What is Shared Hosting?
There are a lot of options that you will be faced with when you decide to choose a hosting service for your website, not only the company but also what type of package you go with. One of those options will be to choose between shared hosting, managed hosting, cloud hosting, or dedicated server hosting.
One of the most popular options is shared hosting, but what is shared hosting? To answer that question, we wanted to look at everything you need to know. Hopefully, this information will help you decide if this is the right option for your site.
Shared Hosting – What is It?
This option opens one server up to be used by several different websites. You will have no idea of who else is using your server, and each individual website will pay for a certain amount of space on that server. This will be determined by the package you choose.
This is the most budget-friendly option and the most economical as well. The low price tag means that there are some limitations. Because of these limitations, you want to make sure to be incredibly careful about which hosting service you choose. So with that, let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of shared web hosting.
What is Good?
Shared hosting is a great option for those working with a small budget or just getting started. Once you get started, you can always opt for a higher tier of hosting once you have everything set up. There are a lot of great reasons why this is the case.
Here are some of the positives of going with a shared hosting service:
- It is the most budget-friendly option that you have available to you. Typically the average package costs between $3 and $10
- Hosting companies have multiple tiered layers of offerings that can find the right package for your needs. This also helps if you ever want to upgrade your services. This gives it a good option for growing your site
- Hosting services give you an easy-to-manage site. This is done through the inclusion of a cPanel
- The technical upkeep of you is that the server is not on you, and that takes less stress when dealing with any issues that may arise.
Now that you understand what makes shared hosting a good option for some, let us look at what cons there are when opting for a shared hosting service.
What is Bad?
On paper, when you look at shared hosting, it has everything you want — a low cost of entry, a good uptime percentage, and it is easy to manage.
But even with all that, there are still a few issues you should be aware of:
- Because you are sharing the server space with other websites, the load speeds could be awfully slow in comparison with other options for hosting
- Servers can crash because they are overburdened by other sites on it. This can affect the speed as well as the efficiency of your site’s performance
- Once your site begins to receive more traffic, you may notice that your site begins having more errors and malfunctions
- You are not aware of what other sites that are on your server. This leaves you open to any potential risks like breaches or viruses
- With a shared host, there are no customization options. This means you will not be able to optimize the performance of your site
It is evident that if you are just starting out and working with a limited budget that the appeal of shared hosting will outshine the negative aspect. But it is essential to understand everything about the option before deciding that it is the right way to go. This will also prepare you for any potential issues that may arise.
Most hosting services have systems in place to deal with a few of these issues. For instance, if your traffic begins to get close to getting too high, most services will send you a notice letting you know it’s time to upgrade. Hosting services also tend to be very vigilant at monitoring sites and closing down any that may cause a problem with other sites on that server.
Other Options
When you look at shared hosting, there really is not a comparable alternative that gives you versatile options and performance for such a good price. You can use WordPress-dedicated hosting or other quasi-dedicated options, but these will all be less budget-friendly.
However, you get what you pay for, and the higher price tag will give you access to better performance features and customization options. It is also necessary if your site already has some presence or a traffic base. If you are looking to grow rapidly or deal with people’s personal information, you may want to opt for a dedicated server service instead of a shared one.
Final Thoughts
So what is shared hosting? It is a service that is affordable and can easily grow with your site. It offers an easy-to-manage dashboard and takes away any worry of having to handle tech issues. However, it does put your site at a greater risk of slow speeds, poor performance, and security breach issues.
These few drawbacks aside, shared hosting is the right choice if you are just starting a website or do not have a lot of traffic yet. Because there are different package tiers, you can always upgrade the service as you grow and become more comfortable with managing the traffic to your site; if your current web hosting service does not offer what you are looking for, you can always find a new one.
So hopefully all this information helped you decide if shared hosting is the right option for you. Or do you need to consider one of the other services like a dedicated or a cloud server? No matter what you need, there are tons of great companies out there that offer you premium-grade web hosting services.
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