Web Hosting – Hosting Affinity

Best VPS Hosting Plans in [year] – Top 6 Revealed

Hostaffstaging2 — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 03:28:58 +0000

Shared web hosting is the easiest, cheapest and fastest way to get a website up on the internet. However, these shared shared plans aren’t always the best option for every situation. If you require the storage space and functionality offered by a dedicated server but cannot afford the steep associated costs, then consider using one of the best VPS hosting plans we’ve identified for you below.

Should You Switch to VPS Hosting?

You might not require to switch from shared to VPS if you only have a small website. However, if you are looking to speed up your site, then it might be time to switch to VPS hosting.

Virtual private servers, or VPS, are also an ideal option if your site is receiving a high amount of traffic regularly. The upgraded server resources offered by these plans are intended to help websites scale and handle increased visitors.

Switching to a VPS hosting plan enables you to have a virtual server environment. This means that you can have complete control over every aspect of your server’s settings including apps and extensions you choose to use.

Although the hosting provider will host multiple VPS clients on one server, similar to shared hosting, the number is considerably smaller. Every subscriber will be given a percentage of the servers’ most important resources, such as storage space, RAM and CPU cores.

Most VPS plans have standard management tools, such as cPanel. These tools allow you to monitor and configure your site. There are even hosts that provide website and uptime monitoring and address any issues on the spot as they arise.

Differences Between Shared Hosting and VPS Hosting

Shared hosting is ideal for smaller sites that do not demand a lot of bandwidth. Most providers offer server maintenance and management, making it easy to use for newbies.

However with this option your resources are quite limited.

VPS hosting on the other hand, is like having an entire apartment on your own. Your site is still housed on a physical server and shared by other users. However the percentage of server resources dedicated to you are not shared with others.

Image credit: namecheap.com

In this case, there is no need to worry about sharing server resources with unknown neighbors. Plus, this setup also offers better security because your data are completely separated from other users of the same server.

The best thing about VPS hosting is that you can get similar functionality as a dedicated server, at a fraction of the cost.

Several companies offer virtual private server web hosting plans. The prices of these plans can vary widely from a few dollars a month to over a hundred.

We examined a range of VPS hosting providers, the plans they offer, features included and what differentiated them from the others. We asked questions such as: what features are included in each plan tier? How is their historical performance? Do they have excellent support and assistance?

Our 6 Best VPS Hosting Providers Are:

1. Bluehost

BlueHost offers flexible and powerful VPS options. This plan comes with multi-server management that lets you add more space to your account with just a few clicks.

Features

BlueHost uses all SSD drives for a lightning fast and more reliable environment. To ensure 100% access to resources, it uses KM hypervisor for their Linux servers. This provider does not include additional CPU and RAM out of the box. However, its enhanced cPanel lets you add more storage immediately on an individual basis.

BlueHost offers VPS instant provisioning so you can set up your site on its VPS servers in seconds. Keep in mind that setting up VPS can sometimes take hours or days to activate. With instant provisioning, you can quickly use the server space you have paid for.

With BlueHost VPS hosting you are also given root access, which allows you to get full admin privileges. You can modify and access the server, installing and uninstalling any app you might need.

Pricing

You can lock down a VPS plan from BlueHost starting at $18.99/ month. This is among the lowest priced plans you’ll find from these best VPS providers. However, you should note this starting price is a promotional offer for a set time. After the promotional period ends, you will have to pay full price of $29.99/ month.

All of BlueHosts VPS plans are supported with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you ever need assistance you can contact their helpful customer support via phone, email or live chat 24 hours a day.

Is it a good deal? BlueHost are one of the most well known names in the industry. They provide a robust offering with a great promotional price to get started packed with all standard features. If you are already on a shared hosting plan looking to upgrade, this is a great option.

2. Liquid Web

Liquid Web focuses on providing high-quality VPS hosting services. They have superior configuration features including an integrated firewall, DDoS attack protection, advanced server security and Cloudflare CDN. However, all these goodies come at a higher price point.

Liquid Web is a premium web hosting provider. They have been offering high-quality managed VPS options for over 20 years. There are more than 500k sites from 32k clients around the world hosted on their servers.

