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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.
