Server

Shared hosting is a type of web hosting where a single physical server hosts multiple sites. Many users utilize the resources on a single server, which keeps the costs low. Users each get a section of a server in which they can host their website files. Shared servers can hosts hundreds of users. Each customer using the shared hosting platform’s server has access to features like databases, monthly traffic, disk space, email accounts, FTP accounts and other add-ons offered by the host. System resources are shared on-demand by customers on the server, and each gets a percentage of everything from RAM and CPU, and other elements such as the single MySQL server, Apache server, and mail server.

Shared hosting offers the most cost-effective way to get a site online since the costs of maintaining a server are split among all the users. This style of hosting is best suited for a small website or blog that doesn’t require advanced configurations or high bandwidth. Since shared hosting is not sufficient for sites with high traffic, high volume sites should look to VPS or dedicated hosting solutions instead.

Shared hosting is like using public transportation

Traveling by bus is an alternative to driving your own private vehicle. This comes with benefits; it is both more environmentally-friendly and can be more cost-effective. But, given the public nature of a bus, you are sharing this mode of transport, so it might be packed at times. The bus will occasionally end up taking more stops between point “A” to point “B,” and your travel time may be increased overall, but it’s still low-cost, convenient, and reliable.

This is how shared hosting works. The resources on a server are shared with other users, but you can still enjoy many of the resources. Reputable web hosting companies (like Namecheap) have policies that govern fair use to make sure everyone has access to a fair amount of the resources.

Shared hosting is an entry-level service capable of offering the amount of resources that a start up, local business, or personal site require. Many people new to the world of web hosting choose shared hosting. It’s popular because it’s the most cost-effective option. Since many people are sharing the resources of a server, individual user costs are kept low. The majority of shared hosting packages come with easy-to-use features such as a user-friendly control panel that allows you to upload your website files, create an email account and add databases for services that need them.

Yes, shared hosting is considered “entry level” by some professionals, but for the majority of sites, it’s more than adequate for their needs.

How does shared hosting work?

As we’ve stated, shared hosting is where a single server hosts multiple sites. The numbers can range from a few hundred to several thousand depending on the available hard drive space, RAM, and processing speed. This hosting is on a machine that’s identical to a dedicated server, but its resources are used by a much greater number of clients. Each website user account’s files and any applications are stored in separate partitions on the server, and each has its own file directory tree. Users don’t have access to either the root or to each other’s files. All accounts on the shared server share computing resources of the web server.

Advantages of shared web hosting

There are numerous benefits to opting for shared hosting. Let’s take a look at the fundamental features of shared web hosting:

It’s less expensive

Shared hosting provides the most cost-effective hosting solution. With many people contributing towards the costs of the server, the hosting company’s costs are distributed between them. Basic plans start at around $30 a year while you can expect to pay over $100 a year for premium plans with unmetered disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited websites.

It’s flexible

New online ventures can begin with a shared plan and upgrade without hassle as their site grows.

It’s easy to self-manage

Shared hosting is simple and straightforward to set up. Most providers offer a control panel to manage your website. This simplified user interface manages the administrative tasks and any monitoring duties associated with running a server.

You can host multiple domains

You can install numerous websites in your user directory; you just need to make sure the domains you purchase are connected to it. An example would be one person having different domains for their personal website, their hobbyist blog, and their business. Shared hosting is perfect for this.

It’s professionally managed

Shared hosting is relatively low maintenance. Your host will take the headache out of running your server by taking care of basic server administrative tasks. Unless you are prepared to run your own server, web management is the most convenient option. Leave it to professionals to worry about your web hosting – With shared hosting you can expect professional technical assistance for everything from hardware upgrades and maintenance, software updates, DDoS attacks, network outages, etc.

It can host dynamic websites

Websites that look different according to who is browsing are known as dynamic. Popular dynamic websites include Facebook, Quora and Twitter, and dynamic content management systems (CMSs) include WordPress and Joomla!. Dynamic sites and CMSs use alternative programming languages such as Perl, Python or PHP, all of which can run on a shared server.

