How to choose between Shared Hosting and WordPress Hosting?
Many people purchase web hosting on a daily basis and the main question in their minds is ‘what is the difference between shared web hosting and WordPress hosting?’ If you are also thinking about the same then let me explain this to you.
Shared Hosting or WordPress Hosting
First of all, you need to understand this – Web Hosting is basically a service that allows a person or a company to host their websites which are accessible all over the world through the internet. These websites are stored on computers which are called servers.
So in short web hosting is basically hard disk or SSD space on a computer that has been set up as a server.
Now that we know what is the actual meaning of web hosting, let us see what is the difference between Shared Hosting and WordPress Hosting, and which one should you buy.
Shared Hosting
If you are planning to start your own website or blog, then I would suggest you start with a basic hosting plan. It is quite powerful and does the job just fine. In fact, I am also using it on most of my blogs as it has never given me any problem even once in the last 15 years. Yes! That long.
Shared hosting is basically a hosting plan which is being offered by every hosting company out there at the most nominal rates. In this plan, you get ample disk storage and sufficient bandwidth too. You also get a hosting account panel (generally Cpanel or equivalent) where you can install website scripts like WordPress, PhpBB, Open Cart, and so on.
Also in the control panel, you can create subdomains, addon domains, create email accounts, etc. You can also check the stats of your website and so much more.
In short, a shared hosting account is generally more than what most websites actually need. But as your website/blog starts getting more and more traffic, you need more server resources and this is where you need to upgrade your hosting account.
As I told you, you can install WordPress on your shared hosting plan very easily, you can fine-tune the whole setup using the most important WordPress plugins which will help you to create a healthy environment for the proper functioning of the blog.
In shared hosting, you don’t have a readymade fine-tuned ready-to-go environment for WordPress. You will have to install the plugins and do things differently in order to achieve good results. This includes cache plugins, image optimizations, etc.
But this does not mean that you can not get WordPress to work properly here. Yes, you can, but with WordPress hosting they (the hosting providers) already know that since you have bought this plan, so you will be working on a WordPress site only, so they make it a ‘fine-tuned environment’ from the very beginning.
WordPress Hosting
Just like Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting also works in the same way. But what is different here is that it has already been optimized by the hosting guys even before you start working on your blog/website.
See, in actuality, there is almost no difference between shared or WordPress hosting accounts as such except the fact that they are priced a little differently (mostly) and some pre-installed optimizations.
But still, they are quite different. How? Since the hosting company has well-optimized the whole server environment for WordPress (caching and more) in advance, you get much better performance for your website, including speed.
In WordPress hosting, you don’t have to worry about optimizing cache plugins and other related things as much as you have to do in general shared hosting plans.
This takes away so much of worry off your mind. Trust me when I say this because for the last many years, I have seen many people dealing with these issues almost on a daily basis. WordPress optimization is a must and nobody should ignore it at all.
Conclusion
I won’t take much time with this. If you want to run a company website with just a couple of pages, 5-10, then a basic shared hosting account will do just fine. But if you want to run a blog/website based on WordPress then I would recommend that you go for a WordPress Hosting account only.
As I told you earlier, you can run WordPress on shared hosting too, but the efficiency that you get on proper WordPress-optimized hosting is much greater as compared to regular basic shared hosting.
Choose wisely.
