Starting an online business is equal parts exciting and exhausting!
But hey! When you look at the opportunities the online world has to offer, and the possibilities that come with it, it all starts becoming easier. The trick is to break every task you need to do, to get your business online, into small steps and tick each one off before you jump to the next one.
So, assuming you have identified the right industry, your target audience, your business type and name — quickly buy and register your domain name to secure that for your online business. After all, your domain name is the virtual address and home to your business.Â
But just like any house or shop you buy in the physical world, you’ll need additional resources to get it up and running — the same goes for your online business.
For an online business, these critical resources that ensure the smooth running of your business come in many shapes and forms, like, disk space, RAM, storage space, security features, etc. This further expands to the ‘furnishings’ you’ll need in the form of website design and development.
First thing first, let’s get the online business running with the right web hosting plan.Â
While there are many options in terms of types of hosting you can pick from, let’s stick to two popular options in this blog — Shared Hosting and Dedicated Hosting.
What is Shared Hosting?
Just like the name suggests, in Shared Hosting, multiple websites share the same server. A single server will offer multiple resources, like storage, disk space and RAM; which will then be further shared by all the websites housed on that server.Â
Think of it as an apartment within a building. All apartments, although have their individual space, share the same building resources, for example, water supply, elevators etc.
In the same way, in Shared Hosting you have your own space to run and do the business but the resources offered by the server are being used by all the websites on it. Again, to understand what that means for your business, think of the same example we used above. In an apartment, while you do have your security features, it may be compromised if your neighbours (other websites) are lax about their security. However, since you don’t buy/rent the whole building (server), the cost of upkeep gets divided between everyone and it becomes much more affordable for each.
What is Dedicated Hosting?
If Shared Hosting is an apartment within a building, Dedicated Hosting is your private bungalow; all the resources are dedicated to match and cater to your personal needs.Â
Dedicated Hosting is a popular hosting type that allows for exclusivity as the server is solely dedicated to a single customer/business. This means your security can’t be compromised by any other website, and you have complete control and freedom on how you want to use and manage your server resources.
Just like having your bungalow, with Dedicated Hosting you get more flexibility, higher security, better control and superior performance.
Now that we understand what Shared and Dedicated Hosting are, let’s understand the key differences between the two. This should help make a more informed decision when you want to buy or change your hosting type.
SHARED HOSTING AND DEDICATED HOSTING — KNOW THE DIFFERENCE
While the first difference between Shared hosting and Dedicated hosting can be derived from the names itself; in shared multiple websites share the same server and in dedicated a single server is used by a single website only — there are more differences between the two. Let’s take a look at what these differences are:
COST
Shared Hosting is available at a much more affordable price, as compared to Dedicated Hosting, for the simple reason that the server is being shared, and so are the resources; and as a result the cost. On the other hand, Dedicated Hosting is much more expensive since a single business/website will pay for the running of the entire server.
SECURITY
In a Dedicated Hosting environment security is much higher as there is no other website sharing the server. A website on Dedicated Hosting, thus, has greater control over the security features required and security threats due to other websites are negated. On the other hand, security risks in a Shared Hosting environment are more as multiple websites are sharing the server. Even if one of these websites gets exposed to a threat, all other websites on the server are at risk.
RESOURCES
As stated above, in Shared Hosting all the resources — data, CPU, memory, Disk space etc. — are shared by all the websites residing on the server. On the other hand, because in Dedicated Hosting the entire server and its resources are dedicated to you, you don’t share resources with any other website.
MANAGEMENT
Management of Shared Hosting requires little to none technical expertise. You do not get any access to make customizations or configure any software and work with the existing and pre-set settings. However, in Dedicated Hosting you have access to make customizations to your server settings and also configure software or updates according to your own business needs.
WEBSITE PERFORMANCE
It all comes down to the same thing — shared Vs dedicated server space. In Shared Hosting since you’re sharing the server space chances are you may face some performance issues. Even if one website gets affected, all other websites may face a down-time, a lag or even loading issues. On the other hand, website performance remains unaffected in Dedicated Hosting as the entire server and all its resources are supporting just your website needs.
