The main task of web servers is to display the website content through storage, processing, and in the end, delivering that webpage to the users. Almost all enterprises across the globe need a web server to do the same. In most cases, shared hosting appears lucrative for its lower cost. In the long run, dedicated hosting offers a better return on investment, builds happy and returning customers, and boosts the website’s reputation.
This article discusses whether choosing a dedicated server over any cheap web hosting options is the right thing to do.
What does a web server do?
The main task of a web server is to respond to client requests on the world wide web. The servers send emails, build and publish webpages, and download requests for File Transfer Protocol (FTP) files. Web hosting is known as web hosting when a hosting provider offers space on a web server for a website to store the files. Your website gets a secure place to keep online content on the internet with the help of web hosting. It helps build a stable digital library from which your website content can be accessed consistently.
Server space is required to host every website on the web. The amount of space allotted on a server to a website depends on the hosting. The types of hosting are shared hosting, reseller hosting, Virtual Dedicated Server or VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, colocation server hosting, and cloud hosting. The most common hosting services used are shared, VPS, and dedicated. They vary primarily in sharing of hardware management, reliability, security, and uptime.
Types of web hosting
All the web hosting options are different in terms of reliability, speed, and security; they also greatly vary in cost. Let’s look at the most common web hosting types before discussing their investment return.
Shared Hosting:
Shared hosting is the most common choice for developers and website owners. A single server is shared among multiple clients to host several websites. Here chances of a security breach are high as many users share the hardware, and malicious activity done by any user will affect others.
Virtual Private Server or VPS Hosting:
VPS hosting is a step ahead of shared hosting. Here a single server offers space to multiple clients like shared hosting, but the hardware resources are allocated separately to the users using the ‘virtualization’ technique.
Cloud Hosting:
Cloud hosting works like a distributed VPSs. This way, this hosting model works instead of one virtual server stored on a single computer but hosted on an entire network. That network is called the ‘cloud.’
Dedicated Hosting:
The above examples of hosting services offer shared resources of a single server. In dedicated hosting, you get access to an entire physical server. You don’t need to share resources with any other client and enjoy higher speed, security, and control.
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Dedicated Hosting Explained
Now it is clear that if websites are looking for reliability, security, and high performance, the developers need root access to the server. The cheap dedicated server hosting plans are the right choice over other hosting services like shared, VPS, and cloud. Dedicated hosting is excellent for websites with high traffic, sites dealing with confidential data, websites doing secured money transactions, online gaming sites, and online media streaming. Like any other service, dedicated hosting has its pros and cons.
Pros of Dedicated Hosting
- Dedicated hosting offers excellent performance to the hosted websites. The dedicated servers provide uptime higher than 99.995%, even during high-traffic situations.
- The site developers get root to access the complete control of an entire physical server. They enjoy complete freedom to customize the server they want and install any software or application to increase security and fulfill customers’ demands.
- In dedicated hosting, you don’t need to share hardware resources like processor, RAM, or storage with any other website user. So, the server security isn’t affected by any unusual activity done by any other user of that server.
Cons of Dedicated Hosting
- As a dedicated server offers you root access, and you need to customize the server before you use it, you should have more excellent knowledge of server handling and maintenance. A support team from your web hosting company can help you during any server massacre, yet, an on premise IT team is best to perform daily activities on the server.
- In dedicated hosting, you get complete control of that entire server. So, you have to pay higher than shared and VPS hosting.
Value for Money
Most users use web hosting for commercial purposes, and investment and return are the two most important transaction factors. Every hosting service user has different opinions; most users believe that web hosting services like shared hosting and VPS hosting are better options than dedicated hosting. People prefer shared hosting and VPS hosting as they are cheaper, more affordable, and easily manageable without much tech knowledge. On the contrary, some users trust unmanaged and managed dedicated hosting more for its higher security and reliability, though they hesitate to opt for this hosting for its higher cost.
Related: Top Five Benefits of Fully Managed Dedicated Hosting
Both are right from their viewpoints, but a different conclusion can be drawn from investment and return perspectives. In business, return on investment or ROI is a term used to measure the profitability of an investment. This term narrates how much you paid for a service and how much you earned.
Before choosing a web hosting service, some features related to your business, you should keep under consideration, like your hosting requirement, the chance of business expansion in the future, and what applications you are going to use. Your newly launched business can get a significant boost and generate happy customers with more dedicated hosting than shared hosting. As discussed, dedicated hosting allows you to use that server’s resources.
As a result, your customers experience a more stable website, which is impossible on shared hosting. Another great advantage of dedicated hosting is that it increases the website’s reliability as it enjoys a far better uptime than cheaper hosting services. Your application or website never feels slow for your viewers, who turn out to be returning customers of your business. Security is another reason; if your website holds customers’ confidential data, dedicated hosting is the right choice.
The root access of your server in dedicated hosting enables you to monitor the development of the server more efficiently than in shared hosting. You can customize the server according to your business needs. Dedicated hosting also works as an SEO factor and increases your ranking on Google SERPs (search engine result pages). Your website is ranked well as it is always available and presents a fantastic customer experience.
The Final Verdict
Beginning your web hosting journey with cheaper web hosting like a cloud or VPS is a good idea, but restrictions, limitations, and security threats are common in cheap web hosting. Achievement of business growth is not impossible with them but will take a much longer time than anticipated. On the other hand, with dedicated hosting, your website will perform smoothly even during high traffic, and the threats experienced in shared hosting will be fewer.
Just think about how much your business will suffer if your website or email stops functioning for some hours. It will have a disastrous impact on your reputation. It is hard to digest sudden server downtime, which is common in cheap hosting services. You will never regret paying a little more for dedicated hosting as a business owner. If you judge from the angle of ROI, no doubt a dedicated server will be more profitable than cheaper alternatives.
Conclusion
Some years ago, dedicated hosting cost much more than shared, VPS, and cloud hosting. In recent years, dedicated hosting has become much more affordable for stiff competition among various web host companies; the price difference between the cloud, VPS, and dedicated hosting will astonish you. If you invest in a dedicated server and your business gets higher ROI, it is a profitable option as compared to any other hosting.
