Cloud Hosting vs Shared Hosting: What Your Website Needs

Hosting is the foundation of your website. Choosing the wrong plan leads to slow pages, downtime and frustrating upgrades later.

Shared hosting

Your site shares one server’s resources with many others. It is inexpensive and simple, which makes it suitable for small brochure sites with modest traffic. The downside is that a busy neighbour can slow you down, and you have limited control over server settings.

VPS hosting

A virtual private server gives you a guaranteed slice of resources and more control. It is a good middle step for growing sites and small web applications, though it needs some technical skill to manage.

Cloud hosting

Cloud hosting spreads your site across a network of servers. Resources can scale up when traffic spikes and you often pay for what you use. It suits online shops, applications and any site where downtime is costly.

What to compare

• Performance: server location, storage type and caching options.
• Reliability: uptime guarantees and how backups are handled.
• Security: free SSL, firewalls and malware scanning.
• Support: real people who respond quickly.
• Scalability: how easily you can upgrade without moving the site.

Choose a plan for the traffic you expect in the next year, not just today, and always keep off-site backups.