Q: What Is The Difference Between Shared And Dedicated Hosting?

Web Hosting refers to a service which enables the internet users to create their own websites for the others to view. It is quite impossible to host the website by yourself. The amount of bandwidth and the raw power required for processing makes it very difficult and highly expensive. Normally the users have two different options while to decide to go for a web hosting service namely, shared web hosting and the dedicated server hosting. Choosing the most appropriate one should be based on the amount of control you need on the website as well as the degree of accountability you need to assign to yourself.

Most of the business houses normally go for the shared web hosting for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons behind this preference is the cost associated with same. Shared web hosting is the best option for the people having limited funds. However, as the time passes and the business grows, shared hosting becomes unreliable. It is the time you need to switch on to the Dedicated Server Hosting. There are a number of differences between these 2 forms of web hosting are discussed below.

Common IP Against The Personal IP

All the websites which are hosted on the shared server have similar IP. Even though all the websites have personal and different domain names, the common IP is known to be the main trouble for websites with the search engines. While, on the other hand, dedicated servers are available with different IP’s. Only the hosted websites are known by their IP addresses. This safeguards different sites from any kind of penalties of the shared server.

Server Customization

Owners of different websites have different needs. Some of them want to install different applications on their own servers or enhance the level of performance of their servers. If you also want to do the same, you need a dedicated server and not the shared one. Dedicated servers enable the owners to enhance the memory level and upgrade the disk space and processor. With the help of shared hosting, it is quite impossible to have control on the server.

Server Resource Sharing

The sharing of server resources has always been a limitation for website hosted on shared hosting like iPage and FatCow. It clogs shared server and make the performance level poor. Whereas the dedicated servers are dedicated to the single web page and there is no sharing of other resources. This means that the website has a whole server and hence increases the performance as against shared hosting.

Cost

The price is the main point of difference between the shared and the dedicated hosting. Shared hosting is cheapest medium of getting your website hosted. This is so because the costs are equally distributed. On the other hand, dedicated servers are quite expensive and may not demand to the web owners on a limited monetary requirement. There is no server sharing and you have to bear a great cost for the hosting service.

Installation And Maintenance

Owners using shared hosting do not have to carry out maintenance and service activities. The web host must make sure that the server is always running at its best. On the other hand, the dedicated server needs a good amount of maintenance to keep the server running. One should possess web hosting skills in order to deal with the dedicated servers.

So, these are some main points of difference between the Shared And Dedicated Hosting.