In shared hosting, multiple websites are hosted on a single server. To host your site, you only need to upload your files on to the server and set up database connections. However, the same server will also contain files of other websites; or in other words, a shared server shares its resources with multiple websites. It’s due to this fact that this type of hosting is the most affordable one. It is usually the best choice for beginners.
Benefits of shared web hosting
When you are launching a new website, or when your website does not require much space or bandwidth, shared hosting is the right way to go. Since most of the sites hosted on shared servers consume less resources, performance is usually good unless the server is overloaded beyond its capacity.
1. It does not require initial setup. The account usually comes with many useful tools to manage your hosting. For example, the usage of the control panel (like cPanel) makes it extremely easy to manage your account without any technical knowledge
2. It is very affordable and you only need to pay few dollars – sometimes as low as $5 per month.
3. Since many sites are hosted on one server, you do not need to worry about the up-time. It makes it possible to have high configuration hardware. The maintenance too is excellent.
4. You get to choose from a variety of plans to suit your pocket and requirements.
Who should go for it?
It would be the right choice for websites that do not consume much of resources – the disk space on the server or the monthly bandwidth (which depends upon the number of monthly visitors your website gets). If the site you want to host is a personal blog or website or small business website, shared web hosting would be most suitable for you.
As long as your website does not receive heavy traffic, it will work perfectly fine for you. Once you start getting more hits, you can consider switching to VPS or dedicated hosting.
What to look for?
When selecting a shared service provider, you should find out how much bandwidth and disk space the hosting company will allot you. Customer support too should be reliable and easily accessible. And if you are looking to install any specific program or application like WordPress, Drupal, etc., you should also ensure that the hosting account you are buying has all the things required to successfully run that application.
