Cloud Vs. Shared Hosting
By Matt Brennan
All websites need to be hosted somewhere, and the most conventional answer for most companies or organizations has been shared hosting.
We think nothing of calling large hosting companies such as GoDaddy, HostGator, or Blue Host and asking for their most affordable shared plan. In certain circumstances this may be all you need to solve the problem. But it’s important to understand there are other options available.
Let’s look at the benefits and risks of both shared and cloud hosting. It’s important to understand the difference when you look to safeguard your company’s digital presence.
Shared Hosting
This is the most common type of hosting plan, and it’s easily affordable. A shared solution means that the user shares the server space with other users. All applications and data resources that are being used by your account are being shared across the server.
Common resources such as the server’s CPU, memory, disk space, bandwidth and more will be shared with all other websites being hosted on the server. Most hosting companies tend to keep their servers full.
This means that if one website experiences a significant spike in traffic, it can have a detrimental impact on everything on that server. It may cause all the websites on the specific server to experience slower speeds and downtime.
Shared hosting is still one of the more affordable ways to host your website. If you are an individual or small business with a smaller online footprint, this can still be the way to go. But if your client runs a larger company with more online features, cloud hosting can offer a stronger alternative.
Cloud Hosting
With cloud hosting, your site is stored on multiple servers in the cloud, to improve resources and maintain consistently high up times and speed.
This gives you a dedicated hosting space – meaning your site is not lumped into a mass of other sites. This is a critical advantage for high traffic sites, or sites for companies that are looking to rapidly expand.
Below are a few circumstances where it might make sense to go to a cloud hosting option:
- Website downtime or slow speeds could be devastating to your business.
- You are anticipating spikes in traffic.
- You need features or applications that aren’t typically available on shared hosting accounts.
While cloud hosting plans are typically more expensive, they are also more dependable.
Finding the Right Hosting Plan
Finding the right hosting plan will depend on your needs, or the needs of your end client. There are certainly more advantages to a cloud-based solution – but it may not be within everyone’s price range.
Some small businesses and solo entrepreneurs may find the costs associated to be prohibitive.
That being said, if you are a larger business or a startup that is depending on a strong digital presence at the core of your business, a cloud solution will be a more dependable choice.
