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Website Hosting Options

Shared Hosting

When you want to host your website with a hosting provider, one of the first choices you'll need to make is whether to go with a dedicated server or shared hosting. This choozza helps you find the best hosting type for your site needs.

Dedicated Hosting

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High Performance

Private IP Address

Low Cost

Server Control

Big Websites Fit

Small Websites Fit

High Security

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Comparison Details

Last updated by Nimo, on 23/7/09

	Shared Hosting In shared hosting, your website is virtualized together with other websites on one machine. This means that your website shares resources with other websites. These resources are the CPU, memory and bandwidth allocated to the physical server.	Dedicated Hosting Dedicated hosting means your site is alone on a server, with no other sites sharing same physical machine, its resources or IP address. It also means that you have the freedom to do anything you want on the server.
High Performance: Not every site must have a high performance. If you don't plan on selling products through your website, chances are that almost any of the hosting plans out there will suffice. What type of performance can you expect to get from the hosting? What can affect this performance?	Co-hosted websites compete with each other for the hosting server's resources, and that affects your site's performance. This comes down to a very simple queue issue - all the requests that online users make of your website are entered into a queue which holds all the requests that online users make of all the websites sharing the physical server. If one or more of the other websites co-hosted with you has a lot of traffic, or has traffic peaks that interlace with requests your users make - your website will suffer. Response time will be bad, and your users may give up on you. This does not have to be the case, as some hosting providers have better control over websites performance and will ensure that your website has an equal share of the resources when the server is loaded. However, most hosting services do not offer that except in VPS plans. Another issue to consider is up-time. On shared hosting, there is a bigger chance of the server crashing because a bad script caused it to exahust its resources. This script can stem from your website as well as from another, but the more websites there are on the server - the more likely this is to happen. Good hosting services will have good monitoring and prevention mechanisms, but be aware that not all providers have these.	With dedicated hosting, your website is the sole occupant of its server, and does not have to compete foe resources/. This means that the online request queue for the server holds requests only for your website, and your users get better response time. It also means that all the physical resources: memory, network and CPU are yours to exploit as you see fit. Some hosting providers have limited monthly traffic quota for your website. This usually affects only websites on shared hosting, and will not be a concern for a site on a dedicated server.
Private IP Address: Will your website have its own IP address?	As a rule with shared hosting, all the websites co-hosted on the same physical machine share the same IP address. This is a concern since this puts your website in danger of being co-hosted with unethical websites. Unethical websites may be used for spamming or spreading of malicious software. When such a site is found it is usually blacklisted, meaning that servers all over the Internet refuse to accept traffic (such as email) from this site, and search engines no longer list it. This is really bad for your website, because what gets blocked (blacklisted) is the actual IP Address - the same IP Address that you share with such unethical websites. As a result - your website will get blacklisted, even though it didn't do anything wrong. Note that for some hosting providers this is a non-issue, as some hosting services have extremely good mechanisms to find such malicious websites and remove them from the Internet before they get a chance to become blacklisted. This way, the hosting provider protects your site against being blacklisted because other websites misbehaved. Another reason you need to consider a dedicated IP address is for when you want your website to offer SSL communication to users. This can only be performed in a trusted way when your website has its own, dedicated IP. However, this does not always mean you need to get dedicated hosting. With most hosting services you can get a dedicated IP (usually for an extra payment) even though your website is on shared hosting.	With dedicated hosting, your website lives on its own server and hence has its own IP address. This is important because your website is not in danger of being co-hosted with unethical websites. Unethical websites may be used for spamming or spreading of malicious software. When such a site is found it is usually blacklisted, meaning that servers all over the Internet refuse to accept traffic (such as email) from this site, and search engines no longer list it. When your website is co-hosted with such a website - it will get blocked as well, since blacklisting is performed based on IP Address. This will not happen to your website when you use dedicated hosting, as your IP address belongs only to you.

Low Cost: How expensive is each of the options?	Shared hosting options, including VPS, are very cheap. Easily a tenth of the cost of the cheapest dedicated servers and less than that.	Dedicated hosting is a lot more expensive than shared hosting. Be prepared to pay at least ten times more for the cheaper dedicated options than what you would pay for shared hosting plans.
Server Control: How much control do you have over the server?	With shared hosting, you control your website, as you can upload almost any files you want there. However, you do not control the operating system. You also don't control additional software or the server's hardware. You don't get root access, your own creation of VPS (Virtual Provate Servers), or anything else really. This is not always a bad thing. Sometimes the restricted level of control is better, especially with smaller, low-traffic websites, and if you don't have any knowledge or inclination towards managing your website yourself.	When you choose dedicated hosting, your website is the sole occupant of the server you're paying for, and you can install whatever software or scripts you want on it. You will also be able to customize the software that the hosting provider initially installs for you, and with some hosting providers you can also make decisions regarding the hardware itself. Additionally, with dedicated hosting you get root access and sometimes your own VPS (Virtual Private Servers) option. This level of control also has its down side, and if you are not proficient in this field, you may end up having to pay someone to take care of your server management for you.
Big Websites Fit: Does this hosting option fit a big website, with a large volume of traffic?	With big, traffic intensive sites, you may really feel the limitations of shared hosting. Performance issues will arise, as other websites compete with you for the same set of resources, and the overall user experience will deteriorate. On the other hand, when you host a large site on shared hosting, you can concentrate on creating the content for your site, and not worrying about security, patching and other administrative tasks.	Big, traffic-intensive websites usually need dedicated hosting. You will want the space to grow into, and the performance level that a dedicated server can provide you with.
Small Websites Fit: Does this hosting option fit a small, low-to-average traffic website with no special needs (e.g. a blog).	Shared hosting is really the way to go for smaller sites. When you are only starting out, or when you feel your website is small and will not have substantial traffic or serve large amounts of multimedia content.	The short answer is: Probably Not. Dedicated hosting is really an overkill for a small site. If your site does not get a lot of traffic - you'll just be wasting your money. Even if the website does get considerable visitor volumes, you probably don't need dedicated hosting unless you serve a lot of multimedia content off it or want to use it as an online shop.
High Security: What are the security implications of going this way or the other?	With the shared hosting option, the hosting provider is responsible for patching the server operating system, and employing the system-related security practices. This makes your life very easy, especially if you only have a small website and don't want to deal with all the technical issues around the servers yourself. On the other hand, with shared hosting, the external security mechanisms (e.g. firewalls) employed by the hosting provider can not always be tailored specifically to your website's needs.	Dedicated hosting is usually perceived as more secure than shared hosting, but this is not the whole story. The perception is due to the fact that the security mechanisms employed by the hosting provider (e.g. firewalls) can be tailored to your needs and not have to concern other websites sharing the same IP address. However, it is worth noting that with most hosting providers, when you choose dedicated hosting, you also get to be responsible for the security configuration of the server. It is up to you to apply OS patches and deal with security threats. In shared hosting, on the other hand, this is performed for you by the hosting provider. When considering the security aspect, remember that the web has many people trying to hack into any website they can, be it for fun or profit. If you have to handle security yourself, you may find that you spend a lot of time dealing with securing your website and not with its content.

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