Shared hosting – the term in itself says that it shares. The websites hosted in this type of server will share the resources of the server. Shared hosting is considered to be the most affordable for beginners because it is relatively cheaper than the other types of hosting and as a beginner, you wouldn’t want to invest a lot of money unless you need hosting for a big business website. In fact, shared hosting is highly preferred for bloggers, start-ups, and small business websites.
What is Shared Web Hosting?
As we all know, we need a server to host any website. In shared hosting, one single server will host several websites. Here, every website will share one common IP address which is of the server. The websites will have to share the resources as well. The number of server resources provided to you will depend on the plans you buy from a hosting provider. The cost of the whole server is also shared equally by the customers; hence it is cheaper.??
How does Shared Hosting work?
In shared hosting, multiple websites are stored in one single server and they all share a few common resources. It is just like people living in an apartment where you will have your own room but some common facilities are distributed like food, water, electricity, and many others. The rent differs in apartments; you need to pay more for rooms with AC and relatively less for ordinary rooms. Similarly, your hosting charges will be based on what plan you opt for from a hosting provider.
Two major types of Shared Hosting
Based on the servers operating systems, we have two types Linux shared hosting and Windows shared hosting. Windows shared hosting servers have Windows as their operating system and Linux shared hosting has Linux-based operating systems like Ubuntu and Cloud Linux in their servers.
Now you may wonder which one to choose. Choosing the right web hosting platform depends on using what programming language, scripts, or platform your web application or website is developed. If your website is developed using the .NET framework or any other Windows-based tool then Windows hosting is convenient. For all other websites made of different coding languages or any open-source platforms, Linux can be recommended. Currently, more than 95% of websites use Linux hosting.
The Major types of web hosting
- Shared Hosting
- Cloud hosting
- Virtual Private Server (VPS)
- Dedicated server hosting
- Managed web hosting for WordPress and Applications
- Reseller hosting
Shared Hosting Vs. Dedicated Server
A dedicated server means a type of web hosting service that provides one whole server to a client who is free to use any resource within its limitation. But with shared hosting, the amount of resources such as disk space and bandwidth you are allotted is limited because there are other websites sharing the same server. Unlike shared hosting, Dedicated hosting plans are ideal for big-scale websites with a very large number of visitors. Well, let’s compare a few features of Shared hosting with Dedicated hosting. Let’s compare Shared Hosting with Dedicated Hosting.
- Shared hosting hosts multiple websites in a single server and hence resources are shared among the websites. The Dedicated hosting server is given to one single client or we can say one server for one client account.
- A shared host is good as far as you have a small or medium-sized website like blog; hence it is recommended for beginners who are new to the hosting environment. However, dedicated hosting is more convenient for large websites.
- Performance gets affected quite often in shared hosting because of the sharing factor whereas in dedicated hosting since there is no sharing, performance is not affected much.
- Security is a point of concern when it comes to shared hosting. Since one common IP is shared between multiple websites in a server, if the IP gets blacklisted then your website will get some negative impression because of someone else???s mistake. In dedicated hosting, the threat of getting a virus attack or the threat of an IP getting blacklisted is very rare.
What are the benefits of Shared Hosting?
- Affordable
Shared hosting is the most basic and cheapest web hosting option. Since one single server is used by multiple websites and the resources are shared between them, the cost of the whole server is distributed; which results in Shared Hosting being available at a cheap rate.
- No worries for maintenance of the server
The clients of a Shared Hosting server need not be so thorough with technical aspects which are needed for maintaining a server. Once your website is hosted, the technical staff shall take responsibility to keep your website up and running. This resembles the quality of a good hosting provider.
- Easy to manage websites using cPanel/Plesk
The website owners will be provided with a control panel like cPanel or Plesk for Linux-shared Hosting or Windows Shared Hosting respectively. These are the tools to manage your website. These panels are really easy to use and give you control over website settings, DNS setting, Email settings, and many others.
Which hosting provider is good for Shared Hosting?
While there are thousands of web hosting providers all over the country claiming that they are the best, makes you face difficulty in choosing the right host. It even requires a lot of research to find a suitable web host.
HostSoch is one of the best and most unique hosting providers, which has seen an enormous amount of growth over the last few years. Anyways, the Shared hosting is cheap but HostSoch Shared Hosting is cheaper. HostSoch offers some great Freebies with Hosting such as Lifetime Domain Registration, Domain Privacy Protection, cPanel, Hundreds of Scripts, Programming Language Support plus so much more! Their packages are perfect for people who are trying to make a stable and reliable web presence; be it for individual use or business.
Wrapping Up
This is the end of our Shared web hosting basics for beginners topic. We hope you have learned something useful from this article.