Things to consider

There are some important criteria to think about when choosing between shared hosting providers, and it goes beyond just pricing. You should look for the following characteristics of a shared hosting package.

Uptime

When you are looking for a shared hosting plan, make sure you have certain uptime guarantees. The absolute minimum you should accept from a host is 99%.

Speed

Sites sharing a server don’t affect the speed and performance of each other using the shared hosting at Namecheap, but this can’t be said of many web hosting companies.

Traffic

Factor your anticipated website traffic into your decision. It’s not easy to make projections about web traffic, but if for any reason you expect a large amount of traffic, shared hosting might not be suitable since you might be breaking their fair use policy.

Resources

Resources are always limited, this is the basic premise of the entire field of economics and applies to shared hosting. When choosing shared hosting, check the fine print for what is within their fair use policy. It will cause problems for others if your site gets huge amounts of traffic, if your visitors download masses of content, or a script causes the server to slow down for instance. The podcast website Frogpants experienced problems because visitors were downloading and streaming big files for example.

Limited customization

If you have any special technical requirements, this might not be the plan for you. You aren’t allowed to use customized software. For example, if you need to run an alternative operating system like FreeBSD, or PostgreSQL script for your database, you’ll need your own server, if your shared hosting plan doesn’t offer these. The best option, in this case, will be a virtual or physical server as most use MySQL and PHP since most popular CMS engines and blog builders are designed to work with them.

Support

Just because this style of hosting is inexpensive, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t expect support. Look out for a host with support agents working around the clock and available by the means you will find most helpful, such as phone, email or live chat.

Above all else, you must keep in mind that you’re sharing. You share a server with many other customers, all of whom have, ideally, small sites. Since these sites are relatively lightweight, they don’t require many resources so the server won’t feel the strain of hosting them all together.

VPS hosting is an available option for both shared servers and dedicated servers. With many acronyms describing service offerings and virtual server types, it can be difficult to really know what you are getting when you purchase a service or resource to host your website.

VPS hosting is an excellent platform for personal websites, small-to-medium-sized business websites, or eCommerce marketplaces. To ensure that you make the right decision for your situation, start by diving into what VPS hosting service offers and whether they are a good fit for your needs.

What Does the VPS Provide?

VPS is short for virtual private server, sometimes referred to as virtual dedicated server (VDS). As a client of a web hosting service, you are provided access to a virtual server. This means that many virtual servers are likely operating on one physical machine within the hosting service, and you are granted remote access to a piece of the whole.

As the end user, it appears as though you have your own dedicated server. VPS services allow you to install your own security software and configure it with the operating system of your choosing. However, in reality, you have just a portion of the server, which is also being used by many other customers.

What Can Be Run Using VPS Hosting Services?

Because a VPS is analogous to a virtual machine, any software that can run on the VPS’s operating system may be installed. For example, a VPS can be used to support any of the following:

• eCommerce software
• blog hosting
• company website
• file transfer protocol (FTP)
• email server
• data storage

The Benefits of VPS Web Hosting

There are benefits and drawbacks to VPS hosting services. While many customers will not notice any decline in performance over the long haul, some larger websites may experience decreased performance due to the activity of the other users on the same server. For many businesses though, VPS hosting offers up all the benefits they expect at a reasonable cost. The four main benefits of VPS web hosting are as follows:

1. 1. Flexible Resource Allocation

VPS hosting offers dedicated resources for your website; specifically, the amount of RAM, CPU, and disk space you specify are assigned to your VPS. If, however, your website experiences a surge in traffic and requires greater resources than you have specified, you may be able to temporarily borrow resources from another VPS.

The flexibility permitted by the VPS is one of its most useful benefits. VPS hosting often makes use of a hypervisor, which is software that facilitates this sharing of resources. If your site needs more resources to accommodate a large number of visitors and another website on a separate VPS is not using all of its resources, your site can borrow the extra power.

