What is Shared Hosting?

Owning a website became one of the major needs for any business. after building your website you will need a suitable web hosting plan to make your website online for anyone who wants to reach it. 

there are different web hosting types but shared hosting is one of the most popular used options for web hosting. It is usually used by those who are building their first website.

 In this article, we’ll dive into details and explain how it works, and we’ll also discuss its pros and cons to help you decide which is the best choice for you. Let’s dive in!

What is shared hosting and how does it work?

 it is a type of web hosting where a server hosts multiple websites. Many users use the resources on a single server, and this keeps the cost low. Each user gets a part of the server where they can host their websites’ files. Imagine this kind of hosting like sharing an apartment with a roommate, so you’ll share the same server resources, like CPU cores, disk space, and memory with other users who are on the same server.

It is the cheapest way to host your website online. But, Unfortunately, your website might get slow with a high traffic load, and this happens because of the limited resources.

The pros and cons:

 We’re going to discuss the pros and cons compared with the other hosting options.

Shared hosting Pros:

• Affordable: It is the most affordable and cheapest hosting option. For example, shared hosting monthly costs could be as little as 2.99$ – 7.99$, and this is because you share the server resources with the other websites on the same server.
• 24/7 Support: Most companies including us offer 24/7 support on the shared plans, so you can rest and leave the heavy lifting for us.
• Easy setup: It is the most beginners friendly hosting option, so you don’t have to have any technical knowledge.
• Smooth Upgrade: your traffic increased? Most hosting companies including us have multiple hosting plans, so you can easily upgrade your hosting plan when you need to, without any complicated steps.
• Easy to manage: It usually comes with cPanel, making it easy for you to manage your website.

Shared hosting Cons:

• Shared resources: As we’ve explained, in this hosting plan you share the server resources with other websites, and it’s not a big deal when it comes to small websites, but it is still a negative point when it comes to the medium to large websites.
• A bit slower: The loading time can be a lot slower than the VPS or Dedicated servers environments, and there’s a chance that your website’s performance can be affected by other websites on the same server.
• Less Customizable: you will not have the full customization option as you have a dedicated server, so you will not be able to do advanced customizations on the server.
• A little risky: Because several websites are sharing the same server, so it can be infected with malware or be the victim of a hacking attack, which can affect all other websites on the server. So you have to choose a hosting company with a firewall and malware scan. For example, we bundle our plans SiteLock light on all of our shared hosting plans.

Alternatives to Shared Hosting

 There are many other options, such as VPS or Dedicated Servers.

 But they are more expensive and professional options than shared hosting plans, but they will provide you with much higher performance and customization options.

 So which is the best option for you?

 Let’s discuss when shared hosting plans will be the best choice for you and when it is not.

Is shared hosting good?

Let’s do a fast review for pros:

• Affordable
• 24/7 Support
• Easy setup
• Smooth Upgrade
• Easy to manage

 After we know the pros and cons of shared hosting, we can say that it is perfect for beginners and small businesses; so if you just started with your first website, you should go with shared hosting. 

 Also, it is perfect for low-traffic websites such as portfolios’ websites, personal blogs, personal websites, and small business websites.

Why shared hosting is bad?

Let’s review the cons:

• Shared resources
• A bit slower
• Less Customizable
• A little risky

 As we said above, shared hosting is mainly for beginners or small and low-traffic websites.

 So if you’re launching a big website that will have a high number of product photos with high resolution and high traffic, then shared hosting will not be good for you.

 Here shines the VPS hosting, with very much higher loading capacity and full control to help you customize your server as you need to level up the performance.

Final Thoughts 

After you know about the pros and cons, and when it will be the perfect option for you, and when it won’t. We recommend if you are starting your website or just even thinking, to start with a good shared plan, once your website starts to grow and attract more traffic volumes, then you should upgrade to a VPS hosting plan. If you are new to the hosting world, you can read and learn more about VPS hosting; also, you can start picking up your shared hosting plan and start your online presence today!