Shared Platform

Shared Hosting is and shall remain one of the most popular web hosting services available. And with its affordability, that doesn’t really come across as a surprise.

In a Shared Hosting plan, the business website that is hosted on a server shares the server resources with a bunch of other business websites hosted on the same server. This one factor plays into the affordability of this plan, as the server cost and the Internet cost are shared by the businesses. The maintenance and updates required to run the servers efficiently are taken care of by the web host, rendering you worry free from that task.

Shared web hosting is best suited for small and medium sized business websites as the resources offered are sufficient to keep the website running efficiently. If you have a large sized business website, make sure you look at the other hosting plans available.

Even though we majorly see the pros of Shared Hosting, there are a few cons that come along with it. Here’s a comprehensive look at both.

Pros of Shared Hosting:

Pricing: The highlight of this hosting plan is its affordability, that comes in due to sharing of the server and Internet costs with the other businesses that host their websites on the same server.

Automatic Updates: You need not worry about the software updates anymore as the web host takes care of them.

Hardware: Whether it is an upgrade or the OS or the version of the hardware your website is being hosted on, everything is taken care of the web host who will notify you whenever he brings in a change.

Apt Resource Allotment: If the server is well managed and each website hosted on it sticks to using only their allotted resources, this hosting plan caters to the needs of that website easily.

Cons of Shared Hosting:

Security: If another website has been indulging in illegal activities or has uploaded a insecure file, the web logs and web content of your website are also at the risk of being lost or hacked.

Less Flexibility: Even though the control panels allow the users to bring in minor tweaks to his website, the overall flexibility offered by this plan is next to nil. The websites hosted on a shared server, have to make do with the choices of the web host; in the context of the hardware, software, OS, bandwidth etc.

Other Websites May Affect You: Even though each website that is hosted on a shared server is allotted with a certain amount of resources to keep them running efficiently, there are times when the overall efficiency of the server comes down. This happens particularly when another website takes up more resources than it is allotted to cater to a sudden rise in traffic or any other factor.

Now that you know the pros and cons of the Shared Hosting plan, analyze what and how much of the resources your website needs to run efficiently. Once you are through with that, take a look at what you have in mind for your website in the near future; be very sure you take into consideration the needs of the future along with the needs of the present to avoid switching plans at a later time. Remember, Shared Hosting isn’t for everyone!