Shared Web Hosting Expectations vs. Reality

Shared Web Hosting

First, let’s explain what shared hosting is. It is web hosting shared between and multiple websites and one server. The server’s resources, such as the accounts, disk space and databases, are divided up among the users.

Shared hosting is one of the most common types of web hosting. It’s ideal for beginners, depending on what your website is about. It’s also a great option for anyone looking for an affordable, easy to use hosting option. But like most things in life, shared hosting has its pros and cons, some of which we’ll explore now.

Premium Web Hosting Pros and Cons

We’ll start with the pros.

  1. Host Cost
  2. Convenience
  3. Efficiency
  4. Customizability

And then the cons.

  1. Security
  2. Limited Resources
  3. Customer Support

1. Shared web hosting cost

Let’s start with the price for hosting a site on a shared hosting plan. It is inexpensive, a lot less costly than other types of hosting, like dedicated server or a VPS. The cost is divided among several users so the subscription fee can be as low as five dollars monthly. This makes shared hosting a great choice for individuals and smaller to medium sized businesses.

2. It’s the most convenient plan

Shared hosting gains another major point as it relates to its practicality and convenience. Not all website owners want to do the ‘heavy lifting’ often associated with setting up and maintaining a website. Luckily, providers of shared hosting plans are aware of this fact.

To resolve that issue, they set up their shared hosting system to do the more technical based tasks, so users don’t have to. It allows you to create a website, from practically anywhere in the world and at any time you want, provided there is access to the Internet. That kind of convenience is appreciated, particularly in this fast-faced society.

3. It’s made for efficiency

Shared hosting is as efficient as it is practical and cheap. There are several factors that determine how well or how poorly a website performs.

These include but are not limited to:

  • Disc space
  • Bandwidth

Because of how crucial those things are, hosting provider give users the choice to buy more if needed.

It’s pretty simple to buy additional resources. So simple, you don’t need a technical or support team, because you can do it yourself. But just in case you do, Hostific.com has 24-hour support to help you. Ultimately, this saves you time, money and resources while helping you meet your website’s demands.

4. Customization is possible

If there’s a web hosting plan that allows you to customize your website to suit your needs, it’s shared hosting. There is an idea that users wouldn’t be able to customize their sites because they have to share the resources on the same sever. This is however, not true.

Some web host provider offer a control panel or cPanel that allows each user to modify their website based on their preference and needs.

Now that we’ve examined some pros of shared plans, let’s now focus on the cons.

5. Server Security

Disclaimer: No specific hosting plan is 100% secure. And where it concerns shared plans, here are the main questions

  • How does each person’s use affect the other?
  • What happens in case there’s a security breach?

These are serious concerns as security is unquestionably shared hosting’s biggest issue, because a cyber-attack on the main server can indeed affect all the users relying on that server. There’s also the fact that shared hosting gives you a space on a server and not the entire server. However, hosting companies monitor the use and limit users from making software installations.

Read this article to learn more tips for securing your shared hosting account.

Steps to boost your site’s security on a shared plan.

There are things you can do to prevent, or at least lessen the likelihood of your site being attacked.

  • Start by choosing a respectable provider that offers premium web hosting. How do you decide that a host is reputable? Well, it takes security seriously and will have protocols in place, which means you can worry less about the concerns raised above.
  • Some other things you can do to protect your website while on a shared hosting plan include using: stronger passwords, two-factor authentication, DDoS protection, cloud firewall

 

Additionally, make untrusted sources your nemesis, back up regularly and ensure you upgrade your software when it becomes available.

6. Limited Resources

The resources web host have for shared plans are not infinite. So, to ensure everyone gets a ‘piece of the pie’ they share the resources with each website on the server.

This does sound like what is meant by, ‘sharing is caring’, but there are drawbacks to this. Let’s say one website gets a lot of traffic, the other websites on the server could start to experience sluggish load speeds.

How so? The website with the traffic will draw most of the server’s computing resources. This means it starts taking a little bit or a lot from everyone else on the same server. If left unattended, users could experience limited or no access to their site, and worse yet, end up crashing.

However, with a reputable web host, you will not have to worry about running out of resources due to someone else’s over usage. Reliable providers will warn users of their usage when they are close to their assigned limit. These prompts help them to prevent heavy websites from making things bad for others.

7. Customer Support

Contrary to free hosting services, premium shared users get 24/7 support with Hostific.com. If you happen to have a non-generic problem or question, you will have to send an email and wait for someone to respond on free plans.

That can be pretty frustrating, particularly when you want the issue resolved now.

Fortunately, that’s not the case with premium shared hosting. Since larger web hosts have moved to resolve, support is now available via telephone, support tickets, social media and live chats.

Summary

Shared hosting is cheap, efficient and convenient. It comes with pros and cons like security concerns and limited resources, but none of these challenges is insurmountable. There are ways to avoid or mitigate these challenges, the first of which is to choose the best and safest host available.

Liked this article? Read more about shared hosting here.