Tech
When to Go for Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting: There are many different options that you can choose from when it comes to hosting. Traditionally, the most commonly-selected choices have always been a mix between dedicated instances, virtual private servers (VPS) and shared hosting. The advantages of the first two types have been widely discussed, with the large majority of the public deciding to opt for one of them. This has, consequently, left shared hosting sort of neglected. However, there are many situations in which this particular hosting option can be quite valuable, not to mention that it can also save you money in the long run. Here are a couple of examples, where shared hosting can be seen as advantageous.
How does shared hosting work?
It is no secret that shared hosting is the cheapest variant that you can choose when it comes to making anything accessible online. But have you ever wondered why its price tag is substantially less in relation to that of any other hosting option? The answer is quite simple and it lies in the service’s name – “shared”. Shared hosting means that the host server’s resources are shared amongst all of the hosted clients.
To put this into more simple terms, when you sign up for a shared hosting account, you get your own designated space on a server. However, that server also plays host to a number of other users, meaning that you essentially become neighbors. Additionally, this also means that you need to share all of the server’s resources between yourselves.
A good real life example of such a situation would be living in a rented apartment with someone else. The same applies if you were to be living in a student accommodation – you have the same rooms, the same fridge, bathroom and shower at your disposal. If you want to use something while it is already being occupied, you will have to wait.
This example is perfectly applicable when it comes to shared hosting and the server resources – a sudden increase in traffic for one website or web application can lead to the consumption of more server resources on their behalf. Consequently, this will result in the other sites or apps, which are hosted on the same server, to become slower, taking longer to load than usual, due to the lack of server resources. Not only that but requests will also be processed slower and storage capacity could also turn out to be a problem in some cases.
This is why some users genuinely avoid shared hosting in general and would rather go for either a dedicated or a virtual private server. However, there are a number of advantages to this particular hosting type with one of the greatest being that it costs substantially less in comparison to the others. Furthermore, it is marginally easier to manage and a lot more user-friendly, requiring little to none prior technical experience. So when exactly is it worth going for shared hosting?
When to consider switching to shared hosting
As we already mentioned, this hosting option can be really cheap, depending on your needs. Generally, you can find shared hosting plans that range from $1 to 5$ per month that can offer you a very good amount of resources including active memory (RAM), processing power (CPU) as well as significant storage (SSD or HDD). Because of this, there are a number of scenarios where shared hosting can be quite useful.
For example, if you are running a local store and most of your traffic and sales happen at the physical location, you might only need a website to inform your customers of offers, news and important information. All of this can be regarded and presented as static content, meaning that it would also be able to be displayed on a single page.
This in particular is useful as your main business will be conducted inside of the store, meaning that the majority of the traffic will be coming directly to you rather than your website.
Because of this, going for a shared hosting plan can be worthwhile due to the fact that you will not be selling your goods online and the website will have fewer visitors than your physical location. Additionally, this will also result in your resource consumption being lower, meaning that your website will be able to operate smoothly regardless of the consumption of the other clients, who are also occupying the same server as you.
Another useful example, in which having shared hosting can be beneficial, is when your website or web application is not that large in scale or does not focus on presenting your users with dynamic content. This includes anything like portfolios, information providing resources and predominantly text-based sites and apps. Essentially, if your website focuses on static text and generally uses graphics along with not having many executable functions, you can consider going for shared hosting.
What to look for when choosing a shared hosting provider
As it currently stands, most hosting providers usually offer shared hosting regardless of their other services, meaning that making a final choice can be quite overwhelming considering the total number of providers on the market.
One of the most important things that you definitely need to take into consideration is whether your hosting provider can offer you DDoS protection. This is an essential feature as constant influxes of fake traffic and targeted attacks can not only crash your website or app, but also the entire server. Having a provider that can offer you such protection free of charge is usually an indication that their services are reliable and secure. VPSBG for example offer their customers free 1.8Tbps+ DDoS protection along with their hosting plans, not to mention that they also implement additional Imunify360 protection to make sure that your website or app is safe at all times.
Another thing you should look out for is whether the provider can offer you features such as backups or snapshots for your service. Having a fall back plan to rely on in case of a complete system failure or hack attack is absolutely necessary. Try looking for a provider that can supply you with such a feature. Having it included in your website or plan is also an additional benefit.
The total number of incoming and outgoing emails is also something that you might be interested in depending on your business or personal intentions for your websites or application. Remember that email is still one of the most utilized communication methods worldwide, meaning that you will definitely need to send and receive emails.
Other useful features that you can potentially be on the lookout for include finding a provider that can offer you a dedicated IP and the ability to create additional subdomains.
Having a control panel to manage your site or app should also be a priority. Because of this, when doing your research on shared hosting providers, try to look for some that offer a control panel along with the hosting plan. In most cases this would be cPanel, but there are also other options available that are becoming increasingly more popular.
Finally, if you have your website hosted with another provider but you would like to switch because either your expectations were not met or you are just generally not satisfied with the service, then it is important to have a look around for a provider that would be willing to migrate your website for free.
That is it from us for now. Remember that when it comes to hosting, dedicated instances and VPS servers are also an option, but while they are more reliable, they are also more expensive and might not always be the best choice.
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