That being said, these services are not cheap. Rather, focus is placed on delivering high-quality products and can deliver excellent results. In other words, you get what you pay for if you wish for high performance.

Features & Pricing

The lowest plan comes at $29/ month. It gives you 2GB RAM with generous 10TB bandwidth and 40 gigs of SSD storage.

There are an abundance of operating system options as you can utilize Ubuntu, Debian, and CentOS.

Liquid Web provides a customer support team that will monitor any failed services and restore them immediately.

Managed VPS as service is also available from other providers, but typically incurs an extra charge. With Liquid Web, server management comes as part of the package. With its robust infrastructure and management services, you can focus on what you do best: your customers and content.

If you need technical support at the wee hours, the knowledgeable pros of LiquidWeb are available 24/7. These professionals will do their best to solve your problems quickly and efficiently.

Is it a good deal? Liquid Web offers only a real deal when it comes to VPS hosting. They have high-powered hardware and a 24/7 customer support that you can count on. This, combined with the fact that every VPS plan is managed for you leads us to recommend Liquid Web as the best premium VPS option.

3. HostGator

HostGator are probably one of the most well known players in the game. They offer three tiers of VPS hosting plans in their environment build for scaling.

Features & Pricing

HostGator VPS hosting plans include the standard custom OS installs and configurations, as well as up to 240 GB storage. You get to enjoy a minimum of 2 dedicated IP addresses and up to 4 CPU cores. The minimum bandwidth is 1.5TB while the max is 3TB. The plans can start at $29.95/month for the lowest tier, $39.99 for the middle tier and $49.99 for the most expensive option.

HostGator will migrate your site to their VPS hosting offerings for free. With their managed VPS option a custom cPanel comes standard, giving a plethora of administrative tools. An unmanaged option, on the other hand, will require in-depth technical skills as the custom cPanel is not included.

Is it a good deal? HostGator includes state-of-the-art hardware and attentive support team. Plus, it performs off-site data backups weekly. If you need to migrate your site, the provider offers free migration assistance. HostGator provide top quality services and features at a competitive price.

A2 Hosting

With an emphasis on performance, A2 hosting is another great VPS hosting provider. If you prioritize performance and speed, as well as security, then A2 Hoisting could be a great contender.

When launched in 2003, A2 Hosting were one of the first providers to offer web hosting services with an emphasis on speed. They have a complete stack of optimizations that can boost page load speeds by up to 300%. Its Turbo option can handle connections more efficiently, at higher speeds and with more stability and uptime.

Features & Pricing

For its managed VPS plans, you get 75GB storage and 2 TB transfer bandwidth and 4GB RAM. The unmanaged version offers 20GB storage and 2 TB transfer. It includes 512 MB ram and SSD option as an upgrade.

You can get started with the unmanaged plan for only $5/ month. If you would prefer to be hands off and opt for a managed VPS hosting plan, expect to pay a steep price of $32.99/ month.

A2 Hosting promises 99.9% uptime with its excellent support team available 24/7. They offer the standard 30-day money-back guarantee.

Is it a good deal? A2 Hosting provides optimal performance and incredible innovations that allow the company to offer a balance of speed and reliability. With the multiple VPS options available ranging from unmanaged to managed and managed with root access, these A2 Hosting plans are some of the best on the market.

5. Inmotion

Inmotion is a strong provider with well-specified plans packed with features. They do not offer the most attractive price as the cheapest plan starts at $27.99 per month. However this rate is reasonable considering its features included.

Compared to other providers, InMotion offers 4GB RAM, 4TB bandwidth with 75GB storage and 3 dedicated IPs. cPanel and automated backups are also included at no additional charge. Plus, they offer a money-back guarantee for 90 days; most providers offer a 30 day guarantee.

The plan also comes with a unique feature called unlocked CPU cores. This allows you to distribute your processing load to different cores on the server. It can be a significant performance boost if you need simultaneous processing. Finally, plan comes with a program called Launch Assist, giving you two hours of free time with the provider’s server admins to help get you setup for success.

Is it a good deal? InMotion hosting is a mid-level VPS provider with better hardware specs. It features automated free server backups and lets you choose your Data Center. With these hosting provider’s features, you can’t go wrong with InMotion VPS hosting.

