Posted by Jerry in Shared web hosting, or sometimes known as virtual hosting, is the most common way of web hosting service.
How shared web hosting works?
Shared web hosting simply means multiple website hosted on the same server.
In other words, these websites are housed together in the same hard drives and sharing the same resources of that particular server, including computer processor, memory, bandwidth, or even software installed. The number of websites hosted on a shared web host is basically unlimited – it can be up to hundreds or even thousands.
Advantages of shared hosting
- Share hosting is cheaper – As the server resources are shared, so does the cost.
- Less technical knowledge required – It isn’t necessary to know a lot about web hosting to get started with a basic website using a shared web hosting account.
- As a shared hosting customer, you don’t need to maintain the server yourself.
Disadvantages of shared hosting
- For certain web host, shared hosting means limited disk space and bandwidth.
- Shared hosting = shared IP, you have little control to avoid your website IP from being blacklisted as spam.
- Root access is normally not available with shared hosting accounts.
Shared hosting plans and pricing
Compare pricing and features of shared hosting plans.
| Web Hosting Services | Disk Storage | Bandwidth | Price | Free domain? |
| 1-and-1 | 250 GB | 2,500 GB | $9.99 | Yes |
BlueHost  |
Unlimited | Unlimited | $6.95 | Yes |
| HostMonster |
Unlimited | Unlimited | $6.95 | Yes |
| Hostgator | 350 GB | 3,500 GB | $4.95 | Yes |
| HostRocket | 1,000 GB | Unlimited | $5.95 | Yes |
| LunarPages |
1,500 GB | 15,000 GB | $4.95 | Yes |
| Web Hosting Pad | Unlimited | Unlimited | $3.96 | Yes |
| Dot 5 Hosting | Unlimited | Unlimited | $3.95 | Yes |
| iPower | 1,500 GB | 15,000 GB | $7.95 | Yes |
| Fat Cow | 1,500 GB | 15,000 GB | $7.33 | No |
Remarks:
- = recommended for shared web hosting.
- Click on the host name to visit them online.
Virtual vs Dedicated Hosting
Virtual hosting vs dedicated hosting: who should you go for? Let’s check out how do we choose between these two types of server in our next class: Virtual hosting vs dedicated server hosting .
