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Shared Hosting or VPS Hosting

On this page:

• Shared Hosting and VPS Hosting
• What to look for in a Web Hosting plan
• Select the right Web Hosting plan
• Shared Hosting
• VPS Hosting
• Compare Shared and VPS Hosting
• Exclusive Features of VPS Hosting
• Control Panels and other Features
• Shared Hosting - a Web Hosting option for Small Business Websites
• More comparisions

Shared Hosting and VPS Hosting

Hosting is a fundamental procedure to make your website accessible and/or visible across the globe over the Internet. Web hosting is basically the process of transferring the website from a local computer to a server - another computer, which is permanently connected to the Internet. We know that the objective of developing a website is to market one's brand and identity easily, and without hosting your website properly it is not possible.

What to look for in a web hosting plan

Web Hosting ensures your online presence across the globe. Therefore, before selecting the perfect hosting plan for your site, it is necessary that you analyze your objectives and requirements and compare them with the features offered by the service providers. Don’t negotiate with the cost of hosting your website – think about the performance. Following are some general factors, which you should examine at the beginning:

• Quick and effective service of the web hosting service provider
• Appropriate server up-time
• Supportive facilities to improve your online performance

These are some basic issues, which are valid for both ‘new players’ as well as existing businesses who want to gain full advantage of ‘WWW’. Apart from the general factors, you should think about some added features of a web-hosting plan. Some of them are – control panel that is responsible for marketing the website, templates, shopping cart, web contents and useful applications. Watching the competitive nature of the market, web hosting service providers are offering wide range of hosting plans at attractive prices.

Select the right web hosting plan

Be it a small business or a MNC (Multi National Corporation), choosing a right hosting option is vital and this task becomes easy if you have a little knowledge about the hosting technologies and services. Web Hosting Service is broadly divided in two categories – Dedicated Web Hosting Service and Shared Web Hosting Service.

Dedicated Web Hosting Service allows the client (individual/organization, who want to host their websites) to take full control of the server including the operating system and hardware. Dedicated Web Hosting Service does not allow multiple clients to host their website from a single server. On the other hand, Shared Web Hosting Service provides the facility to host multiple websites from a single server. Compared to ‘Dedicated Web Hosting’, the option ‘Shared Web Hosting’ is quite economical and has become popular across the globe.

To satisfy different choice and preferences of the clients, technological improvement has taken place in this arena to fill up the gap between Shared Web Hosting Services and Dedicated Web Hosting Services. This has given the birth of ‘VPS Hosting Service’. Though it is true that ‘VPS Hosting Service’ and ‘Shared Hosting Service’ supports hosting of multiple websites through a single Web Server, but they are different from technological aspect.

To learn more about web hosting, go to the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_hosting 

Shared Hosting

This is a common process of hosting your website. In this process, you get space for your website in hosting company’s server. You also share this server with other websites - a number of web pages of several organizations are stored in the same web server. This server allows your web-based contents, designs, and applications visible as well as accessible from other computers, which are connected to the Internet. End users can easily download the websites via their web browsers.

Since services are provided from a single source (Web Server), unique domain name for the website is the primary criteria to upload your site through Shared Hosting. This web server is responsible for maintaining in-house operations as well as providing web-hosting services. 

To learn more about Shared Hosting, go to the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_web_hosting_service 

VPS Hosting

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. VPS is the collection of virtually separated entities of a single server. VPS Hosting environment has the ability to host unlimited domains through a web server.

Security and Root-level accessibility - these are two reasons that make Virtual Private Server hosting - a popular web-hosting platform. It has been observed that websites designed for individual or business processes require customized solution. VPS hosting is the right option for clients, who require ‘Super-User’ accessibility, customized solution and necessary security.

To learn more about Virtual Private Server, visit the URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_server

Compare Shared Hosting and VPS Hosting

Shared Hosting Service allows all the clients to host their websites through a single server. Therefore, uploaded websites can share the operating system and hardware resources of the service provider. In that sense you can call it an open environment. VPS Hosting, on the other hand, offers separated environments for each client. VPS hosting provides distinct operating systems and hardware resources for each website. Therefore, you can think Virtual Private Server as a collection of several partitions, where each partition has separate operating system and hardware resources.

