Shared Web Hosting
Shared, Linux-based web hosting accounts for more web hosting packages then any other form of hosting. With competitive pricing and ever-increasing service and relibility, shared hosting may very well be the ideal choice for a new business or personal website. Our overall top ten rank is based on shared web hosting plans, accordingly the following chart also appears on our Home page.
Shared Hosting Price Chart
| Rank | Provider | Price | Space | Bandwidth | # of Domains / # Free Domains* |
Setup | Email Accts. | Review |
1 |
$3.95 |
100 GB |
1000 GB |
Unlimited / 1 |
Free |
2500 |
||
2 |
$4.95 |
200 GB |
2000 GB |
Unlimited / 1 |
Free |
5000 |
||
3 |
$5.95 |
200 GB |
2000 GB |
6 / 1 |
Free |
5000 |
||
4 |
$5.95 |
50 GB |
750 GB |
10 / 1 |
Free |
Unlimited |
||
5 |
$6.95 |
200 GB |
2000 GB |
6 / 1 |
Free |
2500 |
||
6 |
$6.95 |
250 GB |
2500 GB |
2 / 1 |
Free |
Unlimited |
||
7 |
$6.95 |
49 GB |
999 GB |
10 / 1 |
Free |
Unlimited |
||
8 |
$5.77** |
40 GB |
800 GB |
Unlimited / 1 |
Free |
Unlimited |
||
9 |
$7.95 |
25 GB |
1500 GB |
1 / 1 |
Free |
Unlimited |
||
10 |
$9.95 |
100 GB |
1000 GB |
Unlimited / 1 |
Free |
Unlimited |
About Shared Web Hosting
Shared web hosting is the preferred hosting choice of personal sites and small to medium sized businesses. Thus shared hosting plans are the backbone of the majority of websites online today. With shared hosting, a client will literally be "sharing" a server with other clients of the hosting company. Each client account is allocated a specific amount of disk space and allowed bandwidth per given period, in essence creating a 'virtual server', as this hosting type is commonly referred to as. The parent hosting company provides all maintenance and updating of the physical servers and software (OS, scripts, drivers, etc.) leaving the client free to focus on just the website itself.
Shared hosting will almost always include a host of software applications, such as email and account management, web traffic details and statistics, server based applications like shopping carts, chat rooms, and blogs, as well as numerous other scripts. A shared hosting account will also come with the predefined libraries so that a client can incorporate Java, PHP, GGI, and other web-based programming into their site.
The main advantage of shared hosting is of course price. By sharing resources you respectively also share the overhead costs of maintaining a server. Also, with current advances in server hardware and software performance, a shared account is quite reliable and stable and the software provides much the same powerful functionality that a dedicated server might provide.
All of the disadvantages of shared hosting are due to the 'sharing' aspect of the setup. Since you are sharing a computer with limited processing power and bandwidth, it is possible that other accounts on the same server may 'hog' server resources and negatively impact website performance. Many hosting companies and their servers however have become adept at allocating resources in a fair and balanced manner, limiting these effects.