Pros and Cons of Shared Hosting & Dedicated Hosting

To make a website live and accessible around the World Wide Web a person or organization needs to find a web hosting service. Based on your budget and requirements you can opt for the right plan from the hosting service. There are several hosting companies and we have listed out some best reliable hosting company to choose from. All those hosting would be the right choice for you whether you are an organization or finding a hosting for your personal website.

There are three types of hosting that are available with most hosting companies such as shared hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated hosting. In this article we will list down all pros & cons of shared hosting as well as pros and cons of dedicated hosting. But before that we will see what’s shared web hosting and dedicated web hosting in a nutshell.

What is Shared hosting?

Shared web hosting is a hosting service in which many websites are hosted in a single web server. All the allocated resources to that server like space, bandwidth, database, email accounts, FTP accounts are shared to websites hosted in that server.

What is Dedicated Hosting?

Dedicated hosting or dedicated server is a separate server for a user which is not shared with others. A site owner will have full control to the server that is hosted with dedicated hosting.

Among the two are you confused which one to choose? See all the advantages and disadvantages of shared hosting and dedicated hosting. Before choosing a hosting you must know all these advantages and disadvantages.

Pros and Cons of Shared Hosting

Pros of shared hosting

1. The main advantage of shared hosting is that its price are cheap when compared to VPS and dedicated hosting which any one can afford it. All the resources in this server are shared to many users and that’s why it comes at low price. If you are a small business or finding a hosting for your personal website then this would be the right pick.
2. The next big great advantage with shared hosting is that you don’t need to worry about any technical problems with the server. All the administration and maintenances will take cared by the hosting provider which gives you a big relief.
3. The third advantage will be you don’t need any knowledge to maintain this server. Also to host your site you don’t need to administer and don’t need any knowledge with Linux.
4. Shared web hosting is user friendly in which you will get cPanel which is easy to manage your website. But not all hosting providers will serve you with cPanel.
5. It is shared sever, but you can have your email address at your own domain as well as multiple emails. Also you can have more than one database and also it will have MySQL and PHP support.

Cons of shared hosting

Shared hosting has some good advantages, now let’s see some disadvantages of shared hosting.

1. The biggest and main disadvantage of shared hosting is that you don’t have security. Since their prices are low you will have only limited features.
2. Usually site hosted with shared servers will get more problems with hacks. Since most of the sites are in one single server some malicious activity will happen and there are chance to affect your site.
3. The third disadvantage of shared hosting is that you cannot run any other software and utilities other than provided by hosting company.
4. Since several sites are hosted in one server your site may get slow. Also a server can get overloaded and stops.
5. Moreover you cannot expect best customer support with shared hosting when compared with dedicated hosting. However all the hosting companies we listed provides 24X7 support.

Best shared hosting plans

HostGator shared hosting plans

Hatching plan: One domain, unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, shared SSL certificate and cPanel for just 3.96$ / month.

Baby plan: Unlimited domains, unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, shared SSL certificate and cPanel for just 6.36$/ month.

Business plan: Unlimited domains, unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, Free IP & private SSL, Free toll free number and cPanel for just 10.36$ / month.

Visit Hostgator for more plans and pricing

Bluehost shared hosting plans

Standard plan:  Unlimited Emails, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth and Free domain registration/1 year for just: 6.99$ per month

Pro plan: Unlimited email, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains, domain privacy, dedicated IP and SSL certificate for just 24.99$ per month.

Visit Bluehost for more plans and pricing

Now let’s see the advantages and disadvantages of dedicated hosting.

Also see advantages and disadvantages of VPS hosting.

Pros and Cons of Dedicated Hosting servers

Pros of dedicated hosting servers

1. There are many advantages with dedicated hosting, but the main advantage with this server is you will have faster connectivity and it can manage a huge traffic flow to your site. If your site is getting more traffic then you have to go for dedicated servers.
2. The second advantage is that you will have more storage based on your plan. In dedicated server you will have total control for your server.
3. Sites hosted in dedicated servers are more secure and hackers find it difficult to hack. Since its used only by you won’t see any malicious activates.
4. Dedicated servers are flexible and you can run softwares and utilities of your own choice in dedicated server. Also you will have control panel and more features to deal with your server.
5. Moreover hosting companies provide awesome customer support, if you are using dedicated servers.

There are still more advantages you get with dedicated hosting, but there also a few disadvantages which you should take note.

Cons of Dedicated Hosting servers

1. The main disadvantage with dedicated hosting is its price, which many people can’t afford. However for the best price you will always get a best in class feature. Only sites that receive massive traffic will benefit from this.
2. Dedicated hosting can be a problem for you if you are not good in administering the server. So you need some knowledge with managing server.
3. Since you are handling this server you have to take care of all the problems and errors, just in case. Also diagnosing and resolving problems are bit difficult when compared with shared hosting.

You can choose shared hosting or dedicated hosting based on your requirements. But make sure to choose the right web hosting company.

Best dedicated hosting plans

Hostgator dedicated hosting is available in both Linux servers and windows servers starts from 174$ / month to 374$ / month. View Hostgator dedicated hosting specifications.

Bluehost dedicated hosting plans: Currently Bluehost has three plans for dedicated servers. Standard @ 74.99$ / month, Enhanced @99.99$ / month and premium @ 124.99$ / month. View Bluehost dedicated hosting specifications.

Hope you got all the pros and cons of shared hosting and dedicated hosting. Also you got some list of best reliable hosting companies to choose from. Share and leave your comments below.