Dedicated Hosting vs Shared Hosting: Complete Comparison and Review

Whether it is dedicated hosting, shared hosting, or any other type of hosting, all your website files and data will be available on the Internet through web hosting only.

Web hostings are responsible for getting your site live on the Internet and accessible by anyone having the URL of your website.

And that is why choosing correct hosting is an important task which cannot be ignored. If you are running an online business or just starting, then you will need a website, and for that, you will have to buy hosting.

Now there are many different types of hostings available, which can sometimes be very confusing as every type of hosting offers different solutions … but dedicated and shared hostings are the two most popular ones.

Usually, people having a tight budget or starting with websites go with shared hosting while businesses or heavy website owners go with dedicated hostings.

Both hostings are designed and are available for different types of sites. So if you are thinking about which hosting will be best for you… read this post completely as we will answer all your questions related to dedicated and shared hostings.

Dedicated Hosting vs Shared hosting

In shared hosting, your website shares a server with other websites and all resources such as CPU, memory, hard disk, etc. are shared by all the sites.

Shared hosting by Bluehost

You have limited access to shared hosting, and you cannot run a very heavy website as multiple sites share resources. You will have to take care of the resources your website is consuming. But shared hostings are dirt cheap and are available for as low as $2.50/month.

In dedicated hosting, you have an entire server dedicated to only your website(s). You have full access to the server (though access level is decided by hosting providers) and all the resources of your server will be used by you only.

Dedicated hosting by Bluehost

No one else can access your server, and no other websites will be hosted on the server dedicated to you. You can configure everything according to your needs.

Growing businesses should always go with dedicated hostings. Scalability and flexibility are provided by dedicated hostings only. Shared hostings are perfect for small to mid-sized businesses or websites having limited monthly traffic.

Also, having dedicated servers will require some technical expertise as well, so if you don’t have anyone with technical knowledge, go with shared hostings only.

Cost Comparison

With shared hostings, all the resources are shared by many users, so the cost also gets divided. That is why shared hosting is very affordable and is best for beginners and small businesses. GoDaddy shared hosting plans start at just $2.49/month.

As dedicated servers are used by only one user at a time, they cost more. But more cost brings more flexibility, security, and scalability. Dedicated hostings are used by premium or power users. Godaddy Dedicated hosting prices start at $69.99/month and goes up to $129.99/month.

Dedicated hostings are usually 15 to 20 times more expensive than shared hostings.

Performance Comparison

Dedicated hosting will give you the real performance which you can expect from any server. You can manage and configure your server according to your requirements.

You can install any software you want, monitor the server, you will get root access, and you will get dedicated IPs as well, which sometimes helps in overall website performance.

Dedicated IP Address vs Shared IP Address (Source)

Also, dedicated hosting experiences very fewer downtimes, and you will not have to worry about sudden traffic spikes, and your users will get a consistent experience of your website. The speed of websites on dedicated servers has an added advantage.

Server Resources and Control Comparison

In shared hosting, you will have access to a control panel using which you can access your website files, folders, and install applications such as Wordpress, Joomla, etc. Databases, email accounts, resource monitoring, will be done by that control panel only. You will be able to see limited server analytics, as well.

With dedicated hosting, you are having full access to the physical hardware so you can scale, configure, and adjust anything and everything according to your application needs. You can optimize your server, adjust CPU settings, use root access to install operating systems, and modify the complete environment as well.

Security Comparison of Dedicated Hosting vs Shared hosting

Now if you are sharing some things with others, it will naturally have less security as compared to the thing to which only you have access.

That is the case with shared hostings. Any malware attack or script having virus injected in one website can cause the entire server to crash getting all the websites down.

Other websites hosted on the server can be good or bad as well, which can affect your website’s reputation as well. You cannot do much to secure your websites hosted on shared servers.

Dedicated servers offer more security and are less prone to server failures and downtimes.

You can monitor your server as well to check if your server is running any faulty script or process or not.

Also, you can enhance your server security by using firewalls and software which are not available for shared hostings.

Nowadays most dedicated server providers have RAID 1 storage for storing the data which is very secure as in RAID 1 storage, two copies of the server are kept to save the data from any sudden loss or malware attack. You can take regular backups as well.

Conclusion – Dedicated Hosting vs Shared hosting

Both hostings are designed for specific purposes, and you should choose accordingly.

If your website is going to be a big or heavy site with a large amount of data or traffic, then it will be better for you to go with dedicated hosting from the start.

Shared hosting is cheap, but they have their limitations. You will have to share all the resources which will affect the performance, and you will get limited monthly bandwidth.

Though dedicated hostings are costly, they provide better performance and are best for businesses.

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