1. 2. Root Access to Customize and Configure the VPS

VPS hosting also gives you root access to configure and make changes to your hosting environment. Root access is not guaranteed with other arrangements, such as a shared hosting plan. If you are particularly tech-savvy or foresee hiring web developers in the future, the root access will allow you to configure your VPS accordingly.

A common alternative to VPS hosting for website owners is dedicated hosting, where you do not share the server with other customers. Dedicated hosting is a popular option because of its root access and improved configuration. VPS hosting, on the other hand, allows you to enjoy the benefits of customization that a dedicated server offers without the large price tag..

1. 3. Scalability

As stated earlier, VPS hosting is the middle ground between a shared server without any dedicated resources and a completely dedicated server with optimum performance. Most websites perform adequately with VPS hosting and only require slight increases in performance as the site and traffic grows.

VPS hosting offers scalability so that available resources can grow with you as you need them. This means that if you start out on a shared server, you would then need to invest time in migration to a VPS when required. However, if you start with a VPS, you can migrate slowly without breaking the bank on a dedicated server, which you may not need for quite some time.

1. 4. An Affordable Option

VPS hosting is much more affordable for website owners than purchasing a dedicated server. It can reliably host your website or application, handle surges in traffic, and grow to accommodate your needs over time.

Rather than committing to a dedicated server and spending nearly twice as much (or sometimes more) than a VPS hosting solution, take your time to evaluate your options. VPS hosting offers you a way to get in the game without a prohibitively high cost of entry.

The worst thing that could happen if you end up needing a dedicated server in the future is that you would need to spend some time and money migrating to that upgraded resource. However, you would still have saved money in the beginning with a VPS server and learned which features are appropriate for your application or website.

Look into Your Options Before Investing in VPS Hosting

In addition to reading blogs and doing your online research, call a couple of trusted providers of VPS hosting and ask for their opinion on which type of hosting best suits your current needs. You might be surprised to learn how affordable a monthly VPS hosting plan is for your current needs.

Prepare for your conversation with possible hosting partners by knowing your budget upfront and having key stats ready to help inform your decision. Make sure to check your current (or predicted) site traffic and note any times in the recent past when your site was down or experienced poor performance. You should also know what you want out of your hosting platform, whether it is better reliability, increased performance, or room to grow as your traffic increases.

Once you have a few conversations under your belt with VPS provides and are armed with a range of features, applications, and pricing, you’ll be well equipped to decide if VPS hosting is the best type of hosting for you.

The misunderstanding about the technological difference between Cloud Hosting vs VPS Hosting in the web hosting industry is becoming quite a buzz now.

Most of the people generally tend to misread the basic difference between the two. This is due to the lack of awareness about the differentiating factors of these two web hosting technologies.

With the advent of virtualization and remote operations, there is a considerable increase in most of the established organizations and even startups opting for similar solutions to host their websites.

They no more need to own a physical architecture (a CPU with the certain specifications of processor, RAM, and storage), an operating system, on top of this hardware, and then the particular web application (like WordPress, Magento, Drupal, Joomla, and many more etc.) on which website is to be hosted.

And, that’s not it! Further, this arrangement will require efficient and redundant power supplies and periodic maintenance to ensure the server is up and running at all times.

Firstly, let’s jump to the basics for a while about what cloud and virtualization are. In simple words, cloud and virtualization is something that separates the hardware, operating system, and the application running on that hardware from each other.

The basic concept remains the same in both of the technologies. However, reliability, flexibility, and availability have been some major separating indicators between the two.

What Is VPS Hosting?

VPS (Virtual Private Servers) Hosting, sometimes also known as “Private Cloud”, is based on servers which are crafted using virtualization mechanism.

The architecture is one which has multiple individual dedicated slots on the same virtual machine. Each slot can be assigned to dedicated resources. Nonetheless, the technology generally works on a time-shared or resource-shared phenomenon.

