Are you at a crossroads now, deciding which type of hosting best suits your needs? This is definitely an important decision as it will affect how your business will run on the webspace in the future. So, before you start submitting a ticket to the support department or calling the sales department of any hosting provider to ask regarding your confusion, take a look at the guidelines and tips which I'm about to introduce to you.

First of all, ask yourself, which type of web busineses are you planning to get involved in? Next, I'll show you the advantages, disadvantages and features offered to you by both shared hosting and dedicated server hosting. Before I proceed further, let's refresh your mind with the definition of both types of hosting. Shared hosting, as most of you should be well-versed, is hosting where a lot of websites share the same resources in one server. Resources here simply mean the total webspace, the memory, the processor speed, as well as the bandwidth. Dedicated server on the other hand, give you the freedom of being alone. Alone means you are the sole owner of the server. You can do whatever you want and no other sites share the resources with you. It sure comes with a price as dedicated server is way more expensive than shared hosting. However, if you believe that the advantages which I shall be listing in a short while are the advantages you long to have, then it's wise to conclude that these advantages can outweigh the expensive price (but still affordable) of dedicated server.

Facing the challenges in the world of sharing!
Here's a simple analogy; renting a room on your own or finding a roommate to share the room with you. Simply, that's the problem or risks you might be facing when you opt for shared hosting. Shared hosting is just like you rent a room with a few other roommates. Won't it be congested to share in a small room? However, there is a reason why people choose to find roommates. Price is the main concern. Same goes to hosting industry. Shared hosting is cheaper and more affordable compared to dedicated hosting. Nowadays, you can find shared hosting with the price of USD4 to USD15 per month. Therefore, if you think that price is an issue and you are still green in hosting world and your online business has yet to achieve heavy traffic, the best solution is to go for shared hosting first. Consequently, you have to bear the drawbacks of shared hosting but if you choose a reliable and experienced hosting provider (probably in a hosting industry for around 3-4 years), the provider will ensure the most minimal drawbacks for its clients. In shared hosting environment, you will encounter certain disadvantages as follows:

Sharing Same IP
Having the same IP address in shared hosting is the main concern when other sites in the server is actually being blacklisted for unethical activities such as spamming or generating illegal script. Since, you share the same server, it's obvious you will share the same IP address. So, when other sites are blacklisted, those sharing the same IP with them will also unfortunately share the same fate - being banned alltogether by search engine. You will be the victim of crime which you don't commit. However, there are times where you can buy yourself a dedicated IP but this usually is not needed unless you are getting yourself an SSL certificate. In cases such as this one, it depends on your hosting provider on how they deal with clients who do illegal and unapproved activities. Usually, a reliable and responsible host will suspend those sites which perform spamming in order to rescue other sites who are innocent. In short, to get yourself a shared hosting, get to know how your provider deal with those sites which are hosted in the same server as you.

Slow Server Response Time
Using the same analogy as above, if you and your roommates want to use the bathroom, you have to queue up, correct? Hence, it will slow down your daily work. Same goes to shared hosting. If one of your neighbours have heavy daily traffic, it will consume most of the bandwidth and when things get tighten up, you will feel the slow response time such as difficulty accessing your website. This is because server will respond to the requested file in order of the queue. If one of the visitor happens to request it later and is on a long queue, that visitor will experience slow response time and might eventually end up leaving your website.

Server Crashes Regularly
The factor to server crashes more often than usual, is the fact that certain scripts are generated and it can overload a server's resources. If webhosting provider does not monitor the server's activity, those poorly-written CGI script can give you more headache than relief. Hence, it's vital for host provider to monitor the server regularly to prevent server from crashes and to protect your site from being affected. You as a client, please do take the initiative to question your providers on how they take precautions for cases like this one. A well-knowledgable and reliable host provider will be able to answer your question to your satisfaction.

Despite aforementioned bad points, a lot of websites also use this shared hosting solution and if a proper provider is chosen, you can be assured that such incidents will barely happen.

