In researching many customers current hosting, 45Squared has come across many people utilizing Virtual Private Servers (VPS), shared hosting, and other different ways to get their content onto the Internet.  All hosting options have their merits and drawbacks and each has an application at which they excel. So, let’s look at each option with a little bit more depth.

A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a server that runs inside another server. Through a process called virtualization computers have been able to run a Hypervisor on the physical server. The hypervisor allows for multiple smaller servers to be created virtually within the same physical server. All the virtual servers are then drawing from the same physical resource group of the physical server.

Virtualization allowed companies to utilize less physical hardware by virtualizing their servers inside of one big server. This created much easier management, storage, backups and much more for large organizations. But, at the end of the day it still required very technical staffing which becomes very expensive for smaller companies.

The benefit to purchasing a VPS for your website is having someone else manage the physical hardware component of the server. They ensure that it is running at peak performance at all times without the customer having to worry about it. Typically the customer gets an interface to manage their server where they can allocate storage for different websites, add and remove domains and manage databases.

The downside to using a VPS is that it still requires someone to manage the websites and the security aspects of the sites. While it may be easy to setup and create new web sites without the proper maintenance there can be catastrophic failure when it comes to security, storage, or database management.

Shared hosting will almost always be the cheapest option for a small business to use. There are hundreds of companies out there some of the most common include: GoDaddy, HostGator, BlueHost and many more. Companies like GoDaddy make it easy to get your website up and running after you buy your domain name from them so it just seems like a logical choice. Don’t be fooled though, shared hosting is cheap because you do not receive a great feature set.

The benefits of shared hosting are that the cost is low sometimes only a few dollars a month, there is no server maintenance, unlimited storage and bandwidth and many other unlimited features.

The downside of utilizing shared hosting is quite simple, your website is hosted on the same server as hundreds of other websites. All of these websites share a limited set of resources that can be monopolized by one website leaving your website running terribly slow. Slow websites means losing customers. One of the other major downsides is security. While you could be an expert in securing your website someone else might not be. Typically when one website on a shared server becomes compromised they all become compromised.

With many great options for web hosting out there it can be hard to choose. Whether you choose 45Squared as your hosting provider or not we are here to help. Feel free to contact us at any time!