When you hire a web development service provider to build a website for you, they’ll be able to handle many of the details – but there are still some critical questions you’ll have to answer. One of the most important is where and how your website will be hosted.
Hosting on your own servers simply is not a good option for most companies anymore. It’s needlessly costly and brings a huge number of security problems that you simply have no reason to deal with. Instead, in 2019, the question is really whether you’ll be hosting your site with a shared host or a cloud host.
Here’s a breakdown of what that means.
Shared hosting sometimes also called the “shared cloud,” means that a single off-site server is hosting multiple websites at a time. All the websites they host will be sharing the same resources: the same hard drives, the same network connection, etc. In most situations, you’ll be paying for a fixed portion of the overall hardware/services they have on offer.
The primary advantage of shared hosting is its price. This is the low-cost option, and it can be a good choice for startups and other small businesses who don’t expect to see a lot of web traffic.
However, that’s basically the only advantage shared hosting offers.
With cloud hosting, you’re getting more than a single server. Your website will be hosted on several different servers, often in different physical locations. If one server goes down, the content delivery service will just switch over to a different server and keep on going.
So, cloud hosts offer several distinct advantages:
Most cloud hosting services will offer contractually guaranteed uptimes, usually 99.9% or even 99.99%. Simply put, barring a huge disaster of some sort, you can be assured that your website will be there when your customers want to visit.
A good cloud host will be using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to pick and choose between servers to use, based on your user’s location. It will attempt to match them to the server they’re physically closest to, which will usually reduce load times. So, your customers get a smoother experience.
Are you expecting your website to grow rapidly? Have you just had a link hit the front page of Reddit, and it’s now seeing 10,000% traffic? With a cloud host, these aren’t issues. You might pay a little extra for the bandwidth, but they’ll be able to cope with your needs and scale accordingly.
The downside to all this is, of course, cost. You will be paying a lot more for your hosting than if you go with a shared host.
We can build you a great website and find hosting solutions that meet your needs and budget. Contact our online marketing team today to discuss our services and solutions.
