Web Hosting Comparison Guide
Find the Best Web Hosting You Need

Shared Web Hosting

• Most websites are shared hosting
• Most affordable type of hosting
• Works best for websites with low to moderate traffic and server requirements
• A shared server hosts hundreds of websites besides your own
• A shared hosting account is like a dorm where you share a space with many others. You can't expand resources as everyone shares the same resources

What is shared web hosting? This is the most commonly used type of hosting. Shared hosting hosts multiple web sites on the same server, same location, and same ip address. CPU, memory, bandwidth and disk space is shared between all the web sites on the server.

This popular hosting service has many advantages and disadvantages. The biggest advantage of shared hosting is that is very cheap. A shared hosting plan will usually run under $70/month whereas a VPS or dedicated plan will run in the hundreds per month.

Another advantage is that high technical knowledge is not required as each account has simple, user-friendly admin control panels to manage applications, scripts, domains, email, databases, and more. An extensive knowledge base and customer forums are also usually abundant as there are so many shared hosting accounts so information can be found on any questions you may have.

The disadvantage to shared hosting is that other websites can affect the performance and uptime/downtime of your website. For instance if there is a website on the server which is the target of an attack, this can bring down the server and all the websites with it. Or, if a website sends out a large eblast email campaign which spams email service providers, those email service providers will blacklist the server's IP address which blocks all email accounts on the server from using that email service provider. So for instance, if google blacklists the server, you won't be able to send emails to gmail.com.

Pros:

• Affordable
• user-friendly admin control panel
• Pre-installed applications for ease of use

Cons:

• If a website on the server is the target of an attack which takes down the server, all websites on the server will go down.
• If a website on the server sends out an illegal email campaign which causes the server to be blacklisted, all website's email are affected.
• If one or more websites have high traffic, it can affect the speed of loading your website's web pages.
• Custom applications can't be installed on the server - the website is limited to what is shared between all websites on the server.

VPS Hosting (Virtual Private Server Hosting)

• Similar to a dedicated server at a more affordable cost
• Performance gains for moderate traffic (and occassional traffic spikes)
• Easier to expand than a dedicated server
• A VPS hosting account is like townhome where you still share areas but have more space and resources as it's less congested. You can expand your resources with limitations as there are still others sharing the property.

A Virtual Private Server is like a combination of shared and dedicated hosting services. The VPS is a setup where a user shares the server resources with others however each space is operated independently of others. Each client can have it's own operating system which can be rebooted and managed independently from others. This allows a user to install their own applications and expand to use more server resources.

Why should I choose VPS? If you own a website that has a lot of traffic, needs custom applications installed, want ease of expanding, and don’t have a budget for a dedicated hosting service, then you should get VPS hosting. This is the best choice when you need higher security and more accessibility to your server but want to save some money at the same time. Your web hosting provider may offer this if your website is on a shared server and beginning to hog the server resources.

Pros:

• Lower cost
• Easy to expand
• Capabilities of a dedicated server
• Good performance for moderate traffic and occasional heavy spikes
• Custom applications can be installed on the VPS

Cons:

• Website is still sharing a server with other websites

Dedicated Servers Hosting

• A server for only your website(s) not shared with any other clients
• Host hundreds of websites at little to no additional cost
• A dedicated hosting account is like having a building where all the apartments are for your use only. You can expand as much as you desire.

A Dedicated Server is a server which only houses your website(s) and is not shared by any other clients at any time. You can make custom hardware and software configurations. This is the best option when your website(s) need specific requirements.

There are many advantages of a dedicated server. Your website(s) will utitlize all the server bandwidth and CPU resources (processor, memory, web space) providing high performance for the website(s). Page load times, the time it takes to process scripts and functions on the website will all run efficiently. This is a good option for websites with a high amount of traffic or high traffic spikes.

A dedicated server is not limited to one single website, it can host all your websites on the same hardware. Based on this, you will reduce the costs, all sites can be managed form one single account. This is another good option if you have more than 1 website.

Another advantage is security. You will reduce the risk of an attack and gain higher trust and protection of your client's data.

The advantages outweigh the disadvantages as it's just a matter of the price. Dedicated servers can be expensive, however like shared hosting, there are different levels of dedicated hosting so you can choose which falls within your budget.

Pros:

• Freedom to expand software and hardware
• Host multiple websites at the same cost
• High performance for high traffic and heavy spikes in traffic
• Privacy and security

Cons:

• Price