IWS Best Practice Articles | Web Site Hosting

PROS AND CONS OF SHARED HOSTING

There are a lot of various types of web site hosting. They can be classified by different indexes.

There is Paid and Free web hosting; Linux/Unix-based and Windows-based (and others but they are not that popular); shared, dedicated and VPS. Every hosting type has its own advantages and disadvantages.

The key aim of this article is to acquaint you with main merits and drawbacks of shared hosting.

First of all we must give a definition of the term "shared hosting". So, what is shared hosting?

Shared hosting is such kind of providing space for web sites on the host’s server when you share this server with other customers' web sites. All web sites use the same software and operating system. But unlike free web hosting which has the same conditions, with shared web hosting you have much more benefits.

Shared web hosting can be divided into two subtypes: Free Shared Hosting is the best choice for trying some new ideas and not paying for hosting. This type of web site hosting provides you with everything necessary for floating your site. Of course you should not expect the best conditions for your site. Bandwidth and Disk Space is limited. This type of shared hosting may not ensure you with MySQL, ASP or PHP support. Web statistics are also poorly provided.

Paid Shared Hosting provides such necessary features, as multiply e-mail, MySQl, ASP and PHP are supported. You may use it if you want to host small business web site, intermediate or large professional site but don't need the whole server's space. Using shared hosting you get a good possibility to host your site on a powerful, well administrated server at a low monthly cost.

Shared hosting is in first-time webmasters' great demand, 'cause it can provide reliable web presence without having special technical skills. So now we can pick out pros and cons of shared hosting:

Pros

Low cost
Good server administration
Multiple e-mail, MySQL, PHP support
You don't need some unique knowledge in web site and server administration

Cons

Possibly low security level
Resource limitation -everybody uses the same memory, CPU and Hard Drive.
You can use only the software which is provided with your hosting company, and correspondingly you can't install your own.
Some available ports and connections can be limited because of security policy.

The main feature of shared hosting is that you don't need to worry about possible server problems. Your hosting company's support service is to fix all troubles. So, when choosing shared hosting you must carefully look at company support's quality, the better quality of support - the better conditions for your site.

With shared hosting you can also place several sites in the neighbor parts of the server.

Now when you are acquainted with all special features of shared hosting you can decide whether this type of hosting is appropriate to your needs and requirements.

About The Author
Olga Elizarova is webmaster and articles editor of hosting reviews sites http://www.web-site-hosting-reviews.com and http://www.web-hosting-review.net.