If you’re looking to get a website or blog you may want to look at shared hosting for it. There’s many advantages and disadvantages of shared hosting that you need to be aware of.

What is Shared Hosting?

With shared hosting you have one main server that many people may use to host their websites or blogs. You usually have your own space, but this is limited. You sometime shave the option to buy more space if you want it. You also may have other services like email, ecommerce options, databases, forums and so on.

Disadvantages of Shared Hosting

There are disadvantages to shared hosting. You are limited in the amount of resources you have. Many servers can be packed with website owners and this can eat up bandwidth so you may not have the connection speed that you want. Shared servers may crash more often due to the sever overload of users all accessing websites ion the one server. You may also not have the option to install programs or services that you need due to the limitations of the shared hosting server. Some servers have plenty of options, but these can cost a lot extra and you could end up paying more for the service than you originally had planned. In some cases customer service with shared hosting can be slow or not what you expected because of the sheer volume of users involved. This type of hosting often doesn’t have the features or bandwidth that a larger business may need where there’s a lot of traffic being exchanged each day on a server.

Advantages of Shared Hosting

There are many advantages of shared hosting that make this an attractive option for web site owners. Shared hosting can be quite cheap and this make sit perfect for first-time website owners who may not need all the bells and whistles of full services. Shared hosting usually has a beginner package that is low cost, but still has the basic features you need to get started with. With shared hosting you also don’t have to worry about the server as the owner will perform maintenance and make sure the server is up and running when you need it. Shared hosting often provides you with an easy to use control panel where many features and just plug in and use such as forums or blogs, for example. This means you don’t need to know a lot of complicated code or web programming languages in order to get started with hosting a website online. You can eliminate a lot of the headaches associated with starting your first website and you can be online in no time.

Making the Decision

Before you go out and get shared hosting, you need some decisions to make. First of all you need to determine how large your site is going to be and what sorts of features you need. For small websites, shared hosting is the preferred option because it’s low cost and easy to use. If you need more space or have a lot of content, then shared hosting might not be the best option for you and you may want to look at other options. You need to research and compare a lot of shared hosting site because they can offer a wide range of options and prices. You should read shared hosting reviews because this will help you make the right decision on the web host that is right for you. Shared hosting is a good option, especially for those just starting out with a website online or those that don’t need a whole lot of space.