There are over 1,323,180,500 websites in the world today, and a few new ones are launched every minute. The majority of these pages use shared hosting. Everyone even remotely involved with the Internet today knows that this is the cheapest available option. They also know it’s the least secure one. However, there is more to shared hosting pros and cons, and you have to understand all the nuances to decide whether it’s right for you.
Shared Hosting: Pros
The majority of people believe that the main (and sometimes only) benefit of shared costing is low cost. However, in truth, convenience is a much bigger seller of this service, especially for small businesses.
When using this kind of hosting, you won’t have to deal with any kind of administration, be it technical or organizational. The hosting service will maintain your website, perform all necessary checkups and updates, and run its own tech support.
You can launch and maintain a good website using shared hosting even if you have never done this before and have little idea of how these things work. That’s the main reason why all hosting for beginners services are shared.
The money-saving aspect of this hosting also goes beyond the low fees. With all administering and management handled by the host, you don’t have to either hire extra staff to do these jobs or to train the employees you already have.
This freedom offers another important but underappreciated advantage to shared hosting: time. When you or your employees don’t spend time on website’s technical management, you can focus on actually growing your business. This gives you a chance to succeed and switch to a more advanced hosting service faster.
Shared Hosting: Cons
The most well-known and universally criticized disadvantage of shared hosting is its low security. Poor performance is a close second in that list. However, there are many reliable providers of shared hosting that monitor their security well and ensure fair server resources’ distribution. Therefore, you can have a fast, reliable, and secure website even when sharing the host. All you need is to choose a trustworthy provider.
However, there is a major shared hosting con that you can’t avoid no matter how good the company is: lack of flexibility. No matter how progressive your views of website design are, you will be severely limited in its customization. Overall, you will be restricted by the utilities and programs used by the hosting company. One of the big benefits in hiring a managed hosting company is purely just on how reliable they are.
There are also restrictions on many website design features as they can affect the load on the server and thus, other websites hosted there. Even installing extra security features may be impossible because of that. Some hosting providers, like Bluehost, offer more advanced packages where your shared hosting comes with more flexibility. However, even those are rather limited.
Shared Hosting Pros and Cons: Conclusion
Shared hosting is a great option for small businesses and beginner entrepreneurs due to its affordability and ease of use. However, this service doesn’t allow for much of a website growth and optimization. Therefore, you should move on as soon as you are able to afford a more flexible and secure hosting.
