Shared Web Hosting

Shared hosting is probably the most common type out there. It is a great option for small web sites getting less than around 500 visits per day.

What is Shared Hosting?

Shared means many people are sharing the hardware and software resources on the same server. This results in a lower monthly cost to each person.

Shared hosting is like living in a home or apartment with roommates. You each have a common area (hardware and software resources) and your own private area to store your stuff. No one else has access to where you store your files on the server, except for the hosting company staff.

Should another person take up too many resources on the server, it could affect the other people and slow down their web sites. Fortunately, hosting companies have contract agreements in place to mitigate these issues.

Is shared hosting right for me?

As mentioned earlier, shared hosting is great for smaller and less critical sites. If your site receives more than around 500 visitors a day, I would recommend upgrading to a package with more resources.

The more dynamic the site, the more resources your site will need. If you are into static site hosting and your files consist of HTML, CSS, and Javascript, a shared hosting plan would go much further than with a site running a content management system.

Shared hosting is good for brand new sites and businesses, as it takes time to grow the traffic. Costs can be kept to a minimum while you build your audience.

What does “unlimited” mean?

A large number of hosting companies offer shared plans with “unlimited” amounts of specific resources. Unlimited is a marketing term and is hardly ever 100% accurate.

In a literal sense, unlimited isn’t possible due to resource limits on disk space and bandwidth.

It means the hosting company does not have a set limit on the number of resources you can use. Instead, they say you are not allowed to use more than your fair share, which 99% of people will never hit.

Shared Hosting Options

There are thousands of companies out there offering shared hosting service. As with anything some are better than others. I believe the most important thing for a hosting company is customer service.

Below are some companies I recommend for shared hosting.

Site5
I have used site5 for many years, both for some of my own, as well as company and customer web sites. Their servers are well run, and they have great customer service.

A Small Orange
These guys were one of the first with solid state drives (SSDs) used on their servers. Their site management interface is easy to use and they have quick responses to support tickets.

Mediatemple
I have used them for my own sites, as well as for customer sites. They have fast servers, generous resource limits, and don’t oversell their services. Support is good as well.

Terms Used on This Page

Hardware

The physical parts of a computer, such as the hard drive, cpu, memory, etc.

Software

The programs running on the computer, programmed to do a specific task, such as serve web site files.

HTML

Hypertext markup language is the language of web sites. HTML defines the structure behind a web page.

CSS

Cascading style sheets are used to define the display of a web site, such as headings, text, images, and layout

Javascript

A programming language that is run within a web browser. Javascript has helped web sites to become much more dynamic and interactive.

Content management system

Software designed to help non-technical users of a web site create content without having to learn how to write code. A few examples are Wordpress, Drupal, and DotNetNuke.

Solid state drive (SSD)

A newer type of hard drive using memory for storage, instead of a magnetic disk. Reading and writing information is much faster than a standard hard drive which makes software run much quicker.