dedicated-vs-shared-hostingWhen it comes to web hosting, the site owners are usually in a dilemma which one to choose between shared and dedicated hosting. Shared hosting is the hosting option where your site would be hosted along with many other sites on one single server. Dedicated hosting is the option where one single server will be solely allotted to one single website. Here is a comparative overview on dedicated vs shared hosting.

Uptime & Downtime

Dedicated hosting always assures better uptime and lower downtime in comparison to shared hosting. A shared hosting option always poses the problem of higher downtime given DDOS attacks, rogue scripts, low security, traffic spikes etc. As dedicated hosting guarantees better security and performance of the server, you are generally confirmed of around 99 percent uptime.

Response time

In case of shared hosting, your site is sharing & competing with many others for space, memory, processor & other kinds of limited resources. This threatens the respond time of websites on shared servers leading to data integrity issues which can be a bad patch for user experience quality on your site. But in case of dedicated hosting, your website enjoys all the resources the server can provide which essentially strengthens the response time of your website.

Bandwidth Penalty

Bandwidth provision is generally limited with shared hosting as you are sharing the disk space here. Thus, you would be charged in case you go beyond allotted amount. But with dedicated hosting you are getting unlimited bandwidth & thus there is no question of bandwidth penalty charge.

Security Feature

Dedicated hosting is anyday more secured in comparison to shared hosting. In case of shared hosting, your site has to share server space with several other sites- and any problem in those sites would inevitably affect the security of your site. For example, if your neighbor site gets hacked your site too won’t be free from the prying claws of the hacker. Besides, if any of your neighbor sites carry untested codes leading to server crash, your site would be affected too. But in dedicated hosting, your website is always free from the problems faced by other sites & hence you are guaranteed of better security here.

Control Quotient

Shared hosting does not leave you with the control of your server. Thus, you are always at the mercy of the server administrators here whenever you plan to install something in your website. But in case of dedicated hosting, the entire server is in your control and you don’t have to wait for anybody to configure the firewall or decide on the website code or install new software packages into your site.

In conclusion it can be said that yes, dedicated hosting is expensive in comparison to shared counterpart but if you consider the high end features of the dedicated facility- the higher cost seems duly justified. So, if you are into a big expanding business where you want better security, space and performance, dedicated hosting is the option for you. Shared hosting would be appropriate for small scale businesses with comparatively lower traffic and taut budget.