When you come across a web hosting as a fresher, one of the first platforms you encounter is shared hosting. It is the favorite option of many beginner web developers and some small businesses too. In a shared server, multiple websites are hosted by a single server. All the resources the server consists of are shared between all the websites it is hosting. This means that one user has to share their server as well as RAM, bandwidth, storage, etc with all the other users as well. This platform offers many benefits and features that are unique to it. Here are some of them briefly explained.
Advantages of Shared Servers:
The most attractive feature of shared hosting is that it is super affordable. Even the smallest of businesses owners will be able to avail a shared server. With the emergence of the digital era, the majority of businesses have gone online. This platform helps even the small-scale businesses to keep up with the trends.
Shared servers being the cheapest of hosting platforms, doesn’t require too much of a commitment from the user’s end. If you are just starting out in the digital world and are just experimenting with the online services, shared hosting is a great platform to begin with. If this online business model gains momentum, you can always upgrade to other more advanced hosting platforms.
Being designed for beginners, shared hosting is very user friendly. You don’t need to have any prior technical knowledge to host your website on a shared server. The control panel is very simple and easy to use. You also need to put in little no effort in maintaining the website.
One server hosting multiple websites means that if you happen to own more than one domain, you don’t need to spend on a separate server. You can have one destination for all your different websites. Hence shared hosting makes it convenient for people with multiple domains.
Disadvantages of Shared Servers
As you may have guessed, hosting multiple websites on one server can have its negative effects. If your website is to experience a large flow of traffic, there is a chance that it won’t be handled by the server. The website may lag during peak hours of web traffic.
There is also a chance that speed at which your website runs is not optimal with shared hosting. On occasions you may experience some downtime for your website.
One considerable weakness of shared servers is that you will not be offered optimal security. If one or few websites on your server is infected with any malware, it can serve as a threat to your website too. For this reason, you need to make sure your provider does not hand servers to websites that are prone to malicious threats.
Who can benefit from Shared Hosting?
Now that you have gone through the advantages and disadvantages of shared servers, you must have realized that it is not for everyone. As mentioned earlier, beginners would benefit the most from shared servers. Beginners usually do not require a separate individual server since they are yet to gain an audience to their sites. Same goes for small business owners. Owners who have been running their business offline so far and are curious about the online opportunities. This will give them an affordable platform to explore and find out if the digital platform suits them.
The best path you can take is to start out using a shared server in the online world. This itself opens up an array of doors to grow your presence. Once your websites start to receive a considerable amount of web traffic, you can easily upgrade to a more resourceful web hosting platform.
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