Hosting Options

Best Hosting Options: Great Hosting from DesignWest in 2023

The following is designed to help you decide on the best hosting option for your website. Both shared & dedicated hosting keep all the data from your website on a single server. Users who access your website from their browser receive its data from this server. What makes the two hosting systems different is the type of server used to store your website.

  • Shared hosting means your website shares a server with other websites who use the same facility. 
  • Dedicated hosting means your website has a server of its own that is not shared with any other website. 

Wht is the Best Hosting Option for you?

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Shared Hosting

Shared Hosting: The Advantages

  • Lower Cost
  • Ease of use

With shared hosting, many websites are hosted on a single server. Resources are shared and maintenance costs are distributed amongst many users, reducing individual costs to customers. The system is flexible and inexpensive. 

This is the best hosting option for new websites. New websites are often launched with shared hosting because there is no need for high levels of technical skill or an extensive knowledge of servers. Shared hosting plans offer a control panel to simplify website management. Pre-installed programmes accommodate a majority of general websites. The host provider can take care of maintenance issues like installing updates and patches.

Shared Hosting: The Disadvantages

Shared hosting is the best hosting option for new websites that need basic resources with low to moderate traffic. However, there can be downsides to sharing processing power, memory, disk space, and all other resources housed on a server.

One is the possibility of the “bad neighbour effect”. This is where another site on your shared hosting plan gets very busy, with a big increase in traffic. This will take up more resources on the shared server and could slow down your website. However, a good hosting company will provide more than enough resources to take care of all users on a shared server. At DesignWest, we encourage bigger, growing websites to upgrade to a dedicated server when the time is right. This is for the sake of their own business and to protect our clients using shared hosting plans.

Another risk with shared hosting is that your IP address may be blacklisted if another customer on the same server sends out spam. As a host provider, DesignWest has excellent security protocols in place to guard against this, however, it is always a risk on a shared hosting solution.

Shared Hosting | Conclusion

Shared hosting is the best solution for customers who need a cost-effective, starter option. These include small and medium-size businesses and individuals with personal websites. The potential disadvantages are not such a concern if the website traffic is relatively light and stringent security protocols are in place.

If and when the time comes to upgrade, migrating to a dedicated hosting environment is easily arranged. Has this helped you to decide on the best hosting option for you?

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated Hosting: The Advantages

  • Server resources are assigned to just your business – no “Bad Neighbour Effect”
  • Potential to customise

With dedicated hosting, your website is hosted on a single server that is dedicated specifically to your website. Because there is no competition for resources, you’re guaranteed more robust performance. No other user can cause your server’s IP address to be blacklisted or expose your website to cyber threats. 

Dedicated hosting also means you can extensively customise your website, with the ability to optimise your server settings. With root access, you can modify software code. Server configuration is valued when a website needs a special application.

Dedicated Hosting: The Disadvantages

  • Higher Cost
  • Demands extensive technical knowledge (If management fees are not included)
  • High level of maintenance required 

Unsurprisingly, more resources and control comes at a higher cost.  A dedicated server can cost between €590 – €1200 + per year to run, depending on how much maintenance and security the host needs to provide. Still, a business that enjoys the kind of website traffic that would benefit from a dedicated server can generally afford this option.

A dedicated hosting solution demands a high level of technical knowledge, particularly if you want to customize. You are also responsible for updating and installing patches to your dedicated server.

If you don’t have the skills to take care of these kinds of issues, there’s always the option to hire a server admin, or buy a plan that covers management support. This will, however, add to your costs. 

Dedicated Hosting | Conclusion

Dedicated hosting is ideal for businesses that need higher bandwidth and have very specialised needs. Bigger companies, schools, colleges or businesses with valuable data are advised to invest in the higher level of security offered by dedicated hosting. Customers with high levels of technical knowledge will enjoy the ability to customise their site via dedicated hosting. Has this helped you to decide on the best hosting option for you?

Shared & Dedicated Hosting

A Quick Overview on the Best Hosting Option for you.

Shared Hosting
Dedicated Hosting
Flexibility and Customizability

Does not offer customisation. This is because any changes to the back-end would affect all websites on the shared server. There are hosting plans that allow for some flexibility, such as more cloud storage, but the potential for personalisation is minimal.

Offers complete customisation. Because you don’t have to share the server, you can configure the environment to run the applications you need, choosing the operating system, amount of bandwidth and memory you want.

Reliability

Plans come with a higher risk of slowdowns or downtime. This could be due to the “bad neighbour effect”, faulty coding or security issues.

Much more reliable. This is why it’s generally chosen by businesses who experience large volumes of traffic to their websites.

Security

More susceptible to cyber-attacks.

More secure choice. The best defence, in either case, is to host your website with a professional and trusted hosting company.

Scalability

Generally not scalable. With no other businesses competing for resources

Very scalable and can adapt and accommodate to your growing business.

Contact Us

Finally, contact us today to create or update your School Crest Design.
Email us at info@designwest.ie or call us on 0949382000.
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At Designwest we work with a wide range of clients, form start-ups and SME’s to public sector and large cooperations, both domestically and overseas. Whatever of the size of your business, we are here to help you bring your vision to reality. Get in touch and let’s discuss how we can help!