5. Linode

Linode is a Cloud Hosting provider. Linode accelerates innovation by making cloud computing simple, accessible, and affordable to all. Founded in 2003, Linode helped pioneer the cloud computing industry and today is the largest Independent Open Cloud provider in the world.
Headquartered in Philadelphia’s Old City, the company empowers more than a million developers, startups, and businesses across its global network of 11 data centers, in locations like the US, Europe (both inside and out of the EU), Asia Pacific (including Australia), and India.

Linode’s shared Compute plans are a perfect match for everything from WordPress blogs to web apps and start at just $5. Linode also offers Dedicated CPU plans and High Memory plans for high traffic websites. And for those looking to do serious machine learning, data analysis, and graphics rendering, Linode offers GPU-enabled VPS, too. All plans are billed hourly and include a generous pool of network transfer to pull from, so there are no surprises should your site go viral.

Here is a list of the other products and features Linode offers:

S3-compatible Object Storage is great for sharing static content like movies, music, PDF files, and web assets like HTML, JavaScript, and image files.
Block Storage: Need an extra few gigs of storage on your plan? Block Storage costs just $.10/GB.
Backups
Monitoring
Managed Kubernetes
A fully-featured domain manager if you’d like to use Linode’s name servers.
Linode also offers a growing assortment of One-Click apps you can install on your server. Be up and running in no time with a new WordPress, Drupal, or Minecraft server, to name a few.

Shared CPU VPS Pricing:

CPU Cores	RAM	Storage	Transfer	Price/Month
1	1GB	25GB	1TB	$5
2	1GB	50GB	2TB	$10
4	2GB	80GB	4TB	$20
8	4GB	160GB	5TB	$40
16	6GB	320GB	8TB	$80
32	8GB	640GB	16TB	$160

For a complete listing of plans and details, check out Linode’s pricing page.

Conclusion - Top 6 Best VPS Hosting Providers

VPS hosting plans are an upgrade from entry level shared hosting plans for website owners who are ready to get serious.

These plans offer much of the same functionality as dedicated servers, without quite as much maintenance or technical knowledge needed.

With the plethora of options out there, these are how the best VPS hosting providers line up:

With so many options out there, we’re confident you’ll find the best VPS hosting plan for your specific needs.

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Hostaffstaging2 — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 22:39:06 +0000

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How to Choose a Web Host

14 Important Web Hosting Features

Hostaffstaging2 — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 18:44:01 +0000

So you’ve decided to create a website. Congratulations! Before you can begin to develop and publish, though, you have to decide what kind of web hosting you want to use.

A lot of hosting services use technical terminology that seems to go over the head of those not immersed in technology.

So, to make things a little easier for you, here’s an explanation of what web hosting is, the different hosting services available, and what’s important when investigating hosting companies.

Types of Web Hosting Services

To start, it’s important to know the hosting options available to you. Between shared hosting, virtual personal server (VPS), and dedicated hosting, there’s a lot to sort through.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the cheapest but most limited option, allowing you to “rent” a specific amount of space on a server that other people also use. This is a fantastic option for those websites that are just getting off the ground and don’t expect a great deal of traffic.

Shared hosting also means you have “neighbors” using the same server’s RAM and functionality, which poses slight risk of security breaches. You have customizable features available to you, but not unlimited possibilities. Regardless, you can certainly get a website up and running in a matter of minutes and with just a few dollars a month.

Shared hosting is the most popular choice for small businesses starting out.

VPS Hosting

A virtual personal server, or a VPS, allows you the security and freedom of a dedicated server, but without the price tag.

VPS platforms still operate as a shared hosting service, but your website/account has more protection, more options, and more storage capacity than standard shared hosting plans.

Dedicated Hosting

Finally, a dedicated server is just that: a single server dedicated solely to your website. You have unique access to the RAM, functionality, and customization for your website.

This of course, comes with a significant price tag averaging $125/month, and therefore isn’t the best option for those sites just starting.

Dedicated hosting means you also have 24/7 customer support (generally), little to no downtime, and oftentimes in-person server security.

