Is Shared Hosting Really That Bad?

Have you read 15 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Blogging by Daniel Scocco?

Point number 11 is interesting.

“Shared Hosting Sucks

When I started my first blogs I obviously went with a shared hosting plan, and since I couldn’t compare it with anything else I thought it was a decent option.

A couple of years later I moved to a dedicated server, and only then I realized how bad shared hosting plans are. The slow loading speeds, the downtimes, the security holes created by other users on your server….”

Harsh words. Are they warranted?

The Case Against Shared Hosting

Shared web hosting is a type of hosting where one physical server hosts hundreds, if not thousands, of accounts. That’s why it’s cheap.

But there are risks.

• If sites on shared hosting accounts suffer any kind of traffic spike, they’ll be closed down.
• Because shared web hosting accounts are not as segregated as VPS accounts, the actions of one can impact many.
• More resources are promised than are available. This strategy works because few sites use anywhere near their quota, but the server is still pushed to its limit.

In Defence of Shared Hosting

The one big plus of shared hosting is the low cost. Without it, many websites simply wouldn’t exist.

There’s also something to be said for the simplicity of a shared hosting account.

Is Shared Hosting Right For You?

Scocco views shared hosting as a necessary evil, or a stepping stone to greater things. A leap to a VPS, cloud host or dedicated server can be postponed until the site starts to make money.