow down or even crash due to all the traffic being pushed through a single server resource at once (e.g., a single CPU core).
Dedicated Hosting gives you more control over your hosting plan because each dedicated server has its own physical hardware dedicated solely to running one particular website (which we will discuss in detail in the next section).
However, not all shared hosting is low in performance. For example, Cenmax’s Cloud hosting service is far more powerful than traditional web hosting services and can handle half a million visits every month without hiccups while costing the same.
At the end of the day, Shared hosting performance is greatly varying from company to company due to their policies.
If you get to host your website at a good hosting solution, you don’t need to worry about performance unless you grow beyond a certain level.
What is Shared Hosting?
Shared Hosting is a type of web hosting where multiple users share the same server.
Each user has their own account and space on the server, but all accounts share the same server space.
In Shared Web Hosting, all sites share the same resources, such as the CPU, RAM, and hard drive space.
The main advantage of shared hosting is that it’s very cost-effective (costs approximately $3 a month at most companies).
It also requires little technical knowledge to set up and maintain. You just need to upload your website files to your account via FTP or your control panel.
Pros of Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is a great option if you’re looking for something affordable and easy to manage.
You’ll find that shared hosting plans include many more features that are only available as additional add-ons on dedicated servers. For example, control panels like cPanel are included for free of cost with shared hosting, however, if you need the same cPanel in a Dedicated server, you may have to spend extra for it.
In addition, because the server resources are shared among multiple users, it’s easier for providers to offer 24/7 customer support as well as keep costs down.
Cons of Shared Hosting
The primary disadvantage of shared hosting is that it’s not suitable for high-traffic websites even though it can accommodate small and medium-level websites.
High-traffic sites require a lot of resources—resources that shared hosts are unable to provide.
This can lead to slow load times, frequent downtime, and even site crashes.
Additionally, shared hosting isn’t suitable for high-end applications. So if you’re about to host an enterprise-level MySQL database with tons of rows and columns, be noted that shared hosting services aren’t designed with the rigor necessary to handle high loads or large amounts of data without significant slowdown or errors.
What is Dedicated Hosting?
Shared hosting is a type of web hosting service in which multiple websites are hosted on the same server. The cost is relatively low, and most shared hosting plans come with some sort of control panel that allows you to manage your website.
In contrast, dedicated hosting is a type of web hosting service in which you are given a server that is solely for your use.
This means that you have full control over your server and can do whatever you want with it. Can you install your custom software and kernels? Yes! Can you configure the OS to your liking? Yes! It’s your very own server!
Dedicated Hosting Pros and Cons:
Pros of Dedicated Hosting
- Dedicated servers are more secure. With a dedicated server, you are the only one who has access to your server, which means that your data is protected from others on the web at large.
- Dedicated servers are faster. Because they’re not sharing resources with other users and sites on their server, dedicated servers have more CPU, RAM, bandwidth, and storage capacity than shared ones do; this means faster page loads for visitors trying to reach your site or download files hosted there.
- Dedicated servers are more reliable because they’re less likely to go down due to noisy neighbors who get attacked by hackers often.
- Dedicated servers offer flexibility. Want something custom-built for your needs as an online business owner? like an advanced security firewall for eCommerce sites? a dedicated server can make it possible by giving you root-level access to the server rather than through shared control panels.
Cons of Dedicated Hosting
- Dedicated hosting costs more than shared hosting and will require you to pay for the entire server.
- You are responsible for maintaining the server and making sure that it runs smoothly. This can be a lot of work and requires advanced knowledge of Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP), or other web-related technologies.
- If you don’t have this level of technical expertise, then dedicated hosting may not be right for you.
- If you do want dedicated servers but don’t know how to maintain them yourself then we recommend hiring a managed service provider that specializes in server management services or a managed dedicated server so they can look after everything from patching your OS to monitoring performance metrics 24/7 at nominal costs.
How to choose between shared hosting and dedicated hosting?
Consider the following:
Traffic
If you don’t need a lot of site traffic, then shared hosting may be fine for you. If you have a high-traffic site that requires fast page load times and scalability, then dedicated hosting may be better suited for your needs.
Features and Performance
If you are a beginner or small business, shared hosting is a good option to consider. The shared hosting plan is the most affordable, and it comes with a lot of features that are required to set up and run a website initially.
However, if you are looking for more performance and security, then dedicated hosting may be better for you. The dedicated server offers more flexibility and scalability than shared hosting does. It can also make sure that your site runs smoothly without any interruptions or downtime happening often.
Consider your budget
When analyzing between available options, it is often easier to forget how much weight your wallet can handle.
If you’re on a budget, consider starting your website on a basic shared hosting plan initially and you can move to dedicated servers once you’re financially ready.
They say better late than never. The same applies here, better have a website on something than not having a website at all.
If you don’t mind spending a lit bit extra for better peace of mind, security and scalability, you can’t go wrong by choosing a dedicated server.
In a nutshell, Which is the best solution for you?
The answer to this question depends on your needs, the nature of your work, and how much control you need over your server.
If you need a lot of control over what’s happening on your server and don’t mind paying for it, dedicated hosting may be the better choice for you.
However, if you don’t care about having complete control over every aspect of your website and are looking for an easy-to-use solution to host your site, shared hosting might be more suited for your needs.