Once you decide which type of hosting suits your needs best, you must choose which of the many hosting companies you want to give your business to.

While there are no shortage of options, there are some things to consider when choosing a hosting service provider.

Lets look at some of the most important web hosting features.

1. Disk Space

First off, want to be sure to determine how much storage your website is going to need. As previously mentioned, the amount of allocated disk space varies by hosting type (shared, VPS, dedicated) as well as by plan. For most people, a few gigabytes of storage is plenty. However for high traffic sites you’ll certainly need more.

Be wary of hosting services promising unlimited storage, as every server, even a dedicated one has its limits. Servers are a physical piece of equipment, after all. There is no truly unlimited plan.

Cost- This is an obvious one, but one worth mentioning. While you are likely to see sites in the same range, the price jump from a shared server to a VPS and dedicated one is steep. Look at what the hosting platform is offering you for your membership and take it in stock with what you actually need and will use. You can always upgrade later, a good rule of thumb.

2. Bandwidth

Knowing the capacity of your server and hosting platform is vital. Bandwidth impacts how well your site can handle influx of traffic, since bandwidth is (simply) how much data your website can use each month. Low bandwidth, low traffic support; high bandwidth, high traffic capabilities.

3. Tech Support

Even if you are a veteran website developer, this is one of the most important web hosting features. Your site may crash, the server may malfunction, or something just isn’t working quite right.

The best and most effective way to rectify these issues is to contact someone who works with the hosting company directly. It is important that your hosting support comes with access to troubleshoot and talk you through any issues.

This is especially important to consider when you are just starting your website as you are likely new to web hosting in general. A good tech support team with your membership will be an invaluable asset to keeping your site running smoothly and functioning as intended.

Common customer support channels to look for in a web host include:

Live chat
Phone support
Ticketing systems
Email support

4. Email Accounts and Features

Having email services allow you to create custom email addresses with your domain. Instead of using a standard ISP domain (like Google or Yahoo), you can have an email address branded with your website domain.

Questions to ask: Does the hosting provider include email with each hosting plan? If so, what is disk space allocation for email? How many email accounts can be created? Are accounts offered in IMAP or only POP?

5. Number of Domains (Sub and Parked included)

You will want to make sure you know how many domains your host will allow with your plan. If you see success with your first site, it is likely you will want to launch another. Rather than paying for a separate hosting plan, you can launch multiple sites under one.

Sub domains are part of a primary domain. For example, a sub domain for hostingaffinity.com could look like example.hostingaffinity.com. A sub domain appears as a completely different website and can be built as such.

Parked domains allow you to keep your purchased domain names on the same hosting plan as your live sites. If you think of a unique name for your next site, you can purchase that domain and “park” it until you are ready for development.

6. Control Panel

The most commonly used back end website access is cPanel. In the cPanel interface you are able to manage the technical aspects of your website. Here you can manage DNS, databases, setup email accounts, ftp accounts, and more.

Often times managed WordPress hosting services have a custom control panel. With managed hosting, many of the features offered in cPanel become irrelevant. Managed hosting is a good fit for those who prefer to focus less on the technical aspect of a website, and more on design and development.

7. Backup Services

Site backup is arguably one of the most important services a hosting provider can offer. If anything were to happen to your site, you want to ensure you have a recently backed up version to restore.

Check to see if your hosting plan offers free site backup. How many copies of your site will they retain? How long will each backup be retained for?

8. Backup Restore

Equally as important as the website backup itself is the restoration. Make sure that you understand what it will take for the hosting provider to restore a backed up version of your site. Oftentimes website backup restore services are free. Make sure you know your hosting companies’ policy so you don’t end up getting charged without knowing if something were to happen.

9. CMS Support and Easy Install

Understanding which CMS (content management systems) your web host supports is vital. More than 30% of all websites are now built on WordPress. Due to ease of use and requirement of little to no coding knowledge, WordPress has quickly become the go-to CMS.

Because its popularity, many hosting companies offer one-click WordPress installation. One example, Bluehost is one of the few officially recognized hosting providers by WordPress.org. 1-click WordPress install is now becoming a standard offering. Make sure to check your hosting plan before purchasing.

