The Different Types of WordPress Hosting Services
The right WordPress hosting will ensure your business website runs smoothly, quickly, and securely. Learn the different types here.
There are currently more than 455 million websites that use WordPress.
It’s one of the largest content management systems in the world and it’s supported by almost any server that uses PHP. It’s incredibly flexible, which means there’s a range of hosting options. As such, you may be unsure what to do regarding hosting.
In this article, we’ll look at the different types of WordPress hosting so that you can determine which is the most suitable for your business. Keep reading for more.
Basic Requirements of WordPress Hosting
While WordPress is incredibly versatile, not all hosting services can support it. Ideally, you want a service that offers PHP 7.4 or higher and HTTPS support. You also want one of the following: MySQL 5.7 or higher, OR, MariaDB 10.3 or higher.
Types of WordPress Hosting
With the various web hosting services available, you have several choices. It’s worth looking into the options you have so that you can go with the type that suits your needs best.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is ideal for smaller websites that don’t require large amounts of resources. It’s easy to use, which makes it ideal for someone just getting started with WordPress.
Shared hosting involves a single server that hosts multiple websites. Each website has a share of the resources that the server provides. It’s cost-effective and easy to work with, and you can upgrade later on if needed.
It’s worth noting, however, that there are some drawbacks to using shared hosting. The first is that the resources on a server may not be equally distributed. Some sites might use up more, leaving less for other sites, slowing them down.
WordPress security is crucial, and this isn’t always the most secure type of hosting. You can set your website up to make it as secure as possible, but you won’t be in control of the security at the server level. Isolation can prevent this, but not all hosts offer it.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is at the other end of the scale – when you use this, you’ll get an entire server just for your website. If you have a high-traffic site that needs a lot of resources, this might be the best solution.
You don’t share the server with anyone, and as such, you can adjust it to suit your needs. It’s especially helpful if you need custom monitoring tools or a specialized deployment process.
This will generally offer the best WordPress speed available. For a site that needs to load and respond quickly, having a dedicated server will ensure you get the resources you need.
The main drawback here is that it’s one of the most expensive options, which is to be expected. It requires more knowledge as you’ll need to be able to set up and manage the server yourself, which can also result in higher costs.
Repairs and maintenance can also require more work. If any hardware fails, someone will need to repair or replace it physically.
VPS Hosting
VPS (virtual private server) hosting is somewhere between dedicated and shared hosting, so can be ideal if you need something more robust than shared hosting, but still want to keep the costs down.
With shared servers, there can often be thousands of websites on a single server. VPS uses robust technology to offer servers with between about 5 and 20 websites. Not only does this provide each of these sites with more resources, but it lowers the risk issues from a server-level malware breach.
VPS servers use a hypervisor to handle resource allocation. This oversees all of the websites on the server and ensures that each one has a reasonable share of the resources available. Each site has an individual virtual space that can be controlled and configured to meet the needs of the site.
You’ll usually have the choice between managed and unmanaged hosting when using VPS hosting. If you understand how to manage and configure a server yourself, you might choose to go for unmanaged. To have the technical aspects handled for you, managed may be the better choice.
Managed Hosting
Managed hosting offers a range of services that are specific to WordPress. Businesses of any size can benefit from this type of hosting, and providers offer expert-level maintenance.
In general, managed hosting is faster, more powerful, and more secure than other types. As it’s specifically designed for WordPress, providers can develop additional features and fine-tune servers to meet the exact requirements of websites.
Professional WordPress management will ensure that your website stays up-to-date and secure. You won’t have to worry about configuring the server yourself, and it will run faster while using minimal resources.
On the downside, it’s often one of the more expensive options. The cost will depend on your site, so it will increase as it grows.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting offers a range of benefits. It’s ideal for websites of all sizes, it’s highly scalable, it’s stable, and it’s cost-effective. Rather than hosting your website on a physical server, it will be on cloud architecture.
This is similar to VPS hosting but makes use of multiple servers to host each virtual unit. This helps to minimize downtime and maintain stability.
Cloud hosting is cheaper than dedicated hosting, and you’ll only pay for the services that you use. This is ideal if your site has fluctuation in traffic. When traffic goes up, you can scale up your resources, and when it goes back down, you can reduce them again.
Like VPS hosting, you can go either managed or unmanaged. Again, unmanaged will require a certain amount of technical knowledge, and managed is more expensive, but everything will be done for you.
The Right Type of WordPress Hosting for Your Business
For WordPress hosting, you need to assess your website and your needs to determine which is the best option. Think about the size of your site, the traffic it gets, your level of knowledge, and how much you’re willing to manage yourself.
JWHost offers various WordPress hosting services. We also provide website care, domain name plans, and more. To find out more about our services, click here to contact us today.
