Web hosting is a service that provides space to websites and helps them to be present on the internet. There are two types of hosting services: shared hosting and dedicated hosting. If you don’t know the difference between these services, then keep reading because we will explain in detail the difference between Shared Hosting vs Dedicated Hosting.
Shared Hosting vs Dedicated Hosting:
These are the two most famous but opposite types of web hosting services. Whether it is shared hosting vs dedicated hosting, the primary function is identical. They hold the data for your website on a single server.
This server then sends data to the users who access your website from their browser. The main difference between these two hosting services lies in the type of server on which your website is stored.
In the case of shared hosting, your website lives alongside others, which are the neighboring users using the same server. While in dedicated hosting plans, the server is dedicated to your website alone.
Both of these hosting services have some advantages and disadvantages, so it is better if you learn about them in detail as it will help you choose the best service for your business.
What is Shared Hosting?
When multiple websites are hosted on a single server, it is referred to as shared hosting. Some people also compare shared hosting to a public bus service. One reason for this comparison is that this system is inexpensive and involves sharing resources with others. In the shared hosting service, the capacity of a single server to host websites exceeds hundreds and thousands.
What is Dedicated Hosting?
When your website is hosted on a single server, it is called dedicated hosting. That single server is dedicated specifically to your website only. This reduces the competition of resources used in shared hosting—dedicated hosting results in more robust website performance.
Since we called shared hosting a public bus system, we can compare the dedicated hosting to renting your car. Having your vehicle gives you increased control over it. You can take it wherever you want to, run it at speed you like and play the radio station you want to.
However, with all these advantages, it also has some drawbacks. For instance, you avail this service at a much higher cost. You also need more knowledge to maintain it.
Who uses Shared Hosting?
Anyone can use shared hosting. Although it requires a few skills and in-depth knowledge, it is quite possible to be used by anyone. It is mainly used by small businesses, start-up websites, small companies, bloggers, webmasters and e-Commerce stores, etc.
It can also be used for a personal website. 99% of the time, shared hosting is the best option for starting their businesses from scratch. It is because it costs less and is relatively easy to use.
It requires minimum maintenance from your end, and this is why most of the start-ups rely on this hosting. The experts also recommend using shared hosting for your small or medium business.
Who uses Dedicated Hosting?
As we mentioned earlier, dedicated hosting is a bit expensive and needs special attention, so not everyone can use it. If you have at least a thousand followers that visit your website daily, then you should invest in dedicated hosting because of the privacy and other excellent services it provides.
Suppose you are in a regulated industry, and your job is to maintain the privacy of the customers’ data and sensitive information. In that case, you can rely only on dedicated hosting because it does not share the server with other users.
Dedicated hosting servers are not designed for one purpose. These can be used to host game servers, websites, or anything that needs a place for multiple computers to store and read files.
You can scale your business with high-performance dedicated hosting. It will allow you the flexibility of customizing the server to the unique needs of clients for RAM, CPU, software, and disc space.
Advantages of Shared Hosting:
Shared hosting has numerous benefits. The following section will highlight the advantages of shared web hosting, where one server serves multiple websites.
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Inexpensive:
It cannot be denied that shared hosting costs less money—many start-ups and personal business owners lookup for cost-effective options. And shared hosting provides this benefit. It is inexpensive because multiple sites are using a single server.
Since many people contribute to the server’s cost, the shared hosting company’s costs get distributed among those users. Basic annual plans start from $30 a year. However, premium plans can cost up to $100 a year. Premium plans offer unmetered disc space, unlimited websites, and unlimited bandwidth.
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Flexible:
This service allows you to begin new online ventures with a shared plan. As the site grows, it can be upgraded without much hassle.
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Easy Maintenance:
Shared hosting websites are easy to manage. These are easy and straightforward to set up. Most of the time, providers offer you a control panel to manage your website. This straightforward user interface contains the administrative tasks and the monitoring duties associated with running a server.
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Professional Management:
Shared Hosting is a low-maintenance hosting service. Your host will take care of basic server administrative tasks to keep your server running without giving you any headaches. Even if you are willing to run your server, the procedure is relatively easy.
But we prefer that you leave it to the professionals to keep your system updated and running. You can get professional technical assistance for everything by availing shared hosting services, including hardware upgrades and maintenance, network outages, DDoS attacks and software upgrades, etc.
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Host Multiple Domains:
If you make sure that the domains you purchase are connected to your user directory, you can install numerous websites on it. This can be explained by the example of one person having different domains for their website, business or blog. Shared hosting is highly recommended in this scenario.
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Host Dynamic Websites:
The websites that come off as different depending on who is browsing are considered Dynamic Websites. Popular dynamic websites include Twitter, Quora, Facebook, and dynamic content management systems (CMSs) include Joomla and WordPress. These CMSs and dynamic websites are alternative programming languages such as Python or PHP, and Perl can run on a shared server.
Advantages of Dedicated Hosting:
Just like shared hosting, dedicated hosting also has numerous benefits. These include:
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Complete privacy of server resources:
When you avail the dedicated hosting services, you get the complete resources of a single server. This frees you from worrying about the other websites clogging up the server’s RAM and CPU. A dedicated server assures you that bad scripts running on another website will not mess with your server’s speed.
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Enhanced Performance:
A dedicated hosting provider offers you maximum uptime for your website. Although shared Hosting works excellent for websites with medium to low traffic, dedicated servers provide more reliability and stability if you receive a lot of traffic regularly.
A dedicated server also ensures that you do not share your space with a potential spammer or a malicious website. Dedicated hosting is famous for allowing enhanced security, which is essential for companies handling sensitive transactions over SSL or FTP.
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Unique IP Address:
In dedicated hosting, each server has a unique IP address. This is important if you own a large e-commerce site that requires SSL for credit card processing.
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Flexibility:
Dedicated hosting allows the client to customize the server to the clients’ unique needs for RAM, CPU, software, and disk space. It also enables the organizations to a customizable server environment that meets their needs and allows more control.
Disadvantages of Shared Hosting:
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Poor Performance:
One major drawback of shared hosting is that users share their servers with other users. This leads to poor performance because of the enormous traffic associated with the server.
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System Crashes:
Due to multiple users relying on a single server, the shared hosting system often crashes. It is one problem that remains unsolved to date.
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Security:
Shared Hosting does not provide the security customers need. Because too many clients are using one server, the fear of the breach of privacy is always there.
Disadvantages of Dedicated Hosting:
While dedicated hosting has many benefits, it also has some disadvantage, such as:
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Expensive:
No doubt it is one of the top-tier hosting services, but it is also costly. Not all clients can afford it.
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High Maintenance:
In the case of dedicated hosting, the host only advises you for maintenance. It’s totally up to you to keep your server secure. It is a huge responsibility if you are not aware of this technology.
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Requires Skills:
Since it is a bit complicated service to use, clients need skills to operate it.
Conclusion:
In this article, we described the pros, cons, and features of Shared Hosting vs Dedicated Hosting. If you are looking forward to avail hosting services, you can contact us at http://anikahosting.com/. We offer both shared hosting and dedicated hosting services and c help you decided which one to choose. Visit our website to find more and contact us.
Thank you for reading!