Looking for the right web hosting plan is often the most difficult task of all for an online entrepreneur. When you come across the different hosting plans, the two most notable ones are shared and dedicated hosting. Both have their own costs & benefits, and hence it is important to study both in selecting the right package.
Your web hosting company can either make or break your website with the type of services that they would offer to you. Let us discuss shared and dedicated hosting in detail to find out which one is the right plan for you:
1. Shared hosting
When we generally mean “affordable web hosting packages”, we mean to talk about shared hosting. This is the type of hosting plan where several websites use one server and their resources are shared among these websites. Each webmaster pays a very nominal fee, not really more than $5.00 per month on hiring a space on these servers. For most of the starting online businesses, blogs and small websites, this is a great package. However, it doesn’t come without benefits and drawbacks:
Benefits:
• Affordable and budget-friendly
• Easy to manage
• Comes with many features such as 1-click script installation
• Ideal for the startup companies and blogs
Drawbacks:
• Resources are shared leading to slower page loading times
• Higher risk of server crashes could lead to all websites hosted on that server crashing
• Not always scalable as your site grows
• Several important features such as automatic site backups and site security aren’t provided
2. Dedicated hosting
Consider dedicated web hosting the exact opposite of the shared type. No resources are shared among websites and only one webmaster is in complete control of the entire server, usually custom made according to the clientele requirements. A treasure of benefits is offered by dedicated hosting not really offered by shared plans. However, the only drawback is their rising cost. Have a look at the benefits and drawbacks of this server plan:
Benefits:
• Dedicated server for dedicated disk space and bandwidth
• Unique server IP not shared with any other website
• No sharing of physical server resources
• Automatic site backups and security
• Premium customer support services
• Fast page loading time and higher search engine rankings
• More control over the entire server
• Reliable and very secure
Drawbacks:
• Very costly with modest plans starting from over $99.99 per month
The bottom line – which one to choose?
If you have a small blog getting modest traffic, then shared web hosting plan is feasible for you. However if you are experiencing server issues such as poor performance, slow site speed, visitor complaints and other problems then it is time to upgrade your hosting plan.
Moreover, if you have also experienced a significant increase in your site bandwidth and disk space, it is time you upgrade your plan. It is better to switch to dedicated hosting, especially if you are running an e-commerce store so that your customers can easily purchase from your website with safety and security. Although dedicated servers are expensive, they really offset their high costs when compared to increased site traffic, better site control and higher sales than before resulting in increased revenue from your website.
