Shared Vs. Cloud Vs. VPS Vs. Dedicated Hosting

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If you stumbled into this article after hours of researching which web hosting plan is suitable for your precious website, then, you made a correct choice stopping here.

I also may not have to tell you how important web hosting solutions is to run your online business on the internet. Web hosting is the first, and the most important step without which going forward is impossible.

And these choices affect your online business in more ways than you know. The choice is to be made for which web hosts would be better for your online business as well as the hosting plan.

Each hosting plan is developed in order to fulfill the specific requirements of its customers. So, making a choice between the pool of hosting plans is actually about what you and your online business require to grow.

Every web hosting plan has been compared to our blogs in detail to help you choose one, but this article is all about narrowing down your choices. Here, we compare all the web hosting solutions, whether it be simple web hosting plans or a more complex like dedicated hosting.

Shared Hosting

Shared Hosting is to date the most popular hosting platform used by most of the users, especially the ones who are just starting their online business.

Despite the popularity, the actual concept of shared hosting and how it works on a day to day basis is still confusing to some of the people. Therefore, shared hosting is the type of web hosting plan where a single physical server is shared among multiple users.

As the name suggests, the sharing of a server results in the sharing of the server resources such as processing power, memory, storage, and many more.

Because of the collective platform, shared hosting is the most inexpensive and popular option for small to medium-sized organizations. It is suitable for many bloggers, startups, and online businesses to get their website up and starting at a very reasonable price.

The shared servers are similar to normal computers equipped with a central processing unit (CPU), hard drive space, and RAM. All these resources are hosted by the physical server which allows the secure storage of all the files, data, information, and your website’s content making up your website. When your website’s URL then the stored data from your server is sent to the internet user.

Key features

Above-average uptime
Suitable for low traffic
Shared resources
Tiered plans
Some plans host more than one website
Monthly bandwidth
MySQL database support
Multiple FTP users
Email supported
24/7 customer support

Pros

Inexpensive or cost-effective
Flexible plans
Secure
Easy and straightforward setup
Effortless maintenance

Cons

Possible shutdowns
Potential risks
Limited customization

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is the type of internet service or web hosting plan available on providing its services on virtual servers. The hosting resources are used from several clustered servers.

That is, your website uses the virtual resources of many servers to operate your online business smoothly. The cluster of servers is what we call the cloud.

The computing resources of a cloud server is taken from the huge underlying networks of physical server or machines which is known as the web server.

Most of the medium to large-sized businesses prefer the cloud hosting solution over many others is because of its pay as you go model. This model allows its users to pay only for the services they use and not even a single resource or service is given to you without your permission.

This results in high control over your web servers and what you can do with your online business to ensure optimum growth. Cloud hosting actually exists as an alternative to hosting solutions on single servers such as shared or dedicated hosting.

The clustered hosting is considered just as an extension of the single server hosting, the only difference being the website is hosted on multiple servers.

Key features

Highly customizable
First-class infrastructure
Affordable price
Distributed and redundant network
Reliable
Secured solution
Unmetered resources
Fully managed solution
Scalable
24/7 support available
Monitored by host

Pros

Extremely scalable
Redundant server environment
High availability
High uptime
Secure
Faster speed
Works well for any sized businesses

Cons

Network dependency
Loss of control
Technical issues
Limited features

VPS Hosting

VPS or Virtual Private Server is a small space in a physical server that acts as an entire server itself. Just like the cloud server, a virtual private server also uses the technique of virtualization to create several virtual machines that have its own operating system, resources, applications, and configurations. All of this is equipped within a single yet powerful server and each physical server can have multiple virtual servers on it.

The entire concept of virtual server revolves around the technique called virtualization. Using this technique the entire physical server can be split up into multiple virtual servers and allocated to multiple users.

All the virtual servers share a single physical server but each of them acts like a single server itself. You can set up and configure your virtual server and its environment just as if it was your own server.

This offers a great deal of privacy to its customers along with high flexibility for the fraction of the cost of a dedicated server. The virtualization concept accesses the server and its resources as a whole and divides all the resources among different accounts used by different users for different purposes.

Each VPS account holder is assigned to a certain amount of RAM as specified in their hosting package. These assigned or allocated resources are only for your account and no one would use the allocated resources.

Key features

Guaranteed resources
Scalable hosting
Root access
24/7 technical support
Multiple choice of operating system
Server management
Cost-efficient
SSH access
Multiple websites hosting allowed

Pros

Increased performance
Highly scalable
Greater control
Low cost
Semi-managed hosting

Cons

Technical knowledge required
No control over the physical server
Expensive than shared hosting

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is the most expensive as well as the most complex type of hosting solution that you can find in the market. It is an internet hosting solution in which an organization either rents or buys a whole server, which is often powered in a data center.

The web host you buy or rent from not only provides the server equipment but also offers administrative and other services. This is the most flexible solution of web hosting because unlike a shared server environment, a dedicated server provides full control over the server, software, as well as, security system.

Dedicated hosting is offered by several web hosts, where the server administration is often offered to its customers as an add-on service. The dedicated web hosts need to have a service level agreement with the customers that outlines all the services and resources guarantees as required by the client.

You can also find a managed dedicated hosting plan where the server is owned by the web hosting service provider, and it also provides the support for operating systems, applications, and security systems.

Key features

Multiple choice of OS
Full control
Server configuration
Multiple hardware choices
Multiple cPanel options
Secured features
High availability
Server management
First-class technical support

Pros

Server resources are not shared
Enhanced performance
Increased security
Flexibility
Dedicated IP addresses
Administrative powers
Reduced overhead of server equipment

Cons

Expensive
Not suitable for a small-sized organization
Hefty technical knowledge required