Hosting packages compared

If you are looking for hosting, one of the biggest dilemmas you will face is the question whether to go for a shared or a dedicated 3rd party web hosting. I found that most people do not even know the difference. Often they look at the price and straightway go for a shared web hosting package.

So what is the difference?

To put it simply, in a shared web hosting account (sometimes called virtual hosting), your site shares a server with other web sites. On the other hand, in case of a dedicated web hosting, your site has its own server and own IP address.
Most small to medium-sized sites go for shared hosting because of the lower prices, it’s main advantage.

However, Dedicated Hosting offers more features and benefits, even though they usually cost more. First of all, you're the only site on the server and you have your own IP address. If you have a Large and/or busy site, bandwidth may be the main consideration and you may find that the server is not able to cope with the traffic and even crashing it. Also, if you operate an e-commerce site, you may need to run some special software packages, which may not be suitable in a shared type of hosting. A dedicated hosting is the only answer in that case. Most shared hosting packages don’t allow you to run your own scripts.

Another disadvantage of a shared hosting is that of sharing the IP address with other sites. If your hosting company is not very selective, you may end up sharing your IP address with spam, adult and hate sites. Some search engine may respond by banning the entire IP address from their index, and your site along with the rest.

Some hosting companies allow you to retain full system administration responsibility for the operating system and applications.

Tags: Dedicated server Hosting Shared hosting