If you’re a newbie when it comes to web development, one of the questions that may pop into your mind is “how does shared web hosting work?”. It’s a question that’s asked by many newbies far and wide, and it’s not easy to describe, purely because there are so many different services out there that offer a similar hosting service. With that said, it’s also very helpful to know what’s what when it comes to web hosting services, just so you don’t overpay for resources you don’t actually need. Here’s a helpful guide to give you a better understanding of how shared hosting works.

Think of Shared Web Hosting as a Pie

A pie will often get shared between multiple people, so there’s no better way of describing shared web hosting. Once you pay for shared web hosting services, you’ll have to share resources of a dedicated server among many other people. For example, if a web hosting provider has a dedicated server with 500GB disk space and 1TB monthly data transfer, they’ll be able to host 500 shared accounts consisting of 1GB disk space each and 2GB monthly data transfer. Of course, many other resources come into play here, but they’re the very basics that you’ll encounter during your search for a new web hosting provider.

Shared Hosting Is the Baby of the Family

Although many web hosts will create shared hosting accounts on a dedicated server environment, others will only have access to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) to keep the running costs down. A VPS is basically a bigger chunk of the pie that has more features and more flexibility in terms of website management. You could say that shared hosting is the baby of the family that can only do basic things, and VPS is the older brother with a bit more experience. VPS isn’t the only older brother, though, as there are smaller services that can be rented to give similar features. That service is called “Reseller Hosting”. Those with a reseller hosting package will be able to create their own shared hosting accounts more easily thanks to a specific control panel. This gives those entrepreneurs a chance to start their own ISP (Internet Service Provider) business for a fraction of the cost. For more information on the various services that you can take advantage of, consider looking at hostingkingdom.com.

A Fully Managed Service

If you’re a shared hosting account used, you’ll not have any server privileges, primarily because you could log in to an account and ruin the hosting experience for everyone else pretty rapidly. Therefore, a shared hosting account service is a fully managed service, and that means your web hosting resources will be regularly updated and you won’t get a say in the features you have access to. It’s one of the simplest services out there when it comes to the web hosting industry, and it’s also the most popular choice.

If you use a desktop computer, you should understand that a dedicated server works in very similar fashion, except it’s housed in a data center. A shared hosting account is pretty much a folder on that dedicated server, along with many other folders that contain website files to provide access to websites.