Given the current global circumstances, both businesses and individuals have begun turning towards establishing their online presence. The most common tactics they employ are either through the help of social media or by creating and launching their own website. And while social media profiles are relatively both straight-forward and cost-efficient to set up, quite the opposite applies to websites. The process of creating a good-looking, easy-to-use and functional website involves a plethora of different steps, however, if you do not have the website available for everyone to access through the Internet, all of those efforts would ultimately be in vain. It is because of this reason that web hosting plays a leading and important role in website creation.
What is shared hosting?
Generally speaking, there are a number of different hosting types, the most common being ‘Shared Hosting’. In shared hosting, the web server’s resources are split between several users, who are all located on the same server. Because of this, the price that you would need to pay for the service is lower, given the fact that you are sharing resources with others. To put it simply, imagine you are paying rent for a 5 room house. You would need to pay the entire rent by yourself unless you find yourself roommates and split the sum equally between yourselves, which is exactly the reason why shared hosting is so cheap in comparison to other hosting types.
When should you consider using shared hosting?
Shared hosting is good for businesses or individuals that want to launch a small or personal website, but do not want to spend heaps of money to have it hosted on the web. Examples of such sites are personal websites, blogs, portfolios and small informational company websites. Shared hosting is also a good option for people with very limited or small budgets and those who are not willing to spend a fortune on web hosting. Furthemore, from a technical aspect, shared hosting is also the easiest choice for people with no technical knowledge or prior experience in the field of server management. In terms of drawbacks, however, there are quite a few. Remember when we talked about how in shared hosting you need to share resources with others? Imagine having just one bathroom in your 5 room flat. Yeah, there is going to be a lot of time wasted waiting. Websites located on the same server can affect other servers. If, for example, one of the websites experiences high traffic, it will be reflected in the performance of the other websites on the server, which could consequently lead to potential errors.
What is a VPS?
A VPS, also known as a Virtual Private Server, is a type of hosting where you have the entire system at your disposal, without having the need to share it with others. Additionally, you have full administrative control to configure, install and manage both your system and your resources including your processing power (CPU) as well as your operating memory (RAM) and storage (SSD) usage. Due to this, VPS is more expensive in comparison to shared hosting, however, you do have full control over everything without having to worry about sharing resources.
When to opt for VPS?
A VPS can be useful to you if you want to expand your business. One the one hand, if you see a large increase in traffic, it would be necessary for you to upgrade due to the larger resource consumption. On the other hand, you might want to have the option to manually manage everything on your server, which does require previous experience. Furthermore, other advantages of having a VPS include having the ability to easily scale your website and install specific software while also granting you complete root access. Although pricier, a VPS is better in terms of system management, security and storage. Moreover, some web hosting companies also offer services such as Bitcoin VPS, which enable you to pay for your server through different cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
Summary
Overall, each hosting type has its own benefits and setbacks. Shared hosting is useful for those who do not have a lot of technical experience in this field, have a small budget or do not require their website to be able to handle large amounts of traffic. A VPS, on the other hand, is more suitable for businesses and individuals with previous experience whose websites demand a large amount of dedicated resources due to large traffic, users and interactions.
Laila Azzahra is a professional writer and blogger that loves to write about technology, business, entertainment, science, and health.