Exclusive features of VPS hosting service

Facilities, which are available only in VPS Hosting service, are – 

• Accessing the root
• Installing software
• Configuring mail server
• Operating the server status – Stop and Reset

Control Panels and other features

Apart from these facilities, other features of Shared Hosting are quite similar to VPS Hosting. While ‘Custom Control Panel’ is available in the Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, on the other hand, offers Advanced Control Panel.

Advanced control panel is a user-friendly tool that lets you control all features of hosting account. This control panel is based on database and offers inbuilt help function on every page of the control panel.

Components of VPS Control Panels are:

• System Administrator - it provides the facility to manage users, groups, system services and other necessary operations in a VPS environment.
• Workgroup Administrator - it provides the facility to manage website’s settings, file, directory, email, mailing lists, applications and other features of websites.
• My Control Panel - it manages personal directory and email account of the end-users. 

‘POP3 e-mail account’, ‘Web based e-mail’, ‘E-commerce’ and ‘immediate account setup’ are some common features available in both Shared Hosting and VPS Hosting.
For the beginners, it is recommended to select the option Shared Hosting to host their websites. Though it is described that VPS Hosting option provides better control and security of the website, the cost of subscribing for VPS Hosting matters. In a Shared Hosting environment, all websites use common operating system and server resources. This is the main reason behind the slow performance of the web server and is regarded as a drawback of Shared Hosting option. But still it is true that both ‘Shared Hosting’ and ‘VPS Hosting’ have their own advantages.

Shared Hosting – a web hosting option for small business websites

The main advantage of Shared Hosting is low cost associated with this service. Web hosting service providers are offering sufficient space and bandwidth to host the websites in a Shared Hosting environment, and this is available at affordable price range. Shared Hosting service comes with the facility of web server maintenance by skilled professionals. Web hosting service providers offer a tool that is similar to control panel. Therefore, customization of the website has become simple and user-friendly for the clients using the control panel offered by the service provider.  

More comparisons…

‘Think about the service and performance’ – if this is your objective then go for ‘VPS Hosting’. Compared to Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting seems advantageous for all types of clients. Each client, who registers in a VPS Hosting environment, will get unique VPS hosting account. Control over the environment is a big issue to manage the performance of your website. This job is better done through VPS hosting account. CPU, memory, bandwidth, operating system and other server resources are specified for each client in a VPS Hosting environment. This guarantees fast and uninterrupted performance, compared to Shared Hosting.

Operating system and server resources are fixed in a Shared Hosting environment and this is a major drawback of this hosting option. As a client, you cannot host website that runs an application, which is not compatible with the operation system, bandwidth and other resources of the web server in a Shared Hosting environment. Thanks to VPS Hosting option. This problem has solved in VPS Hosting environment, by providing separate virtual partition for each client in the web server. This facility allows the clients to run and control their own applications in the separated partition of the web server.

Security is a big issue that should be scrutinized thoroughly before selecting a hosting option for your website. Compared to VPS Hosting, the environment is open in a Shared Hosting option. Virtual partitions in a VPS Hosting environment provides better security to the clients and this is another reason for VPS Hosting to become a popular web hosting option across the globe.

Another drawback of Shared Hosting is sharing the same IP address among all websites, which are hosted through a common web server. It is recommended that sharing the same IP address is not reliable for business websites. ISP or Search Engines may ban the IP address of the web server, if they find any ‘illegal/offensive’ website, which is sharing the web server.

To learn more about comparison between Shared Hosting and VPS Hosting Plans, go viist http://www.websitesource.com/hosting/vps_shared.shtml

Take full advantage of ‘WWW’, but make sure about all the pros and cons of web hosting plans. Be it a ‘Shared Hosting Service’ or ‘VPS Hosting Service’, selecting the right hosting service is a major task that will determine your online presence and ensure your objectives.

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