What's the difference between Shared, VPS & Dedicated Hosting?

Do you have the wish to host your site, but you feel more confused because of the numerous types of web hosting available to you?  

Finding the best web hosting is not a walk in the park; there are several factors you need to take into consideration.

Before we jump into the 3 popular types of web hosting, let’s get some insights into what web hosting really is.

What is Web Hosting Exactly?

The first thing you should understand is what web hosting is.

The truth is that it does not need you to be tech-savvy to understand. You just need to pay attention and learn the basics. It’s simple.

A web host works almost similar to your computer. The only difference is that instead of having a hard drive to store your data, it has a server.

Servers are more powerful than your laptop because they can manage tons of people at the same time, which your laptop can’t do.

Though, it’s made up of similar things like the Central Processing Unit, memory, etc. Surprisingly, it even has an OS – Linux.

There are these 3 popular types of web hosting:

  • Shared Hosting
  • VPS Hosting
  • Dedicated IP Hosting

More hosting variations include WordPress hosting, managed hosting, website builder specific hosting etc.

Let's go through it in detail.

Shared Hosting

Just from the name, shared hosting is a type of hosting where your website is located on the same server with other websites.

The biggest advantage with this type of hosting is that you will always share the cost of your server with multiple users.

So, the more your hosting provider puts several users, the less cost you will incur. That’s interesting, right?  

That explains the reason why shared hosting is normally cheap. You pay an average $2 per month. However, you can end up paying up to $10 per month. Still not expensive, isn’t it?

So, this kind of hosting will be suitable for people who are just starting out or have a fixed budget. That means this is the best web hosting for developers you can opt for as a beginner.

VPS Hosting

VPS could also mean Virtual Private Server. It’s one of the best web hosting among the other types of hosting. It’s still shared just like the shared hosting, but the difference is that it’s set up differently as compared to shared hosting.

Although VPS has just one physical server, it supports numerous virtual machines. This is why it is considered middle ground between a shared hosting and the dedicated server.

virtual machine (VM) is an emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardware, software, or a combination.

Wikipedia - Virtual Machine

The reason why VPS is stable and reliable is that it’s limited to 10 to 20 websites per server.

The fortunate or unfortunate thing about VPS is that its resources are distributed to each site evenly such that when you exceed what’s allocated to your site, it will go down while the rest remain stable.

Dedicated Hosting

As it’s name suggests; a dedicated hosting is having your site is hosted by one server all for itself – no sharing. This will give you more advantages, but of course, there must be some demerits too.

Firstly, one of the main advantages, why some people will choose to go for a dedicated hosting, is because there’s is none neighbor issues. No website can interfere with your resources; so, you’re safe at all times.

One of the nightmares, though, is that it’s so expensive; a person with a fixed budget may not afford it. Prices range between $60 to $350 a month, which is way too expensive. So, this type of hosting is best for businesses. There are several cheap dedicated hosting companies as well that offer cheap dedicated servers near you.

It’s now evident that you know the three popular types of web hosting, and you can probably go ahead and choose your most preferred web hosting.