One of the major disadvantages that are stopping the VPS hosting industry to reach to the next level is its vulnerability that can cause a particular slot or resource go down in any crash scenario and the application or website on that particular space will be unavailable with no redundant online availability unless and until the issue is fixed.

However, the rest of the applications on different slots will be up and running without any disruption in service.

But, there remains a possibility, although in exceptional cases, where a major trouble hitting a certain slot, such as unexpectedly excessive traffic on a random day or DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, can cause the entire machine and the subsequent applications to go down as all the resources belong to the same machine.

However, VPS hosting does have some useful points as it brings the margin closer between the dedicated and shared hosting solutions.

Benefits of VPS Hosting

• VPS hosting offers total and complete freedom. Free to manage your server as you like, you have access to everything and you can install all the software you need.
• Hosting in VPS is very efficient. Unlike shared hosting, the VPS is not dependent on traffic or audience. You have your own resources and you are isolated from other servers.
• Hosting in VPS is secure. All your files are private and inaccessible to other clients regardless of their rights on the server.

What Is Cloud Hosting?

Cloud hosting is the top-of-the-line website (or application) hosting solution available presently. The technology has already achieved a tremendous level of acceptance in a short period of time.

Websites hosted on the cloud are accessible anytime, anywhere. This means that hosting resources for each website are replicated on every cloud server in the cluster. For example, if one cloud server has maximum traffic already, then it automatically routes the query for the specific site to the idle cloud server in the cluster.

In other words, cloud runs the web hosting services, like files storage, SSH, FTP, SFTP, and email services (for e.g. SMTP), etc., on many different servers simultaneously.

This simultaneous allocation of equal resources on the cloud servers in the cluster provides a great deal of reliability. For example, if one of the machines malfunctions, it will not cause failure or disruption in the entire hosting service.

Benefits of Cloud Hosting

• Cloud hosting is relatively reliable because your website is hosted on a virtual partition that takes advantage of multiple physical networks. When one of the servers goes offline, it will slightly reduce the resource level to the cloud but will not add up to your website. No inaccessibility or anything else.
• Cloud hosting is secured by many physical servers that are protected from third-parties who want to access their premises or interrupt their services.
• Cloud hosting is extensible, flexible, and scalable. It does not have the same constraints as a single server. Resources are available according to your requests and in real time.
• Cloud hosting is economical because you only pay for what you use.

Which Server to Choose? Cloud Hosting vs VPS Hosting

VPS hosting is generally less efficient since it allocates a specified amount of computing resources to each client. Hence, if the requirement increases, the system would not be able to handle the additional inflow. It will simply crash. Same would be the case if the server malfunctions.

Cloud hosting, on the other hand, tackles the increase differently. Under the cloud environment, the website is hosted on a pool of unified computing resources. This simply means that if one server is reaching its optimum level, then a second server is ready to function. Similarly, if a server fails, the website will still be running as other servers will continue to serve the incoming traffic.

If you want reliability and powerful functionality, then Cloud hosting is a great choice. The recent price slashes in cloud infrastructure from Amazon and the likes shows that the market has immense growth potential. Furthermore, it shows that cloud hosting is getting affordable too.

VPS is made for people who are interested in hosting just a website. While it is powerful, VPS does not guarantee uptime should your website fails due to high traffic or a technical glitch.

Why Cloud Hosting Stands out as the Best Hosting Solution?

The cloud-based hosting, however, is more stable as there will not be any effect on performance when a part of the component goes down as it is decentralized.

In the Cloud, there is an option to integrate additional resources if needed. RAM, disc space, or bandwidth, etc., can be added with few clicks and dismissed when no longer needed without financial loss. Thus, Cloud hosting can also be defined as a web hosting solution that provides resources on demand. It is dynamically scalable and customizable according to the needs of the customer. No large investments are required. Unnecessary resources can be removed without any cancellation or further fees.