What is Shared Hosting? Beginner's Guide

Shared hosting is the most affordable and simple way to get your website public. Let's find out what shared hosting is, how it differs from other web hosting plans and the best option for your business.

• Shared Hosting
• Is shared hosting suitable for you?
• Does shared hosting come with a free domain?
• Shared Hosting Pros and Cons
• Shared Hosting vs VPS Hosting vs Dedicated Hosting

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is a type of web hosting service where a single physical server hosts multiple websites.

Being in a shared hosting environment is like renting an apartment unit sharing the building with other tenants. Hundreds or even thousands of tenants can share the same server. Tenants divide the costs, thus, making shared hosting the most practical and popular option of all the web hosting setups. As your hosting provider, HostYourSite will manage your shared server for you to focus on your business and your website’s contents.

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Is shared hosting suitable for you? 

Shared hosting is ideal for a person or business that: 

• Has limited web hosting background 
• Desires to save on costs 
• Wants a hassle-free website management 
• Needs a simple website for small businesses or personal projects 
• Is interested to learn web design, coding, or WordPress 

Choosing the perfect web hosting setup is crucial to establishing a good website development foundation. Starting on a shared hosting plan allows you the flexibility to scale without hiccups. 

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Does shared hosting come with a free domain? 

Yes! HostYourSite offers free domain registration with our shared hosting plans, signed up for a 12-, 24- or 36-month renewal cycle. This offer extends to .com, .org, and .net TLDs only and applies to new and existing customers. 

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Shared Hosting Pros and Cons 

Pros 

• Cost-effective. Due to multiple users are sharing the cost on the hosting server, the charge is kept low. 
• Flexible. You can choose shared plans that best fit the needs of your website. If you need another website, more cloud storage, or additional FTP users, you can upgrade to a plan anytime. 
• Secure. Although the space and resources are shared on a server, your information is secured. Other users utilizing your shared server are not able to access any of your website’s data.  
• Straightforward setup. Shared hosting is beginner-friendly. It is designed to help you set up your website with maximum efficiency and minimum technical knowledge.  
• Effortless maintenance. HostYourSite, as your web host provider maintains the shared server, you can stay focused on growing your website rather than working out bugs or installing software updates. Leave that us. 

Cons 

• Traffic. Shared hosting includes sharing resources like CPU power and memory. Because of this, a spike in activity will likely cause a lag in your website. Most of the time, speed changes are barely noticeable. 
• Limited customization. To uphold security, the backend of shared servers is locked down. Shared hosting supports limited custom installations. If you have special technical requirements, shared hosting is not for you. 

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Shared Hosting vs VPS Hosting vs Dedicated Hosting 

If you are on a shared server and your website utilizes more resources than your hosting plan provides, you may want to consider upgrading your hosting package. When your website outgrows shared hosting, VPS hosting is typically the next step up. 

VPS Hosting 

VPS hosting stands for Virtual Private Servers. It allows you access to more resources. VPS hosting has a limited number of websites on a single server and provides a reserved space for your website’s disk space and bandwidth.

On a virtual private server, your website won’t be affected if another website on your server has a spike in traffic. VPS hosting users have more customization available. It is perfect for sites that are too big for shared hosting but too small to switch to a dedicated server.

Dedicated Hosting 

If your website needs more resources than VPS hosting can provide, you can upgrade to dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting is solely used by one user. This means your website benefits from increased bandwidth, privacy, security, storage space, and speed.

However, it is the most expensive web hosting setup and requires a decent amount of technical skills to manage. If you value dedicated resources, peak website performance, and greater control of programs and security, dedicated hosting is the way to go.

To get to know more about our hosting plans, please contact us for further details.

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