What is Shared Hosting?

Explore what is Shared Hosting and its benefits!

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Shared hosting is the most economical and popular web hosting solution, wherein a large number of websites are hosted on a single server utilizing its available resources.
What is a Shared Hosting?
  • Each account hosted on the shared server has its own limit on a server resource, like disk space, bandwidth, CPU time, memory, a number of databases, email accounts, FTP accounts, etc.
  • A typical Shared Hosting package includes basic web statistics, emails, limited disk space, webmail services, auto-script installations, updated PHP/ASP and MySQL/MS SQL software and after-sale technical support.
  • Since shared customers do not have access to the physical web server, web hosts provide a web-based control panel, such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, InterWorx, WebsitePanel, H-Sphere to manage the hosting account.
  • The control panel allows customers to manage their websites, DNS records, FTP accounts, email accounts and databases. In some cases, the large web hosting companies use their own custom developed control panel.
  • In shared hosting, the web hosting provider is responsible for managing servers, installing server software, security updates, after-sale technical support, and all other aspects of the web hosting service.
  • Windows Shared Hosting and Linux Shared Hosting are the most common types of a shared web hosting. Most of the Linux shared servers are built on the WHM/cPanel control panel software, that automatically installs all necessary software to host the PHP/MySQL websites.
  • Some web hosts also offer Microsoft Windows hosting solutions based on the WebsitePanel or Plesk control panel. Windows based hosting requires proprietary software like IIS web server, MS SQL server, .Net frameworks to host ASP.Net (programming language) based websites.
  • Linux web server cannot run ASP.Net based websites, whereas Windows web servers can run PHP and ASP.Net based website with some additional software installations.
  • Check out our FAQs on Shared Hosting.