Evaluation of Shared, Cloud, and Dedicated Server for WordPress Sites

While comparing different hosting options such as shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated server hosting to run a WordPress site, people usually forget to evaluate the criterion of performance.

Significance of the right hosting choice

Considering that you have been able to zero in on the right cloud hosting provider, the next step is to find what type of a hosting plan would cater your site’s hosting requirements. One of the most vital parameters to select the right type of hosting solution is performance of the site which must be devoid of prolonged downtime, delayed page loading, and other issues that may impact security.

A hastily chosen hosting solution where the decision is solely based on cost factor may prove to be detrimental to the overall performance of business site and integrity of mission critical data. One must thoroughly understand various hosting options including dedicated server, cloud server, and shared hosting to perform critical assessment of needs and features before purchasing the right hosting plan.

Following are some of the factors that should be addressed while before coming to the final decision. The first and foremost is your annual hosting budget which can be broken down to the monthly portion that can be invested for purchasing plans that are usually available on month’s rent.  Second factor to be considered is the volume of daily and concurrent traffic that is expected and the need for technical support to make sure that the web venture is always up and running.

Option for entry level hosting

The beginning of any venture is usually on a small scale. Due to limited availability of financial resources one is entirely justified in choosing shared hosting to launch the new web venture into the cyber space. Shared hosting offers a right solution to individuals as well as small enterprises for running their blog or a WordPress site without having to burn hole in the pocket.

Secondly, shared hosting is for non-technical individuals and also for business operators who need to focus all their attention to business related activities. In this type of hosting, your webhost is accountable for the entire administration of site. Users are not burdened with day to day chores such as OS installation, security patching, and other maintenance related activities.

The most obvious benefit of shared hosting over other types of hosting such as dedicated server or cloud hosting is the economy. With a large number of websites sharing a single server, individual price of the hosting plan is very affordable in shared hosting.

As mentioned earlier, this is the go to hosting for new web ventures as there is hardly any responsibilities as far as the configuration or administration are concerned. However, with limited resources of memory, disk space, and compute power a fast growing business can rapidly outgrow shared hosting environment.

Dedicated for single user

In a dedicated server hosting, your website will have everything that a standalone and powerful server has to offer. If you are expecting huge turnover of visitors or you are operating online business, gaming website, or a social forum then the most vital requirement would be that of server resources as well as security of data.

Although, absolute security cannot be achieved in practice, a dedicated server can guarantee the most secure hosting environment among all other available options. In a dedicated server arrangement, there is no sharing of resources such as bandwidth, disk space, or memory unlike shared hosting.

Needless to mention, website supported by dedicated server delivers superior performance even in demanding situations such as sudden traffic spikes.

Get empowered with cloud server

If you have some knowledge about a VPS or a Virtual Private Server then it is easy to understand what cloud hosting provider is. The only difference between a VPS and Cloud is the number of physical servers. Your website is backed by a single standalone server in Virtual Private Server, whereas a cloud server arrangement consists of several remotely positioned physical servers to deliver anytime and anywhere resources such as storage, compute power and so forth.

In fact the extensive underlying network of servers that support websites in terms of storage and other resources is what is known as a cloud. With so many servers to boost your website, there is hardly any scope for slow down due to resource shortage. The cloud is designed to provision resources on demand and therefore your mission critical web venture stays up and running.

 In conclusion

Whether you are running a small or a medium sized website, your hosting option depends on the amount of resources that are needed to maintain its seamless performance. A cloud can be the best choice for resource hungry websites that must cater to customers across a large geographical area.