Shared Vs. Cloud Web Hosting (or Bare Metal Server Wins?)

The word “cloud” seems to be used with almost every technical term these days. However, there is a difference between cloud and shared web hosting.

Generally, cloud hosting appears to be in its own league compared to other traditional forms of shared web hosting. And there is one more option which is a relatively new development that offers a hybrid solution. We are talking about bare metal servers and why they are becoming so popular.

The Notion of Shared Web Hosting

This is a kind of web hosting which allows the websites to share a server and its resources among hosted sites. If you have such a hosting, it will most likely be split into portions between many users who share a certain amount of bandwidth.

Shared web hosting is the most common option among users and it provides the most economical way to get your business online. A site using this type of hosting can handle over 30,000 visitors a month. But this cost-effective platform has its limits despite the fact that it’s ideal for less demanding projects.

The main disadvantage of shared web hosting is that it has a limited amount of resources for traffic support. Also, there is a big chance of experiencing slow speed because lots of other site visitors request the same resources. Sometimes the server may even get so overwhelmed that it can result in a downtime. Many individuals and small business owners opt for this option using shared web hosting reviews as a reliable source to choose the most suitable hosting company.

The Notion of Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is probably the hardest option to describe. It allows an unlimited number of machines to act as a system together.

Cloud hosting offers more redundancy and reliability, on-demand scalability and higher performance. These features are particularly important and suitable for sites where the unexpected success or a new product launch may send thousands of new visitors to a website in a few minutes. Web designers and programmers usually opt for this kind of web hosting.

On the other hand, cloud hosting also has several drawbacks. For instance, it’s platform dependency and limited control with flexibility. Users are usually restricted from changing the cloud platform as it may result in increased costs. The policies of some cloud hosting providers may also limit customers in terms of what they can do with this particular service.

The Notion of Bare Metal Servers

The bare metal server is a relatively recent option. This development offers cost-effectiveness together with a high performance by combining the best features of cloud technology and dedicated hardware. Bare metal servers are not virtual but so-called “physical” servers. Each of them can belong only to one single user while other servers might have several simultaneous customers. These types of servers are never shared between multiple users.

The main aim of the bare metal server is to cope with major short-term processing needs. You can process, store or analyze the data on a server for an as long period of time as you need. This way, you don’t waste the resources and don’t need to run the server for longer than it’s necessary.

In other words, there is a contrast between the common shared or cloud web hosting and the bare metal server. The first two of them can include dozens of virtual machines on one physical server, while the bare metal server is always single-tenant so that the customer gets a higher performance with all the dedicated resources.