Cloud Hosting or Shared Hosting?
This question cannot be answered easily. It is a subjective choice and depends completely from your personal needs, but an objective observation based on experience is that both can work efficiently, each for its provisions. Most important thing before you start searching about Web Hosting companies, is to decide what type is best to meet your needs. So let’s explore Hosting world together in a simple and comprehensive way.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud Hosting’s main benefit, besides speed and privacy, is flexibility. With this system, you will have a website hosted on a group of servers instead of only one. This group of servers is synchronized and works as one unit which gives you the opportunity to have a responsive function in case of hardware or traffic problems. If that happens and the server that hosts website is on is down for any reason, you won’t even realize it because you will automatically be moved to another stable server and that is the “advantage” of this technology. You can start with a basic hosting plan for approximately 5 dollars a month by the generous discounts that many providers offer (regular price is 9-10 dollars per month) and have the ability to expand your privileges at anytime by paying an extra fee according to your new current needs. This way, storage, databases, bandwidth and many other options could become higher or even unlimited, and in case you don’t need so many assets anymore, you can always go back to your previous hosting plan.
VPS (Virtual Private Server)
VPS (Virtual Private Server) is an alternative choice which has the benefit of privacy.
It certainly demands high knowledge of computer skills and programming because you will have to fully equip it by yourself with database, storage, security and all necessary tools. You can also hire a company to do this for you, but it would be a very expensive solution and of course it will be exclusively in the company’s reliability to provide you with an actual private server. To proceed to this solution, number one factor is the trust between you and the company.
Shared Hosting
As for Shared Hosting it will provide you a low cost service and easy to use functions. Your website will be hosted on one server only, which means that you will share resources such as storage and databases with other websites hosted on this particular server. Pricing starts from 3 dollars per month and very often there are free services offered by the providers such as web transfers, domain names or even free website building. There is always a possibility on this shared system that you might deal with some downtime problems if your website’s traffic is high or even if another website’s traffic is high. Consider yourself as 1 of maybe 1000 users hosted on a server, which means that if one of you have a problem, that might affect the rest. It is unusual though, because web hosting providers are able to notice if someone is doing an overuse of resources, but it could still happen. And same thing applies with security problems or a website’s bad use: the user could be warned or even suspended by the providers. In case your website’s traffic is becoming higher, whether seasonally or permanently, and in order to avoid downtime problems, you can always upgrade your hosting plan or move to the Cloud by paying, in both cases, an extra fee.
conclusion:
In conclusion, Cloud Hosting system provides the presence of multiple servers which makes a website’s function continuous. It offers security, speed, privacy and resources, which you can easily maximize or even make unlimited anytime according to your needs, by paying an extra fee. On the other hand, Shared Hosting is a more affordable solution, hosted on one server, with easy to use functions and provision of some free services. Speed might be a little slower than Cloud’s, but it maintains the basic security and resources. If privileges’ expansion is necessary in order to have a responsive website function, you can upgrade anytime to a more beneficial hosting plan or move to Cloud by paying, in both cases, an extra fee.
Best choice
Best choice for someone in the beginning of his online presence is to be part of shared hosting because it is an ideal and affordable option. Given that your website’s traffic is not very high, you could start with a responsive, low price hosting plan which will serve you as long as you need and still have the ability to upgrade it anytime in the future for more benefits by paying something extra or even change to Cloud hosting system if the circumstances demand it. There are many different Web Hosting providers, able to fulfill every requirement.
For someone who needs more privileges from the start or doesn’t mind to spend more money from the first day, the usage of more or unlimited space on both Cloud and Shared hosting is available for him. In our professional opinion, the most wise and cost effective solution, is to expand your web benefits slowly, according to your business course and growth.
