The right web hosting plan can enable you to offer your clients quality services. It can give you optimum security and better performance. 

Yet, there are many web hosting services; you have a couple to choose from. But which is your ideal choice? 

This guide analyzes dedicated and shared hosting in-depth. Read on to explore! By the end of it, you’ll have a clear distinction between the two and a clear stance on why you settle for dedicated hosting.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting involves using a server in which you have exclusive rights over it as a single entity. A dedicated server can conveniently allow you to use WordPress and other plugins like woocommerce. 

And, while a dedicated server comes at relatively high costs, it gives you optimum convenience. Below are some of the advantages of using dedicated hosting:

High Uptime Percentage

Uptime is the time percentage a service takes to be available. Hence, a high uptime means your services appear quickly.

Take, for instance, you have an uptime of 720 hours monthly. This would be 43,200 minutes or 2,592,000seconds. 

So, your 99.999% uptime would be 25.92 seconds monthly. Your monthly 99.999% uptime would be 4minutes, 20seconds.

Your 99.999% uptime is ‘five 9s’ while a 99.99% is ‘four 9s’ uptime. Again, if your uptime is 99.5%, it would be equivalent to 3hours 36 minutes. 

A 90.0% uptime would be equal to 7hours 12 minutes. So, the greater your uptime, the faster the access to your services. 

Likewise, the lesser the downtime your clients will have. A lower downtime means a better user experience.

A dedicated server also means you have lower bounce rates and higher conversions, which you’d need to grow your online business organically. Dedicated hosting also gives you access to all the tools you’d need to maximize your page loading time.

A higher uptime percentage also means you don’t lose any data from system failure. This uptime also helps you enjoy a quick failover to redundancy, minimizing your downtime. It allows you to enjoy a manual failover and failback to eliminate downtime during planned maintenance.

Better Performance

Your web host gives you a dedicated server. This way, you can enjoy the exclusivity that comes with faster applications. 

The exclusivity also means you enjoy better performance than you would enjoy with shared hosting. Not to mention the efficiency that comes with premium plus support from your service provider.  

How about the robust tools and the excellent performance analytics? All these help you enjoy a high return on investment.

Besides, a well-performing website means better success for your business. You don’t have to worry about not ranking on the search engines that matter. 

You can grow your business organically. And, you can have more clients visiting your website because of the enhanced user experiences.

More Reliability

Dedicated hosting is more reliable. Sharing a server reduces your reliability as you have to share all the tools and speed. 

But, a dedicated server allows you to use your bandwidth as you prefer. In the shared server, every client struggles to gobble up the bandwidth. 

This may result in crashes and lags. Yet dedicated hosting saves you all these inconveniences.

Greater Security

Security is a vital element for your online business. Besides, e-commerce businesses and online businesses collect a lot of sensitive data, which you must optimally protect. A dedicated server ensures the safety of all your business information. Your host commits to protecting you from external threats. 

Again, dedicated servers are less prone to hacks and viruses. Since you’re the only one who uses the server, you’ll have fewer incidences of data breaches.

The host can constantly update you on available updates and firewall installation with dedicated servers. This enhances your convenience and gives you complete control over your website’s security. 

Your host continually updates you on any software installations and security upgrades. Besides, since you’re the only one who logs into your server, you can control all your security protocols and controls.

Optimum Flexibility

A dedicated server allows you to control your storage, hardware, and hosting environments. You can upgrade your RAM, acquire an extra hard disk or install a faster CPU. 

You’re at liberty to customize them to your specific interests. And, you can also request your service provider for an upgrade that may improve your services.

Cost-Effectiveness

Sounds ridiculous, right? Dedicated hosting is more cost-effective than the benefits you’ll have from using it over a shared server. 

Your dedicated server provider handles everything you need to increase your online visibility. They’re the caretakers of your server, and you can count on them to fix any arising issues on time.

A dedicated server gives you a comprehensive in-house server which you don’t need to worry about maintenance and upgrades. Your service provider is also responsible for supplying all the hardware maintenance.

With a dedicated server, it would be as though you’re renting services from your service provider. Hence, you’ll have fewer upfront costs as they’ll be responsible for all the running costs.

Cons of Dedicated Servers

● They’re more expensive compared to shared hosting plans. You shoulder all the running costs and installation charges.

● They’re technically advanced. Hence, you’d need some technical skills to manage your server with this plan. Otherwise, you’d have to spend more pennies to have your service provider fully manage your server.

Now that you understand dedicated hosting and its value to you, it’s time to understand shared hosting.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is a web hosting service that involves multiple websites sharing a web server. Hence, all these websites share the resources and features that the server has.

While it’s a common form of web hosting, it’s more convenient for businesses with several web servers on-site. When used by different businesses, the service provider partitions the spaces on the server to fit all the websites.

These websites thus share the network, the computing power, the storage, and any other hardware component available for the server. It’s a cheap plan as all the businesses contribute to the hosting charges.

These are some of the benefits you’d enjoy with shared hosting:

Reduced Costs

With a shared server, you cost-share the hosting costs with other businesses. Also, you’ll partially pay for the upgrade costs and the running costs. 

Thus, you can enjoy hosting your website at a cheaper cost than you would with a dedicated server where you’d shoulder all the costs yourself.

Shared hosting also comes with several disadvantages, including:

Bandwidth Issues

All the businesses that share a server share the resource the server offers. This means you share processing, memory, and bandwidth.

Hence, if one website with whom you share a server generates a lot of traffic, you’ll also experience slow loading pages and reduced overall website performance. Besides, if you’re an e-commerce business, your clients shopping online will have a hard time. 

Your pages will load slowly. And, you may also have a higher bounce rate and ultimately fewer conversions. A bad user experience can make you lose clients and attract new ones.

Poor Security

The hosting company should install malware detection software, server security programs, and firewalls on a shared server. Yet, all the websites will share these features. 

Hence, you may not explain the cause of a data breach or virus sources.

System Controls

You don’t enjoy controlling a shared server. Your service provider determines whether and when you need hardware upgrades. 

You also don’t choose your site’s customizations. Besides, your web server determines what your visitors see. It determines the data your users can access. 

Yet, customization would allow you to determine all the features your visitors should enjoy. Unfortunately, a shared server doesn’t give you this privilege.

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Dedicated Hosting vs Shared Hosting

Above are the significant differences between shared hosting and dedicated hosting. Yet, for a well-established business that generates a lot of traffic, a dedicated server would be more cost-effective and would have a better return on investment. 

Such businesses also need high security and maximum customizations of their web servers. The security needs of large companies also call for these businesses to have dedicated servers.

At the same time, if you want to enjoy improved security and a faster laid time regardless of your business type, a dedicated server is an excellent option. Although, shared hosting is cheaper and easier to use as the service provider does all the upgrades and maintenance. 

But, shared servers may deny you scalability, optimal security, faster-loading pages and give you a poor overall performance. Yet, small businesses struggling to stand up on their feet can benefit significantly from shared servers because of the cost-effectiveness. 

So, if you’re still unsure about which hosting plan suits your business better, contact Bright Hosting for professional assistance. Our experts understand the importance of reliable and faster web hosting solutions.