Tag Archives: shared web hosting
Local web hosting VS International web hosting
Choosing a web host to host your web site in itself is a daunting task considering the number of web hosting providers available, not to mention all their different hosting packages, prices and locations.
Hosting your web site on servers located abroad presents its own set of challenges such as the time differences between South Africa and the country in which you’re hosting your website. Have you tried calling a USA based hosting company at 8 am CAT to explain that your server is down and you arent receiving e-mails? If you have then you’ll understand the frustration associated with this, let alone the lag and delay in the call.
Hosting your site abroad is not negative at all, in face it bares many advantages such as bandwidth a next to nothing prices and ample resources.
Hosting your web site on servers located within South Africa boasts range of positives in comparison hosting abroad how ever bandwidth prices are ultimately the deciding factor of where you will host your web site.
Location, location, location
If you’ve had the experience of opening a retail shop then you’ll understand the term “Location, Location, Location” and this too applies to the world wide web.
The location of where your website is hosted plays an important part of how fast your web site is accessed, how Google rates your site amongst your local competitors, and whether or not your site is available during SeaCom outages or when your clients have hit their dsl cap.
Local web hosting has numerous advantages over hosting abroad and these need to be carefully considered when launching your web site and brand.
Decision time
To help you in your quest to find a hosting solution that suits your geographic requirements we’ve compiled the following chart which outlines the major differences between Hosting in South Africa and Hosting in the USA.
Dedicated Server Hosting Versus Shared Hosting – Which Is Right For Me?
A lot of questions are brought up when choosing between dedicated servers and shared hosting. The most important question is, does your site need a dedicated server or is shared hosting good enough? How will I know? Do I want to save money or get a powerful server now? How much control will I have with each option. I will be answering these questions and hopefully help you make an easy choice.
When Is The Decision Easy?
The decision is easy when you don’t have a choice… If your site is getting tons of visitors, if your current shared host says it is using too many resources, if you are running a lot of dynamic php mysql sites that demand a lot of memory and cpu, or if you can’t afford downtime because you are doing marketing on your sites that can’t be down. Any of these reasons make the decision to go with a dedicated server easy and the real question then becomes what type of dedicated server.
If you look at the numbers…
You should fit into one of these hypothetical situations… Just keep in mind these are very ruff and you should supply us with your stats so that we can help you decide.
- I run a PHP/MySQL or WordPress site and get more than 500 unique visitors per day. Get a dedicated server. If you get less than the number of visitors above you are probably fine on shared web hosting.
- I run a static site and get under 500 visitors a day. Shared hosting is fine. You only have to go dedicated or VPS if it grows a lot. Static is a lot easier on the server.
Shared hosting should be fine with bigger sites but its borderline in most cases. I also tend to error on the side of caution. I’ve seen plenty of intensive forums with 3,000 visitors a day running on shared hosting for months and then one day something flukes to cause a spike and suddenly they have 10 days to upgrade.
If you look at cost…
Shared hosting is around R99 per month while a dedicated server is at least R1000 per month. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to make this choice. If money is a factor go with shared hosting.
If you look at control…
If you need complete control of your hosting environment go with a dedicated server. Shared hosting will limit what you can do, what you can tweak, and what you can install. With a dedicated server you can do anything you want!
Working for several hosting companies over the past 6 years, I’ve helped a lot of clients to choose between dedicated servers versus shared hosting. At the end of the day it all boils down to the point above.
