What is Shared Hosting?
Definition and explanation of Shared hosting – Pros and Cons of Shared Hosting.
Shared hosting is a web hosting service where numerous websites dwell on the same server connected to the internet, or you can say that it allows multiple websites to utilize a single server. If you are searching for an economical hosting server, then shared hosting is the best option. Usually, you’ll have no clue about who or what sites you’re sharing the resources of a server. Through shared hosting, the website will share a physical server with many others.
To get the best-shared hosting and to know about the best-shared hosting provider, consulting a web admin is the ideal solution. Because they will explain the best features according to your requirements and needs, this article will help you understand the significant facts about shared hosting if you don’t have a specialist to consult with.
Features of Shared Hosting
Below are the essential features to check when you plan to buy to prepare shared hosting packages.
Disk Space and Traffic
You will need disk space to host a website for stuff like media, code files, database, and others. When you host data on your website, you will want customers to access your files, and here you will require bandwidth. It works like a tunnel. If the tunnel is wide, then a large amount of information can go through it. Lots of the shared hosting providers offer unlimited bandwidth but limited traffic speed.
Uptime Period
Uptime is the time when a website works online, and your customers can access your website without any issue. Usually, shared hosting is measured in the percentage from the total expected time (24 hours & 7 days a week). It depends on if the website needs to be available 100% time or less. Usually, small businesses purchased shared hosting as projects are not so big, so 100% uptime is not required.
Pre-Installed Applications
Most web host companies include additional features into their shared plans. They offer unlimited options, pre-installed apps, extra fee services, and many more. Pre-installed apps are unique widgets that help you create a website quickly and manage it efficiently. The Control panel app is one of the essential. You can breathe a sigh of relief if your shared plan includes a control panel. Through the most convenient interface, You will be able to control the most complicated server processes. Cpanel is the most popular control panel, but some companies also offer alternatives like Zpanel, Webmin, Virtualmin, or even their customized control panel.
Personalized Email Services
To manage your business and to help in communication, enjoy a domain-based email address of your choice. You can add, enable auto-responses, email accounts, set up forwarders and create mailing lists as well. To protect against any email threats or viruses, spam experts are available.
Support System
To web hosting, this is very important. As you will buy shared hosting, you must read the reviews about supports from your potential providers. In addition, do check forums where people discussed the shared hosting to get more information about the providers.
Free Bonuses
Finally, the sweetest thing about shared hosting plans is that to attract more customers, different companies offering different bonuses with their packages. The shared hosting market is vast, so companies provide various kinds of bonuses to attract their customers. Some of them provide a free domain name, website transfer, site-building tools, or other nifty features for customer attraction. Getting great deals is part of shared hosting, but you have to be mindful of the renewal fees of such bonuses. Choosing a shared hosting package is entirely subjective. You have to check and verify your requirement for your site and the features offered by the provider.
Share Multiple IP Addresses
The cPanel interfaces allow a reseller to share a single IP address with its accounts. They also will enable the system to share a single IP address with multiple resellers. At the same time, multiple hosting providers wish to allow most resellers to use their IP addresses to communicate with accounts. For example, when a client causes a helpless standing or spam posting of an affiliate’s IP address. The hosting supplier can segregate the other companions and IP addresses from the client with a vulnerable standing.
Pros of Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting is Affordable & Inexpensive
Shared Hosting, the most cost-effective hosting solution. With many people contributing to the server’s costs, the hosting company’s costs are distributed between the while shared hosting, for the most part, generally offers not many additional features. It includes the fundamentals for setting up and maintaining a small business.
Shared Hosting is much Easily Accessible
The easy availability of shared hosting and the low cost makes it possible for just about anyone to open an account, sign a contract, and set up a site. Most general web-hosting providers offer this hosting. However, it may not be available from hosting providers dedicated to serving specific niches and website types.
It is Flexible
Most hosting companies have multiple levels of hosting available so that you can upgrade your hosting package with time. To start your business, it is an excellent place.
Easy to Self-Manage
The setup of shared hosting is simple and straightforward. To manage your account, most providers offer a control panel to work. Its simplified user interface monitors administrative tasks and duties associated with the server.
Host Multiple Domain Names
You can install multiple websites in your home directory. Make sure that purchased domains are connected to it. For example, if a person has different parts for a personal website, then shared hosting is perfect.
