If you are starting an online business, there are many major decisions you will have to make. These include picking between a dedicated and shared web hosting plan. You will need to compare these plans against your business’ current and future needs. A dedicated web hosting plan is where you lease an entire server for your website. Meanwhile, a shared hosting plan is when you share one server with other websites. To choose the right hosting plan, you will need to consider many factors such as the cost, site performance, and security. Any web hosting guide will help you understand the major differences between a dedicated and shared hosting plan including the following:
The Number of Hosted Websites
This is probably the main difference between these hosting plans. A dedicated hosting plan hosts just one website on the server while a shared plan hosts many websites. Dedicated hosting is obviously a dependable plan but it comes at a cost.
Operating Cost
Server resources are shared among websites hosted on a shared server. Because of this, the operating cost is split accordingly. That is why this hosting plan is cheaper than a dedicated plan where the operating cost is shouldered by one user. Make sure you to choose a type of web hosting that fits your budget and needs.
Security
Web hosting companies are responsible for the server’s security in a shared hosting plan. In a dedicated plan, you will have to determine the security programs to be used for securing the server. Generally, dedicated servers are more secure than their shared counterparts. This is because the more sites hosted on a server, the greater the risk of attacks.
Disk Space
Although dedicated web hosting is expensive, it has unlimited disk space and bandwidth. A lot of web hosting providers promote their shared plans as unlimited; however, they actually set a limit. Choose a plan based on your projected volume of website traffic.
Performance of the Server
The performance of a server that hosts your site determines the experience of your website visitors. With shared hosting, you will not be guaranteed of optimal performance because of the limited server resources. Also, when one of the websites on the server gets massive traffic, your website pages may load slowly and make your customers feeling disappointed. But, a dedicated web hosting plan can guarantee optimal server performance because there are no activities from other sites that could interfere with your site’s performance.