Dedicated Hosting - A world of your own
What makes people opt for dedicated hosting instead of shared hosting? Again, the most important criterion is money. If you can afford a costly solution like this, go ahead. However, don't just simply go ahead without weighing the pros and cons of dedicated hosting. Even if you have money, and you are just a small medium enterprise, think twice for investing in dedicated hosting. Reason is because dedicated hosting is mainly for large and busy sites such as portal, search engine, online content provider, heavy traffic forums and etc. In addition, dedicated hosting usually requires more technical-savvy specialist to monitor it. Listed below are some of the advantages why dedicated hosting is a popular option:

You are the boss!
Here, it means you have more control of everything. You can install whatever applications and scripts you want. You can do script testing and if anything were to happen, no one else to blame but yourself. You will have the ability to customise the hardware and softwares installed on your server, which you cannot find this priviledge if you are under shared hosting.

No more limitation in bandwidth usage
Compare to shared hosting, you might get yourself a "warning letter" from your hosting provider if you exceed the maximum bandwidth allocated to you. With dedicated hosting, you have the amount of bandwidth of a server. Hence, downloading and uploading any materials from your site will not be a problem if you have a lot of daily visitors performing such activity.

More Secured
Having a dedicated server is in fact more secured compared to shared hosting. This is because dedicated server will be provided its own firewall. Therefore, the information stored in dedicated server is less vulnerable to attacks by hackers or any malicious codes. In addition, hosting provider will usually provide backup for you with added fee, but, in terms of security, it's actually worth it.

Better Performance
Since dedicated hosting means only you alone are hosted in that server, the response time of the server to requested files will be so much faster compared to shared hosting. Visitors who browse your website will feel happy because your pages will appear on their browser fast enough to satisfy them. Fast loading time will always brighten anyone's day!

Generally, choosing which type of hosting solely depends on your needs. So, to make a wise decision, do more researches and evaluations as well as consult those highly technical savvy people. Remember that a good and smart decision will determine your online storefronts' success. Cheers!

A couple caveats:

With dedicated hosting, bandwidth usage is usually still limited by your data center, so there's no totally free ride. That said, the limit is usually much more than you need.

Also, although it *can* be more secure, you are responsible for your own server's security, so you are responsible for making kernel updates, software patches, etc. Much of this can be automated, but you may have to hire an admin if you're not familiar with these things.

How does shared hosting work with SQL Server apps, say 10 tables approx 10,000 rows across all tables?

Its only more secured if you want it to be. If you go with a small or emerging host, you will get quality shared hosting with no headaches. If you want a cheap nice looking but no truely proffesional quick fix like godaddy, then you can get that if you want.

You are the boss!
- more headaches, or pay extra for good management that is not offered by the dedicated reseller
Better performance
-if you need to read this guide to know that then you won't be able to secure your server well enough to stop a child who just bought a DDOS ANY SITE YOU WANT FOR $2.99 exe off of ebay

you don't always get better performance, what if your dedi provider is horrible, then the shared host that doesn't cram their servers wins

My experience says that small hosting company - lots of haedaches. I desagree with you in this case.

My experience says that small hosting company - lots of haedaches. I desagree with you in this case.

Guess you've been to the wrong 'small hosting companies' Not all = Headaches

My experience says that small hosting company - lots of haedaches. I desagree with you in this case.

i wouldn't say all small hosting companies are a headache, but i will agree that a lot of them are. it's usually pretty easy to spot which ones are good and which ones are bad though. there's also a fair amount of larger hosts that are a pain to deal with but not as big of a percentage.

There are many small hosting company who realy do a good job then big company. Small hosting company will work hard to increase thier client and grow big and mor eover there will be the compatitor with the big company to shine in the market. In the case of small company they will take care of all client and make their client cool, wherein in big company they will ask u to send mail and then u have to wait untill they reply..

I think this is a decision yyou need to make by yourself. You need to take into consideration how big your website is, how much traffic you get etc.

There are a lot of shared web hosts who offer lots of bandwidth very cheaply. However you need to look into whether their servers can handle large amounts of traffic and if you have a forum that is going to be using a lot of mysql.