It is Professionally Managed
Shared hosting maintenance is relatively low. Your host will take the headache of running your server by taking care of all the server administration tasks. Web management is the most convenient option to run your server. Leave it on professionals. They will care about your Web hosting. You can expect professional and technical assistance from software updates, DDoS attacks, network outages, hardware upgrades to its maintenance, and many more with shared hosting.
Host Dynamic Websites
A website that looks different according to who is browsing is known as dynamic websites. The most popular dynamic websites are Facebook, Twitter, Quora, and dynamic content management systems (CMSs), including WordPress. Dynamic content and CMSs use alternative programming languages like Java, PHP, Python, etc.
No Technical Maintenance Required
Technically there is no need to maintain your server, as it is part of your hosting package.
Cons of Shared Hosting
Shared holding sounds pretty good as it is affordable, multiple domains can be on the same server, flexible, and many more. But with these advantages, it also has some disadvantages.
Load Time Increases
There are multiple domains on a single server, so the load time is much slower than the dedicated server.
Availability of Limited Resources
As you would have garnered by now, your website utilizes minimal resources on shared hosting. So, if you try to add some resource-intensive functionality to your website, you might be in a challenging situation.
Performance Problem
Performance can also be a problem. User shares their server components with another user. So server component can’t provide outstanding performance.
Traffic Issues
To avoid a single website from consuming lots of resources, shared holding companies put some controls. When your website gets popular and starts getting lots of traffic on it, your website goes down. You will start getting warning messages about the suspension of your account or that your website is consuming many resources.
Sluggishness
One of the complaints heard most often from small business owners is that their websites feel sluggish, and frequently they blame their website for it. However, it is primarily because of the lack of available resources on shared hosting, and this lack stops your website from performing to its full potential.
Security Issues
If websites on a server get hacked, then other websites also come under the potential threats, and if a server itself gets hacked, then all the websites on the particular server will go with it. So, without your own mistake, your website is under hosting on shared hosting.
Provide No Root Access
As your website is getting more popular and more advanced, you will require root access to your server. But most hosting companies don’t provide root access.
Good Traffic Websites Will Slow Yours
If a server has numerous websites with lots of good traffic, the entire server will slow down. So, your website won’t just slow down as it became popular; it can also slow down because other websites on your server became a popular way to go.
Require Additional Payment For SSL Certification
Initially, the cost of shared hosting is low, but as soon as you tried to add more features, you are forced to spend more money. A typical example is the SSL Certificate. Most of the shared hosting doesn’t provide SSL certificates for free, which causes your website to show “Not Secure Warning.” However, most of the companies offer these certificates for free.
Limitations On What You Can Install
Shared hosting provides a limited list of software that you can install on your server, and if you want to install something out of this list, you might be out of luck.
As you know, shared hosting is cheap, but due to lots of limitations like limited software, no root access, no free SSL Certificate, and many more, it causes many problems for your website. In other words, you can say that no unlimited service provided by shared hosting.
Is Shared Hosting Right For You?
Shared is the good and right choice for you in certain conditions if you:
- Have a little experience with web hosting.
- Want your cost to below.
- Are you going to design the small business website, or are you going to design? Something for friends or family.
- Don’t require access to extensive web programming.
- Are studying applications like WordPress etc.
- Are running a startup or small business.
- Have not too much traffic on your website.
- Are experimenting with web design and coding.
Alternatives Of shared Hosting
There are multiple alternatives to shared hosting. But these alternatives are not as cheaper as shared hosting is.
The alternatives to shared hosting include dedicated hosting, WordPress dedicated hosting, running a VPS server, and other semi-dedicated hosting options. These will end up costing more than shared hosting plans, but they will provide you with a greater level of performance, features, and customizations.
Shared hosting is the best choice for beginners whose website do not receives lots of traffic, but if a website starts receiving lots of traffic, then the best option is to change your hosting. Remember, you can change your hosting with time and according to your requirements.
What is the difference between Shared Hosting and Dedicated Hosting?
Dedicated hosting is a single service provided to one user, whereas shared hosting allows multiple websites/users hosted on a single server.
The difference between dedicated and shared hosting is like an apartment in a block of flats and a cottage house. Both are good for living in. Still, there are some advantages and disadvantages also. Let’s have a deeper look at each server type, considering management, performance, resources, security, and cost.
