What you need to know about shared hosting?
Shared hosting is the most common way of hosting a website. In general, a shared web hosting is a server shared by multiple users and websites. Hostmonster, for example, is a shared hosting providers. Shared web hosting is also known as virtual hosting sometimes. However, it shouldn’t be confused with virtual private server (VPS) as they are two totally different things.
How shared web hosting works?
As said, shared web hosting simply means multiple website hosted together on a same computer servers. The resources of the server – RAM, hard disk, processor, and Internet gateway – are all shared by the websites hosted on it. The number of websites hosted on a shared web host is basically unlimited. In most of the case, website on a shared hosting are sharing the server box with hundreds of other websites.
The logic behind shared hosting is simple – to minimize the cost of hosting a website without jeopardizing its performance.
What’s good about shared hosting?
Shared hosting is cheaper than all other hosting options. As the server resources are shared, the cost of maintaining the server are shared among websites owners as well.
Also, running website on a shared hosting requires less technical knowledge. The server is shared, thus all hosting accounts using it has no access to the server root folder. Shared hosting website owners simply spend less time and effort in maintaining their web server as the jobs are done by the hosting provider.
Disadvantages of shared hosting
Unfortunately, shared hosting does come with certain disadvantages. Some key cons with this type of hosting services are:
- For certain web host, shared hosting means limited disk space and bandwidth.
- Shared hosting = shared IP, you have little control to avoid your website IP from being blacklisted as spam.
- Root access is normally not available with shared hosting accounts.
Bottom line: Should you go with shared hosting?
Shared hosting is always the best options for starters and newbies in webmastering or blogging. A good shared hosting are reliable, affordable, and never short of hosting features that add values for their client’s websites. In case you are looking for an affordable shared hosting service, check out Hostmonster – they might not be the best but I think their price is reasonable and worth trying.
