Shared, Dedicated and Cloud Servers Explained

Shared Servers
As the name implies, a shared server means that more than one website is hosted on it. Think of this as a housing estate. Each house sits on its own block of and within the estate. Shared servers work just like this by dedicating a section of the server per website. They are a physical piece of hardware. As with everything, shared servers have their pros and cons. A benefit of a shared server is that they may be more affordable which helps with start-up costs etc. One of the cons however is that if one website on the shared server suffers from a major problem, all of the remaining websites on the shared server may suffer setbacks (i.e. load time and speed issues). Think of this as how a power outage can affect an entire row or estate of houses.

Dedicated Servers
A dedicated server is also a physical piece of hardware albeit akin to a fully detached house sitting on an acre of land. When your website is hosted on a dedicated server, all of the functions of the server are dedicated purely to your website. This means that there will be no interference from other ‘neighbouring’ websites as on a shared server. A dedicated server is the recommended option for more robust and established websites such as eCommerce online shops and multi-brand organisations. Support is also arguably easier when it comes to dedicated servers as any issues or problems can be isolated to this single unit.

Cloud Based Servers
Instead of existing on a physical piece of hardware, a server can also exist within the digital cloud. A cloud based server is arguably the most advanced type of server – can you think of a real estate equivalent for them? While being based in the cloud, these servers do not have to worry about or rely on physical pieces of hardware as everything is online based. Cloud based servers can also schedule automatic backups, updates and encryption additions to keep your website and data safe and secure. It should be stressed that while cloud based servers have their strong points, they are not invincible. For example, if your internet connection drops you will not be able to access your cloud based server.

As you can see, each of the main server types have differing attributes which may be more suitable for your business and business websites. Webheads can host your website on our own dedicated servers to fully support and buttress your custom website design. Click / Tap here to be taken to our Web Hosting page.