The first thing you usually do when you want to start a website is buying and registering a domain name. Next, you need to choose web hosting services for your website, and here’s where the confusion might arise.
There are several types of web hosting and different providers. One principle you should apply to your hosting choice no matter its category: pick a server the nearest to your location or the desired target audience. For example, if you are in the UK or want to attract British customers, one of your options should be VPS in the UK.
However, when you are new to hosting, it might be hard to differentiate a worthwhile solution from an unprofitable one. In this article, we want to illuminate why the “usual” web hosting may not be for you.
What is the “Usual” Web Hosting?
The so-called “usual” web hosting refers to shared hosting, commonly chosen for its affordability. A lot of people use shared hosting for their first website.
As the name implies, shared hosting requires you to share, in this case, server resources. You get a physical server split between multiple users with no regulation for its equal use: the more resources others use to support the spike in traffic, the less power your website gets. The resources we’re talking about are data, CPU, RAM, and storage space. To be fair, shared hosting often works fine, but there’s no guarantee it’ll continue working well.
When you pay for shared hosting, a provider gives you space on a server with hundreds (if not more) of functioning websites on it. Because there are other users on a server, you don’t have control over the kind of software you use, have a shared IP address, and no designated share of resources.
Shared Hosting Disadvantages
Limited resources. We already mentioned the specifics of resource consumption in shared hosting. The fact remains: if another website experiences high traffic amounts and has to consume more resources, other users will get less bandwidth, storage, and overall processing power.
Poor security. Security concerns are among the major disadvantages of shared hosting since all data coming from different users “flows” into one directory. A website owned by somebody else can be hacked if it’s not properly protected, and in this case, the intruder can access the directory, and your information stored there.
Lower SEO ranking. The link between shared hosting and SEO ranking is not direct, however, many believe it exists. The experiment published in September 2020 has proven that sharing IP addresses (like in shared hosting) ultimately resulted in lower SEO ranking, compared to websites with dedicated IPs.
To sum up, many people end up getting shared hosting because it’s cheaper, but it is the least sustainable option for the long term. If you expect your business, and website to grow and attract traffic, there are other hosting solutions we recommend looking at.
The 4 Types of Web-Hosting
There are four main types of web hosting such as:
Shared hosting;
VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting;
Cloud hosting;
Dedicated hosting;
So, if you’ve concluded that shared hosting is not for you, you still have three more options to choose from. Let’s look at each of them.
VPS Hosting
VPS hosting is a middle option between shared and dedicated hosting. It operates on a physical server that is still shared among users, but, unlike shared hosting, has a virtual partition, based on virtualization technology, separating users, and guaranteeing them their isolated environment.
Hosting based on a virtual private server provides dedicated resources to every user, which don’t depend on how much of said resources such as RAM and bandwidth other websites consume. VPS is highly flexible too: you can reduce or increase the amount of power specified in the hosting plan you chose.
The physical server is still shared, but businesses or individuals get full administrative control over the software part of the server, which means that one can add any program and application to their isolated environment. Speaking of, VPS is often used by small- to medium-sized businesses or host large personal sites: virtual private servers can handle big amounts of traffic, ensuring that the website is online more than 90% of the time.
VPS hosting usually costs more than shared hosting (although you can find VPS hosting packages for $5 a month), but way less than dedicated hosting. VPS also comes in unmanaged and managed (by a hosting provider) formats.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting involves having a network of servers and distributing the load and storage between them. You can access a cloud server from any location, and in most cases, a hosting provider takes upon the management of the server.
The big advantage of cloud hosting is that it is difficult to disrupt its functioning: if one server goes down, the system will redirect requests to another server within the network.
You are likely to see an increase in the website loading speed with cloud hosting. This is attributed to the fact that the system chooses the server closest to the user to respond to requests, resulting in minimal latency.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting utilizes a dedicated server — a whole physical server that one person rents. Dedicated hosting makes you the only user on the server. All the processing power goes to your website, and your website only.
This type of hosting also comes with full authority over your server: you can upgrade both hardware and software components, which you won’t be able to do with any other type of hosting.
The security of a dedicated server can be almost impenetrable, since one can implement different methods, including physical firewalls, malware detection programs, DDoS protection, etc. It also provides a dedicated IP address, which you won’t find with shared hosting.
Dedicated hosting provides a lot of resources to whoever is renting it and its price reflects it. Usually, dedicated hosting plans are expensive; it’s probably the most pricy option among all hosting types. So, before you choose dedicated hosting, make sure you are going to use most of its resources.
Dedicated hosting is usually used by corporations that accumulate a lot of data and have a lot of operations that require seamless execution.
What type of web hosting to choose?
The choice of web hosting depends on the specifics of your website and how much power it requires.
VPS and cloud hosting are both affordable options that can handle considerable load. Plus, they are very scalable, so you can upgrade and increase the power as you go. If you anticipate significant traffic and load, dedicated hosting would be ideal. However, with dedicated servers you pay for large resource capacity immediately, so it is less flexible than VPS or cloud models. We recommend purchasing dedicated hosting in cases when you know you’ll use most of its power since hosting based on dedicated servers is costly.
Read more:
Don’t Use Usual Web-Hosting for Your Website. Here is Why
