Are you confused over whether to choose Shared Hosting or Dedicated Hosting? It’s important to make the right decision when choosing web hosting, so it’s worth spending some time researching what’s available. While you can switch hosting at a later date, it’s preferable to have the best set up from the start for your website. Both types of hosting have their own advantages, so you will have to consider a range of factors, keeping in mind the situation your website is currently in, &/or where you expect your website to be in future.
To make a simple analogy – considering whether to choose shared vs dedicated hosting can be thought of as deciding whether to rent a house or buy a house. Both options have their pros & cons. One is not necessarily better than the other for everyone. Which option you choose will depend on your own unique circumstances. You need to decide which option is best for you – now & in the future. For example, buying a house is more expensive in the short-term, but you own & control the property – you’re the King of your castle. However, one of the advantages of renting is that it gives you greater flexibility, but one of the downsides is you have less control e.g. you’re not allowed to paint your house in your favourite colour, etc.
Shared Hosting? Dedicated hosting – What are they?
Shared hosting, is where lots of websites share the same resources on one server. ‘Resources’ would include the total webspace, the memory, the processor speed, as well as the bandwidth.
On the other hand, with Dedicated Hosting you will be the sole owner of the server – you won’t share with anyone. You have complete control and can choose what components you need.
Shared hosting
The key attraction of Shared hosting is that it is less expensive that Dedicated hosting. This is because your website would be sharing a server with websites belonging to somebody else. For new websites, which at first may not be getting many visitors, Shared Hosting is often the preferred choice – making it the ideal choice for a hobby website or small business website that gets low to moderate levels of traffic.
Generally the support provided for Shared hosting customers is higher than for Dedicated hosting customers – unless they have paid for additional Support services.
As a result, Shared hosting is often more popular with customers who have less technical knowledge.
One factor to keep in mind if you are considering Shared hosting is the ‘Server Response Time’. This relates to how fast or how slow the response time of your website is e.g. how quickly it takes to load a page on your website. Since with Shared hosting you are sharing a server with other websites, if one of those other websites ends up getting a lot of traffic then it will consume a lot of bandwidth, which can affect the ‘Server Response Time’ for other websites on the server.
Many websites begin on Shared hosting and if in time they become popular and get high volumes of traffic, then they can affect other websites sharing that server – as well as suffering slow response times themselves. Eventually most popular websites will switch over to a dedicated server, but the fact is, with Shared hosting there is always a risk that you could suffer slow Server Response times, which won’t be popular with people trying to visit your website.
Dedicated hosting
While dedicated hosting can be more expensive, the major advantage of a dedicated server is that it allows you to have complete control over what software/versions/options/etc. you run. There will be a lower risk of blacklisting, and you will have more control over spam management.
If you run a popular website on Shared hosting then there will come a point where it will become too inflexible for you, and you will frequently suffer problems with it. It’s vital, especially with a popular website that it doesn’t go down, so if you are worried your website could go down if your had a good day – particularly if you receive a spike in traffic due to an advertising campaign, etc then having a dedicated server will alleviate any concerns you may have. If you stay with Shared hosting then there is always the possibility that a good day would put you over shared resource limits.
Advantages provided by a dedicated hosting service includes high performance, security, email stability, and control.
The main difference between Dedicated hosting and Shared hosting services is that Shared hosting services usually offer more support and other services. Having dedicated hosting usually requires more technical knowledge & expertise to use and to monitor it, thereby requiring as web development and/or system administrator professional to oversee it. So if you are considering purchasing a dedicated hosting, ask yourself if you have access to the technical know-how to manage it. Some hosting companies such as Easyspace do offer a range of support services for Dedicated Hosting – from unsupported packages if you have the technical expertise to manage your dedicated server yourself, all the up to a managed package should you require technical assistance.
What is the best type of hosting for you or your business?
As mentioned above, whether to choose Shared or Dedicated hosting will depend on your own circumstances. However, if you are or expect to have a popular website which will receive lots of visitors then it’s only a matter if time before you have to get dedicated hosting.
Easyspace allows you to price, configure and buy your server online. Servers are usually setup within 24 hours of purchase, you will then have access to a full control panel that allows you to setup monitoring and alerts as well as Reboots and KVMoIP requests.
With Easyspace you will have access to UK based support. If you have any questions or if you need some advice on deciding whether dedicated hosting is right for you, then call our Dedicated Hosting Team on 0370 755 5088 for a chat or click here to find out more >