10. Uptime

It is important to investigate how reliable a web hosting provider is before committing to a plan. Although this may seem like a no-brainer, the uptime of a website is one of the most important features a hosting company can offer. Be careful, oftentimes hosting providers claim to have “100% uptime!”, which may not actually be the case. Do some investigation, read some reviews and find out the experiences other users have had in regards to website uptime.

11. Free SSL

A SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate has become standard for all websites. SSL certificates allow your users to safely visit your website by encrypting data transfer between browser and host. Google has now made website security a ranking factor. This means that websites without SSL certificates are ranked lower in the search results than those with. If you don’t have a secure website, your SEO could be negatively impacted.

Luckily, many hosts are now offering a free SSL certificate with their hosting plans. Check to see if this important feature is included in the hosting package you are looking at.

12. Free CDN

A Content Delivery Network, or CDN, helps speed up your website by storing a version of it on the CDN providers servers in physical locations around the world. When someone visits your site and you are using a CDN, your site will be served to that user from the closest physical location possible.

Similar to the Free SSL certificates hosting providers are offering, a free CDN is becoming a popular add on as well. While not as important as other features, a free CDN is a nice offering that helps significantly speed up your site.

13. Website Migration

For those of you who already have an existing website, website migration may become an important feature to look out for. Many hosting companies now offer free website migration as a perk when first signing up for a hosting plan. Make sure to keep this in mind when researching a new web hosting company and plan.

14. Free Domain

Many shared web hosting plans now come with a free domain. Typically this will be the registration fee for the first year ($10-15 value). When it comes down to it, this may not be the ultimate deciding factor but it is still good to know if you can get a free domain with your new hosting plan.

Final Word

Whether you are just researching a hosting provider for your first time for hundredth time, we hope you’ve found this article useful. Let us know what you think in the comments or on social media! We’d love to hear what hosting features you think are the most important when choosing a web hosting provider.

What is Dedicated Hosting?

Hostaffstaging2 — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 23:10:14 +0000

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.

What is VPS hosting?

Hostaffstaging2 — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 03:34:53 +0000

There are so many web hosting options out there: shared hosting, VPS, dedicated servers. What do they all mean?

We’re here to break it down for you with the best web hosting comparisons, and in this article we’ll cover VPS hosting.

Starting a new website may seem daunting at first- the sheer terminology of website hosting is enough to make any new comer scratch their head. I’m here to help break down some of the decisions you’ll face after deciding to run a website.

Choosing the best web hosting service

The first thing you’ll have to choose is what kind of hosting you want to utilize for your website. A website must be hosted on a server in order to be displayed for your potential visitors.

Servers can run many websites at once- as long as it doesn’t exceed the bandwidth and memory of the server hardware. Because of their limitations, one question you’ll have to answer is whether or not you want your website on a shared hosting or dedicated hosting plan.

Shared hosting is the cheapest and simplest of options, but also quite limited in its functionality and capacity, while a dedicated server is expensive and can handle high amounts of traffic and advanced operations.

However, there is a middle option as well, a virtual private server or VPS.

What is VPS hosting?

VPS hosting can range in price from $20/month into the $100s and offers a significant amount of control over your website which can only be achieved with server access for customization.

With a VPS hosting plan, you are still technically on a shared server, however you have a great deal more disk space, privacy, and server access. VPS hosting functions off of a single server, like shared hosting, but it does so in a way that you purchase or rent space that is allocated and protected like a single, dedicated server.

Since VPS allows your website to function as if on a dedicated server, you get a lot of the same benefits of a dedicated server at a fraction of the cost. While some people may worry about security in a shared hosting environment, using VPS hosting cuts this risk out. The control enabled with VPS hosting allows you customize server configurations and vastly reducing security risk

Server customization with VPS hosting plans

Using VPS allows you to customize server systems without the rigid limits of broad shared hosting platforms. You can alter the operations of the server to suit your individual website needs. Along the same lines, your individual virtual private server can be updated, restarted, and maintained by you at any time. Although the physical server hardware is shared, your VPS is specific to your account- giving you operational control that you don’t have with simple shared hosting plans.

