How Does Dedicated Server Hosting Compare to Shared Hosting?
In any industry, there are two factors that will influence the success of an endeavor. It is important to maintain a high standard of reliability and mobilize the necessary resources to makes sure your organization is consistently accessible to, and able to properly serve, your target market. It’s also important to keep your overhead down so that your operation stays cost effective. Sometimes it can be difficult to keep these two potentially competing factors balanced. This need for proper balance is precisely at issue when an organization that operates a website must weigh the pros and cons of dedicated vs shared hosting.
The dedicated vs shared hosting conundrum is ultimately a decision between cost and control. The main reason to choose shared hosting is to reduce operating costs. It is essentially the Internet equivalent of buying into a condominium. Having to maintain a building all on your own can be very expensive, so if you can share a single building using portioned living spaces you can defray the costs by spreading them between many parties. With shared hosting, the ideas is that one hosting provider sets up a server, partitions it so that it can cater to several different domains and then maintains it, while multiple parties use the same server to host their websites and domains.
The Internet usually functions assuming that every site is operated on an independent server with its own IP address. A shared server functions either by equipping the server with multiple network adapters so that each hostname can be given a separate IP, or by setting the relevant entries in the Domain Name System (DNS) to append the registered hostnames to the IP address of the server when making resource requests so that the proper website will be accessed.
The first version of shared hosting is referred to as “IP-based” whereas the second is “name-based.” The main drawback of name-based hosting is that it is more likely to be subject to DNS malfunctions which would render it unreachable. IP-based services tend to be slightly more expensive, but they also carry the ability to use enhanced security features, like independent SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates which allow for the encryption necessary to operate secure sites.
The limitations of shared hosting in general can be understood using the same condominium analogy: it is not like having, and being the master of, your own house. You and your neighbors are in close quarters. Rules have to be respected and you are subject to the potential problems of having bad neighbors. If one of the other sites on the network hogs all the bandwidth or attracts viruses or other malicious attacks, the resulting downtime can affect the whole system.
On the other side of the spectrum you have dedicated hosting, which will provide you with an independent server where you will avoid the problems and limitations of shared hosting, but the higher costs will also come out of your pocket. Furthermore, if your site is big enough, there is a point where you’ll outgrow the capabilities of even the best shared hosting service.
If size and traffic aren’t an issue, then the decision between dedicated vs shared hosting ultimately comes down to questions of security and reliability. Dedicated hosting isn’t the top of the hosting food chain, but it is a step closer to operating your own server without the support of a provider.
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