Shared hosting, cloud hosting, VPS… No, today we will speak about something better. Dedicated hosting is the king of the hill when we are talking about standardized types of web hosting.
Dedicated web hosting is more expensive, but sure it has what to offer. Do you want to know more about it?
What is dedicated web hosting?
Dedicated hosting is a type of web hosting where the client rents a complete server (with OS, CPU, RAM, storage, etc.) for a period. The period could be days, months, or years. The client does not own the server and does not bother to pay utility bills for it or rent of space. The responsible for the server is the dedicated hosting provider.
The server could be in a different country, and all the control and interaction with the server is through a secure connection.
The price of dedicated servers is usually higher than shared or Cloud hosting, but it offers better performance.
Dedicated hosting is a bit harder to scale than shared hosting, and it might take extra time. It will require somebody to attach the new part physically. It is not impossible, but just it is not as fast as just clicking a button. Some providers offer a hybrid with Cloud and instant upgrades.
Pros of dedicated hosting
- All the resources are just for you. Yep, the number 1 reason why dedicated hosting is so attractive to e-commerce owners is the performance. You don’t share anything. All the raw power of the computer is just for your needs. Perfect for a website with plenty of pages and many products.
- Do what you want with it. It is yours! You can host a site, create a mail server, use it as a DNS server. Whatever you want! You can choose the OS and what to install. Get all the tools you like and optimize the use.
- Security. You can install firewalls and protect the dedicated server the way you decide. There are many options. You can use additional methods to secure the connection to the server, limit the privileges of the server’s users, and more.
Cons of dedicated hosting
- It is expensive. There is no other way to say it. It is more expensive than most hosting types. This is why many prefer VPS (virtual personal server) that offer similar performance (or the same) but a bit cheaper. The prices are usually between hundreds and thousands of dollars per month.
- Responsibility. You have the whole server for yourself. Every change in the OS that you do could lead to downtime, and this is your responsibility. A mistake could cost you expensive, especially if users’ private data is involved.
- Hard to manage. You need an IT specialist to manage it. It is not as simple as other hosting types. The dedicated server will have its own OS, and you need a specialist who understands how to use it and maintain it.
Conclusion
You should most definitely check dedicated hosting if your site is growing bigger. It will provide extra performance for the thousands of requests that are constantly going to your site. Just check the prices first. Shared and Cloud hosting most probably are far behind with their performance, but there might be some great VPS offers available.
Also, think about the location well. You want your server dedicated to being close to your users for maximum speed. High latency might be as bad as slow performance.