Shared web hosting: is it right for you?

Shared web hosting is very common at the moment; to host personal websites and small business websites; however, it is not a very clear concept for most people. Wikipedia defines shared web hosting as “a service where many websites reside on a web server connected to the Internet. Each site” sits “on its own partition, or section / location on the server to keep it separate from other sites. This is generally the cheapest option to host, as many people share the full cost of server maintenance. “

This is a very clear definition of shared hosting; however, it is very difficult to find a company that is right for you and meets your requirements. In this article, I will identify the right web hosting company and know what to look for when shopping for web hosting.

One of the advantages of shared hosting is that you don’t have to manage the server you are using, unlike dedicated servers where you are solely responsible for the server and make sure that all services and applications run on it smoothly. Shared hosting is the starting point for all online websites and most companies provide unlimited disk usage and unlimited bandwidth with their packages. As I have explained earlier in the article, shared hosting is the best affordable starting point for your website. Once your site is very popular, you can go ahead and upgrade to a virtual private server or a dedicated server.

One of the important aspects of choosing a company is the operating system that they run. Most companies run cPanel and cPanel only runs on Linux, therefore this makes the vast majority run Linux. There are a few Windows-based web hosting companies, however, the performance of Windows servers is much lower than that of Linux-based servers. Most of the scripts are also optimized to run in a Linux environment and not in a Windows environment, to begin with, it is always good to go for Linux based web hosting, unless you are looking to use MSSQL or ASP, in these cases, you would have to opt for Windows-based hosting as these technologies are only offered on the Windows platform.

With shared hosting, the provider is responsible for managing and maintaining the servers and ensuring that the servers are up; install any necessary software and ensure servers are always up-to-date with the latest software versions to be safe. On the other hand, if you rent a dedicated server, you are fully responsible for everything from making sure all software applications are configured correctly to monitoring all services and making sure there are no problems on your server. This brings the advantage of shared hosting for beginners as they don’t need any professional knowledge to be able to maintain their website. The control panels offered with companies simplify everything from creating new email accounts, subdomains to managing your files.

An important aspect when choosing a hosting company is its support service. Most of the large established web hosting companies offer full support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a day, either through a toll-free number, email (support system) or live chat. It is important that you make sure that the provider’s support is very good so that when your site is down you have the peace of mind that you are going to speak to someone about it.

To conclude, shared web hosting is the best solution for anyone looking to start their first website or a small business looking to create an online presence.