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Shared Web Hosting

What is shared hosting | How does shared hosting works

It’s an economical web hosting solution where your website shares server space with other websites.

The number of websites choosing shared web hosting over other forms of web hosting is gradually increasing these days. It is the only type of hosting solution where you start your website with a very low fund. No wonder it is the favorite choice for small businesses, blog owners, or startups with low budgets.

What do you mean by Shared Hosting?

As mentioned earlier, shared hosting is the hosting solution where multiple websites share single server space. When we say sharing a server, we also mean sharing the resources available on the server. Each website here gets a limited share of the server resources based on the hosting plans they choose.

To grow in today’s world, an online presence is of utmost importance. Shared website hosting has proved to be the most economical solution for small businesses who wish to develop their online identity in a short time with low investment.

If you are keen to get shared web hosting for your website, you need to understand the major variations available in the market and how they work. Windows shared hosting and Linux shared hosting are the two major variants of this type of hosting solution. Focus on your website platform and coding language to choose between Linux and Windows hosting.

How does shared hosting works?

When you opt for a shared solution to host your website, you get access to a partitioned server where other users are already present. Each of the sharing customers is given their individual website, e-mail id, and domain for smoother and exclusive operation. All the customers sharing a single server also share all its resources and cost involved.

The concept of sharing a server is very similar to sharing an apartment with different tenants. You get a personal room (server space) but share resources like the water supply, common areas, and electricity. Just like sharing an apartment, sharing a server is also economical. While in an apartment, you share the maintenance and rent, making it cost-saving. You save money by sharing the cost of server operation and maintenance.

Benefits of opting for a shared hosting plan

Are you planning to get a web hosting plan for your website? If you need a hosting solution for a small business or blog website, we suggest a shared option. Though there are limitations to sharing a server with other websites, there are several benefits to it as well.

1. Cost-effectiveness

As mentioned earlier, sharing a server with other websites is the most convenient and cost-effective solution. If you have a big business planned, you can always run a trial session by investing in a shared plan. Sharing a server might provide a lesser revenue than a dedicated hosting solution, but it saves a lot of money in the initial phase. Some of the leading web hosting service providers can offer you shared solutions for as low as ₹99/month. Clearly, the subscription cost is quite low as compared to any other online subscription.

2. In-built CPanel

The majority of the web hosts provide you with a built-in CPanel for better control over the website. Customers opting for Linux hosting get a CPanel, whereas those choosing Windows hosting get Plex. These control panels offer you a better chance to manage your website, e-mail, or DNS Settings.

3. Technical support

The best thing about choosing a shared hosting is complete technical support. Your web host provides you with experts to handle all the technical maintenance needed by your server. While they take care of the server, you get to focus more on your business and website.

Who should opt for a shared hosting solution?

Opting to share a server with other websites is an ideal option for small-sized businesses or blog websites that don’t expect high revenue or web traffic. It is an ideal solution if you are planning to start your website. You get more flexibility and better support for operating your website when you choose a shared solution.

However, if you think your business has a higher potential for performance, a dedicated hosting solution is always better than a shared one. You can always use the shared solution as a stepping stone and upgrade your hosting plan after a few months.

How to choose the best hosting service provider?

There are numerous web hosting service providers around us who offer hosting solutions involving sharing a server. However, you need a trusted service provider to provide you the best hosting benefits. While choosing a hosting provider, look for these traits first-

  • Do the hosting providers offer you 24×7 technical support?
  • Check the market reputation of the server provider and the awards received by them for it.
  • A good hosting provider should guarantee you a minimum of 99.9% Uptime.
  • Does the hosting provider offer a money-back guarantee on their service? The leading providers usually offer 30-45 days money-back guarantee with each of their hosting plans.
  • Check for the industry experience of the web host.

When you get a satisfactory report after checking all these points, understand that you have finally got a trusted host for your website. Apart from the above check-points, an ideal web host should be able to offer you a localized hosting solution, local payment gateway support for local transactions, and local language support.

How to distinguish between shared, dedicated, and VPS hosting?

Are you looking for a web hosting solution for your website? Not sure which is the right choice for you between shared, dedicated, and VPS hosting? Here we have an elaborate differentiation between the three to make your choice easier.

Defining the hosting solution

Shared hosting is the web hosting solution where multiple websites share a single server and its resources for operation

Dedicated hosting, on the other hand, offers an exclusive server to a website with complete control.

Finally, VPS hosting or Virtual Private Server hosting is a solution in between shared and dedicated hosting. Here, you get access to a virtual server with root access, but the physical server is shared among other VPS.

Hosting performance

Your website performance and speed can get affected when you share a server and its resources with other websites.

Websites with a dedicated hosting solution usually have better performance since they have dedicated servers and get root access to all the resources. The complete control of the server operation generally enhances the performance. Furthermore, the dedicated server ensures that you get to run a large number of applications and enjoy higher bandwidth and storage.

Though VPS hosting allows you root access to dedicated resources and complete control of the virtual server, it doesn’t enhance the website performance, similar to dedicated hosting. VPS hosting is suitable for medium-sized websites with a moderate count of applications.

Security

The chances of your IP address and security getting compromised or your personal data getting shared is a higher case of shared hosting as you share a server with other websites. However, it completely depends on your customers’ activities.

Dedicated hosting offers the best security to a website. Since you have an exclusive server to your website, the risk of getting blacklisted or virus attacks is lower in this case.

VPS hosting offers security like a dedicated server. Though you share a physical server here, the chances of getting affected because of your neighbor’s activity are low as the Virtual servers are exclusive.

Clearly, when you try to choose between the three types of hosting solutions, the best option is always dedicated hosting. However, considering the cost-effectiveness and the size of the business, the majority of the newbies choose a shared hosting plan. If you are new to hosting plans and have high business expectations in the future, we recommend starting the journey by sharing a server. You can use a trial package and later upgrade to a dedicated hosting plan. What all inclusions you get in your package completely depend on the hosting plan you chose.

Is shared hosting a worthy solution?

A shared hosting solution is by far the most preferred option for many website holders, especially WordPress websites. Though they claim to offer you unlimited storage and bandwidth, there is always a limitation allotted to each of the websites under a single server. Every website here has a quota each day/month. If all of them use 100% of their share, websites are likely to perform slowly and eventually affect your business. Thankfully, websites never use 100% of their share at a time, and hence, you get high bandwidth and website speed at an affordable rate.

However, irrespective of what your host promises regarding the performance, we recommend shared hosting only for small-sized businesses or blog websites where the web traffic expectancy and revenue generation are low. Only then will the hosting option become a profitable one for your business.

Conclusion

There are four options when it comes to web hosting. The cheapest and most preferred option is shared hosting. Here you share a web server with other websites and enjoy smooth website operation with 24×7 technical support.

However, this hosting solution is best suited for small or medium-sized businesses that don’t require high website traffic.

If you expect future growth in your business, we recommend upgrading a dedicated hosting plan after using the shared solution in the initial days.

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