Shared vs dedicated website hosting: Which one is better?
Posted 23 July 2019
by Adam Harris
When getting a digital marketing strategy off the ground, the first thing to consider is building a website for your business.
If you’re thinking about creating a new business website, hosting is something you’ll need to consider in the very early stages. There are different forms of web hosting, and it pays to know the difference so that your website can perform as well as it should.
While shared hosting might be the cheapest and most common form of website hosting, it might not necessarily be the best option. In this article, we look at the ins and outs of both to help you decide.
What is shared website hosting?
Everything on your company website – and everything on the internet – lives on a server. So once you’ve bought your domain name and are ready to create your website with all its text, images and any interactive stuff you want, you’ll need to pay to host it on a server.
Shared website hosting is when you share a server with many other websites. All the dozens, hundreds or thousands of websites that share the same server also share its resources (such as memory, disk space and CPU usage).
The downsides of shared website hosting
The adage “sharing is caring” doesn’t necessarily apply when it comes to website hosting. Although shared hosting is generally the cheapest form of web hosting (because you’re splitting the cost of the server with others) and easy for beginners, there are major downsides too.
“The adage “sharing is caring” doesn’t necessarily apply when it comes to website hosting.”
When you’re sharing resources with a tonne of other websites, it’s little surprise that your website may be affected by things out of your control. If a particular site that shares your server starts getting a lot of traffic, you can anticipate that your site may slow down, affecting your site’s performance on Google along with the experience visitors have on it. Shared server resources are limited, too, so should your business grow rapidly shared web hosting may become limiting.
With shared hosting you’re also unable to customise the server. Should you need to optimise your server environment in order to improve site performance or because your website has unique requirements, it’s difficult to do when sharing a server.
The downsides of shared website hosting
The adage “sharing is caring” doesn’t necessarily apply when it comes to website hosting. Although shared hosting is generally the cheapest form of web hosting (because you’re splitting the cost of the server with others) and easy for beginners, there are major downsides too.
Ideally, you want the people who design your website to build it as well. This way, you’re not losing anything along the way; everyone working on your project will understand exactly why decisions have been made and what needs to happen, and the process will be a lot smoother.
“The adage “sharing is caring” doesn’t necessarily apply when it comes to website hosting.”
When you’re sharing resources with a tonne of other websites, it’s little surprise that your website may be affected by things out of your control. If a particular site that shares your server starts getting a lot of traffic, you can anticipate that your site may slow down, affecting your site’s performance on Google along with the experience visitors have on it. Shared server resources are limited, too, so should your business grow rapidly shared web hosting may become limiting.
With shared hosting you’re also unable to customise the server. Should you need to optimise your server environment in order to improve site performance or because your website has unique requirements, it’s difficult to do when sharing a server.
What’s dedicated website hosting?
With dedicated website hosting, you own all the server’s resources and disk space. You’re responsible for the maintenance and updating of the server, but you have the power to use its resources as you like.
What are the benefits of dedicated website hosting?
Dedicated website hosting grants you a lot more flexibility than shared web hosting. With this method of hosting, you have full control of your server (this is known as being given “root access”). You won’t be affected by other sites because you’ll be the only website using the server. You’ll be able to customise it, install custom software, and ensure your site is fully secure and running as it should.
If you’re thinking long-term about your website – and your business – dedicated website hosting is definitely the way to go. It will cost you a bit more, but the security, control and peace of mind will more than make up for it.
Got a burning question about website hosting you want answered?
Our team can help – reach out and let us know how we can help.