Deciding between shared and dedicated hosting is one of the first decisions that needs to be made when getting ready to bring a website online. They both provide different types of benefits, and depending on the type of website and the requirements of the webmaster, they both have disadvantages. Following are a general idea of the differences, benefits, and disadvantages of each.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting provides many different types of benefits for particular webmasters. With shared hosting, a user houses their website on a server that is shared with many other websites from other webmasters. The main benefit is that the cost is significantly less compared to that of a dedicated server. In addition, most good hosting providers include the most popular software, applications, and even free benefits like Adwords bonuses. This type of hosting is ideal for smaller websites without a tremendous amount of traffic and websites not needing extra security.
Dedicated Servers
For websites that are larger or have a lot of traffic, a dedicated server is better suited. With a dedicated hosting server, space isn’t shared with any other website. This means that the user’s site won’t be compromised as a result of other sites on the same server, and load times will be faster due to the fact that visitor user requests for information from the site will not be queued against other sites sharing the same IP address. In addition, a dedicated web server also faces less risk of crashing or losing up-time, and will generally provide faster response times to visitors or customers. An often overlooked benefit of choosign to host on a dedicated server is that the risk that the website will be flagged by search engines because of another site’s illegal SEO tactics will be eliminated.
Choice Between Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is definitely the better choice for businesses that need more security and flexibility, and for sites that have a larger amount of traffic; shared web hosting is the better choice for those that have informational websites or site that have smaller amount of traffic and don’t need added security. Therefore, if a webmaster has a small website or a personal site, shared hosting can be a much wiser investment. as with any major purchase, consider all of your needs and options carefully and make sure that you are choosing the hosting plan that is best for you and your site.
