Before you decide whether or not to choose a shared web hosting plan for your website, it is essential to understand the advantages and disadvantages. In layman’s terms, shared hosting is all of the server resources from a single physical machine pooled or “shared” between hundreds of small user websites. Each user is allocated a certain amount of services such as FTP accounts, databases, and email addresses, with limited permissions, access, and quotas.
Let’s examine the benefits and pitfalls to see what shared web hosting is really all about.
The Advantages of Shared Web Hosting
Cost Effectiveness
The fact that shared hosting is usually offered at an extremely cheap rate is perhaps its biggest advantage. With as little as $5-$10, you can benefit tremendously from affordable web hosting services. What’s more, one can manage to acquire a ton of disk space and data transfer because of the stiff competition in the web hosting industry.
Control Panel
The control panel of choice for most shared hosting providers is cPanel. cPanel is a user-friendly and powerful tool that can help you manage your own website even if you are not tech-savvy. In fact, that is exactly what and who it is made for. However, there is still no reason webmasters can’t use these tools to upload files, install SSL certificates, and check stats, etc.
Convenience
We all want convenience when doing our daily tasks and this includes website management. Installing CMSs like WordPress or Joomla has never been easier. All it takes is a couple of clicks in the control panel. Another example, of many, would be the auto-discovery feature for setting up email addresses on new devices.
Support
Last but not least, your hosting experience should involve a highly attentive customer service staff. So, YOU can concentrate on running your business.
These are just some of the advantages that surround shared web hosting.
The Disadvantages of Shared Web Hosting
Customisation
The shared server environment is configured and controlled by the platform’s admins. Any customisations to the default settings are restricted. I.e. If you have software requirements other than the very basics you may find yourself shopping for another host.
Performance
The performance of your website can be questionable with shared hosting, to say the least, because it depends on your “neighbours.” For instance, if one of the shared sites on the server goes viral or gets abused the entire machine may time out or even crash. Although, this is becoming less and less common thanks to CloudLinux.
Still, you get what you pay for and expectations should be set reasonably low. Shared web hosting is only a starting point and can be outgrown over time. VPS is the next step up for blossoming businesses.
Security
Unfortunately, poor security is another disadvantage when it comes to shared hosting. However, it is absolutely necessary to ensure that your website is secure. Whether it’s outdated software, an exposed password, or an infected email, the shared server environment can be full of bugs and vulnerabilities.
Fortunately, these issues can be mitigated by using a reliable web hosting company that has the right technology and know-how. Speak to one of our advisors today.