What is a Shared Web Hosting Service?

Are you looking to build your web presence while saving money? Do you want to get right to designing your websites without worrying about fine tuning and managing servers? Shared Hosting may be the choice for you.

With Shared Hosting, you can get your site online simply and quickly. By renting out a portion of the server, you have direct access to all of the tools you need while a hosting company like InMotion Hosting manages server maintenance. Let’s look at everything shared hosting has to offer.

• How Does Shared Hosting Work?
• Benefits of Shared Web Hosting Services
• When Not to Use Shared Hosting
• Why Start with Shared Hosting?

How Does Shared Hosting Work?

A hosting account lets you put a website online, store data related to your site, and create email addresses using your domain name. Shared Hosting allows multiple users with individual internet domains to share and utilize one server.

Because users share hosting server, Shared Hosting is often compared to renting an apartment— you share a building (server) with other tenants, but you yourself have your own personal apartment (website).

Users can also set up multiple websites under one user account. This is why Shared Hosting is such a great choice for small businesses, blogs, and personal websites looking for cost-efficient, easy to use, safe hosting services. The shared space keeps the cost of hosting low. If you decide to go from one site to multiple sites, all it takes is a simple account upgrade to start hosting other sites on the same plan.

See the following image for more information about the different types of web hosting plans.

Benefits of Shared Web Hosting Services

Even though Shared Hosting is inexpensive, you still get plenty of well-maintained storage and fast site speeds.

• Cost-Effectiveness: Shared hosting is typically the most budget-friendly web hosting option, making it an excellent choice for individuals and small businesses with limited financial resources.
• Ease of Use: Shared hosting providers often offer user-friendly control panels, making it simple for individuals, even those with little technical expertise, to manage their websites, domains, and email accounts.
• Resource Sharing: Multiple users share the same server, spreading out the cost of server maintenance and resources. This reduces the individual cost for each user.
• Scalability: Many shared hosting plans allow you to easily upgrade your resources as your website grows, making it a flexible choice for websites at various stages of development.
• Managed Services: Shared hosting providers often handle routine server maintenance and security tasks, relieving users of these responsibilities and ensuring a smoother hosting experience.
• Quick Setup: Shared hosting plans can come with pre-installed software and website builders, enabling users to get their websites up and running quickly.
• Technical Support: Shared hosting services often offer customer support to assist users with technical issues or questions about their hosting environment. These can include chat, ticket, and phone support.
• Email Services: All InMotion Shared hosting plans include email hosting, allowing users to create custom email addresses using their domain.
• Good for Beginners: Shared hosting is ideal for those new to web hosting, as it provides an easy entry point into managing websites and online presence.
• Sufficient Resources: For many small to medium-sized websites, the resources offered by shared hosting are more than adequate to handle their needs, making it a reliable choice.

When Not to Use Shared Hosting

• Unique Framework Requirements: If your website relies on custom or specialized software that isn’t compatible with the standard configurations provided by shared hosting providers, you may need a hosting solution that offers more flexibility and customization. If you want to use a custom site framework not already installed on the server, or optimize server resources for specific site tasks, you would probably be better off with a VPS or Dedicated Hosting plan. These plans require more knowledge and systems administration experience, but will let you customize the server exactly to your needs.
• Full Server Control: Installing WordPress, or applying basic coding like HTML or CSS does not require root access and can be easily done with the basic setup of a cPanel Shared Hosting account. However, Shared Hosting limits your control over server settings and configurations. If you require full control over your server environment, consider a VPS or dedicated hosting plan.

Why Start with Shared Hosting?

Shared Hosting is the easiest form of web hosting to start with. Advanced server configurations require you to manage server resources and optimize server settings yourself. On a shared plan, all of that is taken care of for you! On top of that, you can choose a shared plan with exactly the resources your business needs. That way you’re only paying for what you use. If you ever need to switch to a VPS or Dedicated Hosting plan, it’s easy to upgrade your plan to something with more control.

Another upside to Shared Hosting is how simple it is to host multiple sites at once. cPanel, Softaculous, and other developer tools make it easy to copy sites, set up new sites, and try out new things. cPanel is crucial for shared hosting as it provides an intuitive and user-friendly interface, simplifying multisite management and ensuring seamless control for users of cPanel Shared Hosting. You can easily experiment on extra sites without affecting your main business.

Further, when first launching a website, traffic will probably be low until the site gains rank on search engines. Using a Shared Hosting plan during this growth phase helps you save money while you build brand recognition, establish an online presence, and develop an SEO strategy.

Shared Hosting works best for simple, focused websites. Blogs, one-pagers, or sites selling a small assortment of products or services can do great on Shared Hosting. WordPress and other popular content management software is often well suited to Shared Hosting when a site has consistent, normal amounts of traffic. Certain e-commerce platforms can run smoothly on Shared Hosting even with a large variety of products, but some platforms perform better than others under these conditions.

If you are still not sure which hosting plan will work best for you, we recommend our full guide on VPS vs Shared Hosting.