Making an informed decision about which one to choose between shared and dedicated hosting solutions is a task that requires a thorough understanding of these hosting configurations. We have come across many businesses who, in their web hosting journey, have encountered graved difficulties in choosing the most fitted solution. This means that business owners often abstain from weighing the positives and negatives of the two most recognised web hosting solutions.

Not every business owner poses relevant IT knowledge to evaluate shared and dedicated hosting solutions’ features. They don’t initially understand what online viewers want when they are visiting your website. Frequently, this leads to selecting the most affordable hosting solution, which may not be ideal for your business needs. So, being cheap won’t help you reach your target consumers to give them a flawless website experience.

So, what to do and how to know which web hosting solution is appropriate for your website? Well, at this moment, what we will do is try to demystify shared and dedicated web hosting solutions. This blog post will elaborate on the advantages and limitations of these two hosting types to clear out the confusion for many business owners. At the end of this blog, you will be better equipped with the knowledge of dedicated and shared hosting solutions that will serve you with better decision-making.

The easiest way to understand shared hosting is to see it as a facility that allows several websites to share an identical server and resources. So, if a website owner opts for shared hosting configurations, the website will be sharing the same memory storage, CPU, and bandwidth as several other websites. A crucial attribute to know in this context is that since you are sharing the same server and resources, the expenses for the same will be distributed across all websites. Similarly, the productivity of the server will also be distributed among all the websites under it.

On the contrary, dedicated hosting indicates that a single website will be hosted under a single server with dedicated resources. You will have authority over all the resources and the entire server. Likewise, your website will be the only one bearing the expenses of the server and the resources, while also taking advantage of the output of the static server. It means that while you’ll be spending more for this type of hosting solution, you’ll also be enjoying the entire bandwidth, security facility, and resources for optimal website performance.

Distribution of Resources and Performance

One of the major differences between shared and dedicated hosting solutions can be tracked in terms of resource sharing and performance. But, then again, what your business website needs is based on its size and requirements from the web host. While sharing the same server can be viewed as a limitation for others, it can be what a small or medium business has been looking for. Thus, a shared hosting solution distributes specific resources and servers across many websites . Therefore, shared hosting only allows you to use limited resources, providing restricted capability. Besides, you will also be sharing the overall bandwidth of the server with other websites. It will essentially decrease your website's speed and performance depending on how many websites are hosted under the same server. If your website aims for limited performance and medium daily traffic, you can consider selecting a shared hosting plan.

Then again, dedicated hosting facilitates a single website owner to capitalize on the use of one dedicated server with resources reserved only for that site. This allows the website to perform better through enhanced customisable options available. The website will also be equipped with better safety features. Overall, you will have better control over your server and resources to get optimal performance, helping you go ahead of your competitors. If you are a big business and want to attract as many customers as possible with a flawless website experience, you're up for the dedicated hosting solution.

Security

As it has already been decoded that shared hosting involves the dispersion of all server resources, it is evident that security facilities will also get distributed. It means you're left with limited security features out of shared hosting. You'll be more prone to malware attacks and unauthorized access.

Quite the reverse happens when you choose dedicated hosting. Due to the advantage of appreciating dedicated server resources, your website will be better protected from unwanted cyber-attacks. Clearly, dedicated hosting solutions give you an upper hand with their protection feature, which is set aside only for your website.

Cost

In the simplest way, when you're on a shared server, you are entitled to expense sharing too. All websites under the same server are responsible for bearing the total cost of the server. But, in the case of dedicated shared, your website is the one that bears the total expense for the server. Therefore, it is clear that shared hosting is more expense-friendly. Dedicated hosting is costlier. But remember, with greater cost comes greater performance.

Scalability

From the perspective of scalability, shared hosting seems more advantageous. Since you're on the same server, extending your resources as per your business growth will be easier as the host will add resources based on your requirements. However, it is not the same in the case of dedicated hosting. When a website under dedicated hosting wants to enhance its resources and security, it will need to purchase additional servers to accommodate more resources. So, in terms of scalability, shared hosting has the dominance concerning its ease.

Customisation and Management

The level of management and customisation options available under the shared and dedicated hosting solutions differs significantly. Concerning shared hosting solutions, your website gets partial customisation options, along with restricted management capability. It is due to its shared server and resource natures. Under shared hosting, your website would get restricted management of software installations, server configurations, and settings. The opposite is observable in the case of dedicated hosting. Since a single server is offered for an individual website, you will receive the benefit of enhanced customisation facilities, along with better authorisation to handle settings and software installation.

We hope that this thorough explanation of shared and dedicated hosting solutions' advantages and drawbacks will help you to have a better idea of these concepts. Assess these positive and negative attributes of both to help you choose the optimal one for your website. Become a better decision-maker when choosing the perfectly fitted hosting solution for your website.