When it comes time to choose where to host your website, you’ll have tons of options. Beyond deciding which company to host with, you also have to decide which hosting package is best for you.
Shared hosting is one of the most popular hosting options for those building their first websites. But, what is shared hosting, and does it make sense for your website?
Below we dive into what type of person can benefit from a shared hosting package.
What is Shared Hosting?
Shared hosting is a type of web hosting where one physical server hosts multiple websites. Many users use resources on a single server, which reduces costs. Each user gets a share of a server that can host their website files. Shared servers can host hundreds of users. Each customer using the shared hosting platform server has to access features such as databases, monthly traffic, disk space, email accounts, FTP accounts, and other add-ons offered by the hosting company. System resources are shared on demand by the server’s customers, each receiving a percentage of RAM and CPU and other components such as a single MySQL server, Apache server, and mail server.
Shared hosting offers the most cost-effective way to get a website online as the cost of maintaining a server is split between all users. This style of hosting is ideal for a small website or blog that does not require advanced configurations or high bandwidth. As shared hosting is not enough for high-traffic websites, high-volume sites should turn to VPS or dedicated hosting solutions instead.
In a way, shared hosting is like renting your piece of web space. With each shared hosting account, you receive a certain amount of:
- Disk space
- Bandwidth
- Email account creation
- And many other features
Disk space
Disk space is the amount of file storage you have allocated. Learn more about web hosting disk space on our blog.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data or information that can be passed between your website or your visitors, to and from your web host. When you visit a website, each piece of content such as text, video, photos, or functions displayed using the database sends a signal back and forth from you to your hosting account. For example, the larger the photo you have on a web page, the more bandwidth is used.
The amount of bandwidth you need for your website depends on its traffic – the number of page loads per day/month to your website.
Email account creation
Some shared hosting services include email services and you can create email accounts. Some hosts have plans that limit the number of email accounts, while others create unlimited email addresses.
And many other features
Some other features of shared hosting can be unlimited FTP account creation, automatic installer scripts for popular CMS, spam protection, free SSL, and many more.
Advantages of shared web hosting
Shared hosting provides the most cost-effective hosting solution. With many people contributing to the cost of the server, the cost of the hosting company is split between them.
New online businesses can start with a shared plan and upgrade their site hassle-free as they grow.
Setting up shared hosting is simple. Most providers offer a control panel to manage your website. This simplified user interface manages administrator tasks and any monitoring duties associated with running a server.
You can install many websites in your user directory; You just want to make sure the domains you buy are linked. For example, one person can have different domains for their personal website, their hobby blog, and their business. Shared hosting is perfect for this.
Shared hosting is relatively low maintenance. Your host takes the headache out of running your server by taking care of basic server administration tasks. If you are not ready to run your own server, web management is the easiest option. Let professionals take care of your web hosting – With shared hosting you can expect professional technical support for everything from hardware upgrades and maintenance, software updates, DDoS attacks, network outages and more.
Websites that look different depending on who is browsing are called dynamic. Popular dynamic websites include Facebook, Quora, and Twitter, while dynamic content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Joomla! includes Dynamic sites and CMSs use alternative programming languages such as Perl, Python, or PHP, all of which can be run on a shared server.