Website uptime and speed with VPS hosting plans

Perhaps the biggest benefit of VPS hosting is the amount of RAM and storage you have available to just you. You don’t have to worry about a neighbor website suddenly getting millions of hits and storing terabytes of information and conversely impacting your website function. Your VPS RAM can only be used by you.

Who VPS hosting is not for

As great as VPS is, there are of course, downsides. The main ones simply being the price of access and the limits on what you can customize. For websites just starting out and not expecting a lot of traffic, shared hosting may be the best place to start. However, if expecting some traffic already and requiring a more in depth customization experience, VPS is worth the money.

And since virtual private servers are still a middle option when it comes to hosting, you can always opt to upgrade seamlessly to dedicated hosting when the time comes. Try VPS and see if you utilize all the functionality and services first.

What Is Shared Hosting?

Hostaffstaging2 — Sun, 02 Sep 2018 14:19:34 +0000

One of the first choices you’ll have to make for your website is what kind of hosting you want to use. For those just starting out, on a limited budget, or looking for the most simple platform, shared hosting is your best option.

Creating your own website can be the first step for any business or individual looking to reach a larger audience, brand, and cultivate a successful online presence. For business and companies, your own website is a necessity.

Right away, though, you are faced with choices that the not-so-technologically-inclined might find overwhelming and confusing, such as choosing a web hosting plan for your website.

But what web hosting service is best?

Shared hosting, VPS hosting, or dedicated hosting?

What is shared hosting anyways?

Let’s break it down.

All websites must be housed, or hosted, on a server. Servers do all of the technical work that allow us to deliver our websites and reach our audience. With shared hosting, multiple websites utilize a single server, sharing its functional capacity, memory, and bandwidth. With most shared hosting platforms, users can even set up multiple sites under a single account.

Advantages of Shared Hosting

There are many advantages to shared hosting, not least of which is its cost. For just a few dollars a month, you can:

get your website up and running
customize your site
gain site traffic

Since you are simply leasing a share of the server, you don’t have to worry about updates, safety protocols, software malfunction, and other aspects of server and website upkeep. With shared hosting, server uptime is the responsibility of the hosting company.

Shared Hosting 1-Click CMS Install

What is shared hosting used for? Who can benefit from the advantages of shared hosting?

One of the most important features of shared hosting plans is the ease of CMS installation.

Popular Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress or Blogspot offer users the ability to publish a site in minutes with extremely user friendly customizations. They do the leg work for you and all you have to do is choose a header, a font, and a theme. It truly couldn’t get more simple.

These CMS platforms are fantastic for blogs, entry level businesses, and low traffic forums. They are simple, cheap, and easily accessible. Your access to technical support if you need it is also a major bonus, since most people at this level don’t start out knowing everything about running a website!

A Few Faults with Shared Hosting

There are some downsides to shared hosting, however.

Safety and security of your website might sometimes be called into question as you don’t always know your “neighbors” on the server. Although not common, especially seeing as hosting platforms do everything they can to prevent it, security may be breached more easily on a shared server.

The second downfall to shared hosting is that once your website starts to receive significant traffic, your website will begin to perform more slowly. Since each website is allocated a certain amount of memory, space, and bandwidth, a website exceeding this allotment just isn’t supported to handle such traffic.

The last significant disadvantage is the limits placed on customization for your website. There usually are templates and limitations as to what your website on a shared hosting server can have, and this may be frustrating for users with a very specific vision or need.

Don’t get lured in too easily to platforms boasting unlimited hosting, though. While the name itself suggests infinite amount of bandwidth and storage, it is highly misleading. Many unlimited plans include caveats for the data that can be stored, for example. This is because there just simply isn’t an “unlimited” amount of resources for unlimited hosting. Remember, hosting is connected to very real servers and very real technicians running them.

Is Shared Hosting Right for Me?

Shared hosting, for all its strengths, is the first entry point for website publication. This being said, many of the disadvantages can be thwarted for an upgrade- often with the same hosting company and with website migration at a minimum.

Regardless, shared hosting is a phenomenal option for those just starting out with their websites. It’s cheap, user friendly, and just customizable enough to make it your own- with upgrades always available.

Planning to launch your own website? Compare Shared Hosting plans with our easy, side by side hosting comparisons.