Shared vs Managed Wordpress Hosting Review

Every website owner faces this question. Do they go for managed hosting or would shared hosting service? While WordPress remains by far the most popular choice among website owners with over 28% of websites built on it today, the type of hosting you purchase can impact how visitors interact with your website. Siteground is the best hosting for shared hosting.

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WordPress is the leading content management system today so it is a high target for hackers. While WordPress attacks are common, a good WordPress security expert can ensure that attacks are kept at bay.

Shared Hosting

Here, websites share server space with other websites and all the resources such as the processor speed, storage space, memory as well as bandwidth are shared. Shared hosting packages also have certain extra features such as unlimited email accounts or automated backups or even one-click WordPress installs.

Shared Hosting Advantages

Here is what will work for you when you go for shared hosting.

  1. This works well when the site is just starting. However, if there is a lot of traffic or else some other site on the shared server grows, the response time slows down as well as downtime for the other sites increases.
  1. Shared hosting works well for small publishers where budget constraints are a primary concern.
  1. Shared hosting is cheaper than managed hosting.
  1. You can configure, install, and upgrade plugins easily.
  1. You don’t have to worry about bandwidth as most shared hosting plans offer you the bandwidth you would need.

Shared Hosting Disadvantages

So, why wouldn’t you want to go for shared hosting?

  1. As the hardware is shared, there is a security risk for the websites sharing the same host. You can be faced with severe brute force attacks.
  1. Content Management Systems such as WordPress take longer to load than HTML sites
  1. If various plugins are purchased, rather than dealing with a single company, there are many companies that will need to be dealt with.
  1. In spite of the plugins, the speed is still slower than the speed of a managed host.
  1. Chances of hacking, downtime as well as loading time is increased as compared to managed hosting.
  1. Websites on shared hosting is not dependable.
  1. As shared hosts run any application and platform, WordPress specific tweaking isn’t there.
  1. The customer support personnel are not likely to be WordPress experts.
  1. You only have the weakest site protection available, even if you have WordPress shared hosting which offers more protection than normal shared hosting.

Managed Hosting

Are you still not sure how to go about managing your website? While WordPress makes website designing a whole lot easier, and you wouldn’t need to learn coding or HTML to get your site up and running, you will face the occasional glitches here and there. Glitches that can take down your website and delete all data if you’re not careful. Glitches that happen because you do not happen to understand the WordPress ecosystem thoroughly. Or because you’re confused how the backend works. If you’re confused with how to go about managing the WordPress site, it is always a good idea to opt for managed hosting. A2 hosting is the best managed wordpress hosting.

Managed hosting consists of the physical server right down to the programming designed in such a way that only a single application is supported. It provides the best user experience and offers premium support for it’s customers, various security features and server configurations. You will be able to ensure that the website is up and running.

Managed Hosting Advantages

Managed hosting offers a number of advantages. Here is a look at a few of them.

  1. There is an increase in page loading speed, uptime as well as security. Potentially harmful plugins are disallowed and chances of hacking are reduced.
  1. WordPress installations are updated, and the server is kept up to date as well. This minimizes the data breach.
  1. Scripting is updated, and so the site performance is at optimum levels.
  1. More traffic can be handled without a decrease in speed. Scripts from other sites will not slow down the server. WP Engine have a fast caching system, and so page loading is fast even without a CDN.
  1. Automated backups are undertaken daily regardless of them being set by the user.
  1. The host scans the site for malware periodically, and it also offers advanced security features. These prevent a hacker from accessing the site and incase some malware attacks the website; the hosts remove them without extra cost. These have the ability of warding of DDoS attacks and other cyber threats.
  1. The Customer Support technicians can be asked various hosting related questions as well as WordPress questions.
  1. Managed hosting offers better security than shared hosting. For ex: SiteGround hosting.

Managed Hosting Disadvantages

However, even with the different advantages, there are a few things that you should keep a note of.

  1. This is more expensive than Shared hosting.
  1. Some plugins which perform tasks on the server are disabled due to security reasons.
  1. Only WordPress can be used on Managed WordPress hosting. Other systems like Drupal or Magento can’t run on the same server. You can use A2 hosting for managed wordpress hosting.
  1. Your access to technical aspects of the server is limited.
  1. You might have limited bandwidth options.

Conclusion

You would do well with shared hosting plans if you’re just starting out. Try and test the waters, design your website and see how your audience is responding before upgrading to a managed hosting plan.

If you do not have dedicated programmers (and it can be quite expensive to have one in-house). it is a good idea to get yourself a good managed hosting plan. Managed hosting is the answer if there are high levels of traffic or the anticipated growth will require it so that the speed is not compromised. You will be able to deal with problems easily, including downtime and customer support.

No matter which option you choose, do not forget to conduct proper research and read reviews about the experiences of customers rather than just going in for something that is the cheapest.