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Should You Upgrade from Shared to Cloud Hosting? - 5.0 out of 5 based on 8 votes

Should You Upgrade from Shared to Cloud Hosting?

Shared Hosting to Cloud Hosting

For those running a simple website with basic features, shared hosting is often the most appropriate option. Shared hosting offers all the basic features of a hosting service at highly affordable prices. But as your business grows and attracts more online traffic, it outgrows its existing hosting service at some point and that’s perfectly natural.

In such cases, deciding when to switch to a higher hosting service such as cloud isn’t always simple. In order to help you narrow down your choices, we present below a rundown of the points you should consider while deciding to upgrade from shared to cloud hosting. So, let’s begin.

1) Downtime

Is your website facing too much downtime lately? If your answer is in the affirmative, it’s probably the time to make the transition.

A major issue with shared hosting is that the resources are shared with multiple websites. So, when one of your neighbors uses the bulk of the resources, there’s little left for others to use. As a result, your website can slow down and even go offline in certain circumstances. This can turn away people visiting your site making you lose valuable prospects.

Cloud hosting coalesces the power of servers housed in different locations. As a result, you can instantly provision additional resources in the event of higher demand without having to experience any downtime. What’s more, you can cut back these resources as soon as the demand slackens.

As your site grows, you will need more resources to keep it up and running and if these aren’t available, downtime will become more frequent-a telltale sign for making the switch.

2) Loading Speed

As a business hosted on shared server, you can face issues regarding loading speed of your website. A slow-loading website can wreak havoc for your business. It can not only make visitors abandon your website creating an unfavorable impression for your business but also trim down your profit margin.

It’s essential to remember that a website can load slowly on account of many reasons: anything from an image-heavy website to an improper theme can dampen your loading speed considerably. If these issues have been ruled out, then it’s probably shared hosting that’s doing the damage.

Talk to your service provider to find if they can do something to boost the speed. If nothing else works, be prepared to shift to a reliable and flexible hosting service such as the cloud.

3) Security

Shared hosting websites are more susceptible to cyber attacks. Because the same resources are shared among multiple accounts, shared sites are more likely to be targeted by malicious web users. Even though you can use tools to protect your website from attack, they may not always be as reliable.

Now if your business deals with sensitive data such as address, date of birth and credit card details of the clients, you cannot afford to lose any of this information. A shared server will simply not serve the purpose here-an upgrade to a secure cloud hosting solution becomes necessary.

4) Control and Customization

Shared servers do not offer root access and, therefore, can’t be customized to suit your business requirements.
Shared hosting works fine for you if you run a simple blog or a static website that’s not integral to the running of your business operations. However, as your business grows, you may feel the need for more control and, therefore, the need to tailor the server configuration to fit your needs. In such cases, a shared server doesn’t help. So, an upgrade becomes imperative.

5) Affordability

A major reason why most of the start-ups choose to host their websites on a shared server is that it’s highly affordable-one can purchase a shared hosting plan for as low as Rs. 99/month. If you cannot afford to (or just don’t want to) spend much on a hosting service, shared hosting is the option to go for.

If, however, you have the budget to spend a few extra bucks to get better features, you should definitely consider an upgrade to a more scalable and reliable form of hosting such as the cloud. Cloud hosting may appear expensive at first glance but becomes cost-effective in the long run.

6) Disaster Recovery

Are you located in an area where natural disasters are commonplace? If yes, disaster recovery is one important factor that you need to take into consideration.
Shared servers typically host multiple websites on a single physical server. If that server goes offline for some reason or the other, your website becomes unavailable.
A superior hosting service such as cloud works well under such circumstances. The cloud automatically stores multiple copies of your data and applications in different locations, making you immune to any kind of disaster. As a result, you can immediately restore your data in the event of a mishap.

The Bottom Line

If you are just starting out and have a website that can be easily managed with fewer resources, shared hosting is the alternative to go for. But when your business grows and your website attracts more traffic and, at times, experiences spikes as well, making an upgrade to cloud hosting makes perfect sense.

Although slightly costlier than shared hosting, the cloud hosting offers an immensely scalable and flexible hosting solution that fulfills the growing needs of your website in a hassle-free manner. Failing to upgrade at the right time can cost you dearly in terms of revenue, security and, most importantly, reputation.

Last modified on Sunday, 31 December 2023 17:54

Shiv Singh With over 10 years of experience in Digital marketing. He is the self-proclaimed expert of all things including SEO, PPC, Google Ads and has a great passion for analytics and testing. Shiv's goal with UpdatedReviews is to share his knowledge and expertise so that everyone, regardless of who they are or where they are from, can get benefit. It is via this website that he lives out his dream of sharing knowledge with the world.

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