Management
Those website owners who don’t have many technical skills to manage and control everything but wish to build an online presence Shared server are good choices for them. You have limited administrative access and can’t customize software configuration with shared hosting. Still, as you have access to a cPanel, which has a technical background and can manage/configure the server independently. Still, the lack of technical skills should not be an obstacle since we offer different types of dedicated server management: User-Responsible, Basic, Complete. You can manage various files, databases, email accounts, error logs, and some server analytics which is most important for your website. You can always be sure that the experts will deal with it in the most limited time if the server goes down.
A Dedicated server is the best choice for those who want to run a small business. At the same time, root access is provided with a dedicated server which is a massive benefit if you need to modify your server.
Performance
Performance of the website plays an essential role in attracting new visitors and traffic conversion to your website. We have a 100% uptime guarantee on our Shared and Dedicated hosting servers. However, some force majeure circumstances are usually caused by upstream entities and other service providers the hosting company depends on and can cause unexpected downtime. Examples of these are in-depth, like DDoS attacks, power outages, or hardware issues. With conventional precision, the uptime ratio can’t be calculated, and it should be perceived by taking into account all the factors.
Generally, by comparing shared and dedicated servers, the latter will be faster, and it is more reliable because it offers more resources like CPU, RAM, etc. Whereas those resources are used only by your websites, you can never be sure who your neighbor is and if their activity negatively influences the server with the shared hosting.
As an example, due to some campaigns, you may receive a spike in traffic. A Dedicated server may handle the increased traffic. In contrast, a shared server will most probably go over the resource limits, and even it can be suspended to protect other users on the server.
Resources
With a Shared server, you will share resources, such as data, CPU time, and memory and disk space, etc. All shared servers have Cloud Linux OS installed. It helps to limit the number of resources as each client can use them. Cloud Linux keeps each client in an isolated, secure environment called a Lightweight Virtual Environment (LVE).
If you have a website that receives a massive traffic volume, then a dedicated server is the most convenient choice. If your shared hosting account reaches the resource limits, then the upgrade to the next available plan is required for it, as this is the only technique to add more assets to your account. If you are using a dedicated server/ hosting, you may order more bandwidth for an additional price which is a better option.
Security
As we esteem our customers’ diligent effort, they put into their projects and focus only on worker security. With an effective firewall system and a set of other server security applications and programs installed on our shared servers, we try to give complete protection. Still, many security issues may come from within your website code, control panel settings, malicious files uploaded, and many more.
A Dedicated server allows you to run almost all types of scripts and software. You have the facility install any security software to add the additional layer of reliability to your server. For example, you may have the IP blocked/blacklisted on both servers shared and dedicated, while the whitelist of an IP address is conceivable just on a dedicated one.
Cost
With all the privileges for the lowest price. But, each service needs to have a reasonable price everybody would like to have the fastest and most secure server for them. With Shared hosting, server resources are shared between several users. That’s why the cost of shared accounts is cheaper. A dedicated server is dedicated only to one user, so it costs more than shared hosting. The basic Namecheap shared hosting costs $30.88 per year, whereas the actual dedicated server’s price would be $82.88 per month that is a significant difference. So, before making a final decision about hosting, ask yourself these questions:
- What type of controls are required over the hosting account?
- What is the daily and monthly traffic you are expecting on your website?
- What are your security requirements?
- What’s your monthly budget is?
Remember that your online success is determined by a good and intelligent decision of a hosting server.
What is the difference between VPS Hosting and Shared Hosting?
VPS hosting is also known as virtual private server hosting, and it’s a website hosting environment that allows for many resources such as RAM and CPU to be dedicated to your account.
Users are guaranteed that the resources on their VPS web hosting accounts. This means that your account will always be allocated the set amount of RAM, CPU, and Disk Space you have chosen regardless of what other users on the server are doing. This allows for more excellent stability and performance of your website. It also does not share the Operating System with any other users, providing better security for your website files.
Shared Hosting Add-Ons
Backup Manager
Remove the mystery of site backups and subscribe to our Backup Manager; on an external server, it creates backups. It is used to add security and make restoration quick and straightforward.
Dedicated SSL
While Seimaxim provides free and secure SSLs through cPanel, but, specific payment processors may require paid SSLs due to insurance reasons.
Dedicated IP Address
SeiMaxim can provide a dedicated IP address if you need one for your business. It can help to optimize specific mail related to your tasks.
Shared Hosting Support
If you are trying to refresh an existing website or establish a web presence, if you are a small business or have a small website, Shared Hosting is a perfect choice. Without any need to apply advanced configurations or settings, you will be able to quickly and easily set up your email and launch your website.