Deciding to publish a website, any website, is an exciting process.
With all the platforms, options, customizations, and choices available to you, it can be overwhelming to decide just what hosting option is the best fit.
Hopefully, we can clear up some of the confusion and get you well on your way!
Choosing the right Web Hosting Service
The first decision you’ll have to make about your website is what kind of server you want to host your website on.
You have three main options:
- Shared hosting
- Virtual Private Server (or VPS)
- Dedicated hosting.
Ranging in price and functionality, it all depends on your specific website needs.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the simplest, cheapest, and easiest option for websites just starting out. The costs are usually under $10/month, but your customization options and traffic flow are often limited. With shared hosting you are one small part of a single server, sharing memory, function, and storage with neighbor sites.
VPS Hosting
Virtual private server hosting offer more customization and RAM, as you have your own virtual server for your account, but tied still to a single shared server. VPS offers more security and customization functionality, but it does come with a heftier price tag and server customizations are still limited.
Dedicated Hosting
What is Dedicated hosting? It is the most advanced web hosting solution available.
With dedicated hosting, your website is the only one on a server, allowing you full access to all the storage, memory, and functionality. The possibilities are endless on a dedicated server.
But is it right for you? If you have a website that expects a lot of traffic and you need an entirely customizable experience, then yes!
Dedicated hosting brings with it a great deal of benefits that shared hosting and VPS just simply can’t offer. Perhaps the biggest draw is that you are the only one using an entire server, which means you have complete and total access to the RAM. This means you can store massive amounts of information for your website without reaching limits set by shared plans. Dedicated hosting allows you to set up your server with near limitless customizations, allowing for scaling to meet the needs of your visitors on demand.
Increased traffic with Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated servers can handle more than 500,000 visitors per month, meaning your website is well equipped to handle incoming traffic without slowing down and crashing. If you run a high-performing website, this is a huge must. For most businesses these days, their website is the lifeblood of their business. The last thing you want is a server crash due to the high volumes of website traffic.
With dedicated hosting, you don’t have to worry.
On top of customization, traffic, and storage, dedicated servers come with the real-time customer support and robust security that lends to a safe browsing experience for your visitors.
With dedicated hosting, since you are not renting space on a shared server, crossover of information and breaches of security are highly unlikely.
Furthermore, dedicated hosting plans have the technical support and measures taken to ensure your dedicated server is just that: dedicated to you, and you alone.
However, dedicated hosting is not the best option for everyone.
The price tag of a dedicated hosting plan can average about $150/month. Because of this, it is wise to take stock of your website and needs before purchasing a dedicated server. If you aren’t sure that you’ll have immense amounts of traffic or require such space to begin, think about starting with a shared hosting or VPS hosting plan until you are ready to scale.
The second drawback to dedicated hosting lies within your own capabilities and man power. It is important to know how to utilize all the features of dedicated hosting in order to get all the benefits. If you don’t have the team to correctly manage a dedicated server, you might be missing out on a lot of functionality you are paying a high price for.
Dedicated hosting is an excellent choice for websites that see a lot of traffic looking to scale to the next level.