Most of the time webhosts will be able to handle traffic but not heavy mysql traffic. You need to ask them whether they have optimised their mysql services for large amounts of traffic, the same with php.

So Concentrate more on how your hosts servers' will cope not so much bandwidth

Hope this helps.

i will review the points said by starsearcher (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/member.php?u=131365)

1. Sharing Same IP : In shared hosting too you can go with your own dedicated ip address by paying around 30$ extra for an annum. so that you will be the full owner for the ip.
2. Slow Server Response Time : The word shared itself denotes every thing will be shared. In this case load, bandwidth, storage will be shared. Then how come the server responce time will be delay when compared to dedicated server.
3. Server Crashes Regularly : In shared hosting not only one domain will be hosted they will be hosting around 300 domain and it the server crashed the webhoster will be responcible to all the clients hosted and so he will be so carefull in the case of server crash.
4. Better Performance : If you compare with shared and dedicated for both Internet acts a back bone. If a client access a web site with dialup connection then he will find difficult in opening the site in that point he will not c where the site is hosted in shared hosting are dedicated hosting he will just tell my net connection is slow. Similarly if a client uses 1 mbps net and if he accuss a shared hosting site with good speed then he will not tell this domain is hosted in dedicated server, but the site will be hosted in shared hosting.
5. Cost : cost is the main fact for a low and middle level organization. To host a site they will think of the cost spent per month and per annum what will be the returns becasue of this.

i think the decision is on how much user willing to pay. pay for what we need, not for wat offered. to me shared hosting is just fine. but to those that want root access, then vps. so, i still think needs is the concern.

There are many small hosting company who realy do a good job then big company. Small hosting company will work hard to increase thier client and grow big and mor eover there will be the compatitor with the big company to shine in the market. In the case of small company they will take care of all client and make their client cool, wherein in big company they will ask u to send mail and then u have to wait untill they reply..


Couldn't agree more :agree::agree:

My experience says that small hosting company - lots of haedaches. I desagree with you in this case.
My strong believe is that support can be better organized in a small company, I mean there's no need to send a ticket from one department to the other , and one person handles everything. This personal attitude is by far more effective that that of huge companies.

The main thing is not that: is the company is small or big.
Small company - little customers, little support need, little operators
Big company - many customers, many operators, many co-ordinators, and the support is still very good.
Everything depends on the skills of the operatos, not on their number.

yeah! fully agreed!

Everything depends on the skills of the operatos, not on their number. -> agree with that fully

i am definitely agree the author cause i know sharing connection got a lot of disadvantages

There are other options besides shared and dedicated hosting. You could choose to go for a VPS - this is kinda somewhere in the middle - you get a lot of the added security, freedom and resources of having your own server but without many of the maintenance headaches.

I've pasted the introductory paragraphs from my article about the benefits of VPS web hosting below:
http://www.digital-crocus.com/kb/31_The_benefits_of_a_Virtual_Private_Server_%28VPS%29.html

Virtual Private servers are a way of dividing up a single physical server into hundreds of mini-servers that provide complete separation between individual user accounts on the system. This is in contrast to a shared hosting environment where many users share the same environment and the potential exists for conflicts and hackers to gain access to other accounts on the system. A virtual server is a way to gain many of the benefits of having your own physical server, but without a lot of the added costs.

A virtual server will benefit you in terms of security – you will be completely isolated from other users of the system. You will also benefit in terms of flexibility – because a virtual server is like having your own server and this means you can install anything you like on it. Having your own real server can be costly and difficult to administer – you will need to buy the hardware and keep it running by upgrading and replacing it regularly, you will need to install and configure all of the software as well as keep it up-to-date with the latest security patches. A virtual private server can provide you with all the benefits of having your own server without the associated costs.


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The other option is a reseller account - again this may give you some of the advantages of a dedicated server like increased resources and greater flexibility, but without the added costs of having to maintain the hardware and software of your own server.

I must say, dedicated is worth the money.

Thanks

excellent information here! Im a shared person

good words from you