What Is Dedicated Hosting? Benefits of Dedicated Hosting
If we were to talk technically, it would take us hours to talk about dedicated server hosting. Let us explain what is dedicated server hosting in simple words so that those who aren’t technical can understand it without any issues. So, dedicated hosting or dedicated server means when you have the entire server to yourself. You can configure it however you want; you can use it however you wish, considering you are following the hosting provider’s policy when it comes down to purchasing a dedicated hosting.
Dedicated hosting service is way different compared to shared hosting, and we will get to that in this article. When you purchase a dedicated hosting service from any hosting provider out there, you’ll get a very powerful hosting that gives you full control over both hardware and software of the server. Having a dedicated server may be like building a website from the ground up, and this becomes very difficult for those people who have no knowledge about servers. This is where most people who aren’t tech savvy tend to purchase a managed dedicated hosting service.
Benefits of a Dedicated Hosting
A dedicated hosting server is best used for websites that have a huge number of monthly traffic, and they need dedicated RAM, CPU and storage to keep their websites running.. In addition, a dedicated server is often used for a gaming server as well, since a lot of people tend to get on a gaming server and play, the server needs to have enough resources to handle all that incoming requests.
So, what does having a dedicated hosting bring to the table?
1. Better Performance
It is basic logic that when you have dedicated resources for your website, it will run more smoothly. Having a dedicated server will improve your website’s performance tremendously. Whether you are getting your regular visitors or having a huge number of visitors coming to your website, a dedicated server can handle it and offer steady performance to both you and your visitors without any issues.
In dedicated hosting, all of your resources such as RAM, CPU and bandwidth are being used specifically on your website. This, of course, helps with the uptime of your website and whenever your visitors want to reach your website, they can do so.
2. Better Versatility
A dedicated server is highly optimizable, and you have full control over resources and website. There is no limitation because you can choose to update the PHP version or not, upload a huge file on the server, etc. all of those limitations are gone. With a dedicated server, you can install any software on your server or on your website, and you can allocate the resources needed to run that software. However, running a dedicated server may be challenging if you are not a technical person. You either have to hire a full-time system administrator to handle your server for you, or if you can’t do that or don’t want to do that, you can always purchase a managed dedicated hosting.
A managed dedicated hosting is the same as a dedicated server with one huge difference; you’ll be provided with a team of experts from the hosting provider that you have purchased the server from, and they will take care of the technical aspect of running a server. For example, server maintenance, optimization, allocating resources, installing software, etc.
3. Security
security is easily a solid reason why people avoid shared hosting environments. A dedicated server is incredibly secure because other than your website, you won’t be able to find anyone else’s website on it. Whilst having a dedicated server, you won’t be in constant fear of a security breach from another website, etc.
Once again, you have full control over your server, and you can increase the security level or add any security software that you see fit. Moreover, you are able to control or implement firewalls and anti-virus on your server. By doing so, you can make your website and server even more secure.
Dedicated Hosting VS Shared Hosting
So, dedicated vs shared hosting, which one should you go for? And which one is better? Well, both dedicated hosting and shared hosting hold the data that you have on your website on a single server, and when a visitor opens your website on their browser, the server sends the data to them.
Now, as we have slightly mentioned above, when you have your website hosted on a shared hosting plan, your website is hosted with thousands of other websites, and they all use the same resources. On the other hand, when it comes down to dedicated hosting, your website has all the resources and space to itself, and this is the main difference.
However, there are some advantages and disadvantages when we talk about dedicated hosting vs shared hosting. For example, shared hosting is way cheaper than dedicated hosting and doesn’t require any technical skills to work with but, the resources are shared and if any of your neighbouring website(s) is breached, that puts your website at risk.
Dedicated hosting, on the other hand, gives you full control over the resources of your website and enables you to customize each and every aspect of it. However, having a dedicated server is extremely expensive, requires a ton of technical knowledge and requires a team to take care of the maintenance part. That being said, both of these hosting services are perfect and great to use based on your needs.
Dedicated Hosting VS VPS
Before we start talking about the differences, let’s briefly explain what a VPS is. VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. A VPS simulates a dedicated server, and it can cut down resources and expenses. The structure of a VPS is similar to shared hosting. However, they are different when it comes down to resources and software. Now that you are slightly familiar with VPS let’s talk about its pros and cons.
A VPS is way cheaper compared to a dedicated server which is why a lot of people have been using it rather than paying a lot of money for a dedicated server. As mentioned above, a VPS is similar to a shared hosting server. Meaning, it is still shared amongst multiple clients. In addition, a VPS is scale-able. It means that when you purchase a VPS, you are only using a portion of the resources of the server and if you need extra resources, you can always purchase them, and the hosting provider can allocate more resources to you.
However, the main difference between dedicated hosting and VPS is its speed and security. As mentioned above, a dedicated server is extremely fast and secure. This is because you are the only person using the server and its resources. On the other hand, it is very costly maintaining a dedicated server, and you’ll need to have a team of experts at all times helping you optimize the server.
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed the dedicated server and compared it to shared hosting and VPS. A dedicated server is popular due to its speed and security which most websites with a high number of monthly visitors are almost required to purchase a dedicated hosting in order to keep their uptime and give the best possible services to their visitors. Which server do you prefer to have for your website? A dedicated server, VPS, or shared hosting? Let us know down below in the comment section.
