Current statistics show that the shared hosting market continues to lead the web hosting sector with an impressive revenue share of 37.64%. However, with the ongoing technological advancement and enhanced features, various web hosting alternatives—such as WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and eCommerce hosting—now offer simplified solutions at affordable prices. While options like cheap Linux shared hosting still entice budget-focused users, businesses aiming for better performance and scalable solutions are increasingly switching to more powerful hosting options.
To ensure that you are getting the best value for money, it’s crucial to stay updated with the various types of web hosting services. In this blog, we’ll discuss the top 10 shared hosting alternatives that will assist you in finding an ideal fit for your needs, especially if you are seeking reliable website hosting for ecommerce.
Top 10 Shared Hosting Alternatives
1. WordPress Hosting
WordPress hosting is a great choice for anyone who just wants to focus on their content and business, without stressing over updates, maintenance, or fixing issues behind the scenes. These may include first-time website owners, startups, eCommerce website owners, and bloggers. Advanced managed WordPress hosting solutions offer optimized performance, sturdy security, and expert support precisely tailored to WordPress websites. The web hosting provider handles all the technical aspects for WordPress users so they can focus on content creation and growth.
With Managed WordPress hosting, you’ll enjoy optimized server configurations, advanced caching measures, and other performance optimization features that enhance your WordPress website. It generally provides automatic WordPress core software, plugins, and themes, ensuring your WordPress website remains safe and updated.
2. eCommerce Hosting
Precisely crafted for online stores, eCommerce hosting features game-changing benefits such as pre-integrated shopping carts, payment gateway integration, and robust security measures to secure transaction details and customers’ classified data. It additionally comes with performance optimization features such as advanced caching, premium CDN, lightning-fast NVMe storage, and much more.
eCommerce hosting solutions guarantee high reliability, reducing the chances of website downtimes. Reliable web hosting providers like MilesWeb offer free domain names and SSL certificates along with PCI compliance and DDoS protection to safeguard against online attacks.
3. Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting allows clients to resell web hosting services. Resellers can function under various hosting types depending on their provider, often offering similar features as shared hosting with added branding functionality. Reseller accounts can be significantly different in size; they can have their dedicated server or even a colocated server. The majority of resellers offer virtually identical services to their providers’ shared hosting plans and often manage technical support themselves.
4. Virtual Private Server
Virtual Private Server hosting divides physical server resources into multiple virtual servers, providing dedicated resources and greater control. It’s ideal for users who need more scalability than shared hosting but don’t need a full dedicated server. VPS generally allocates resources depending on the one-server-to-many-VPS model; however, virtualization can also serve various purposes, like enabling the migration of VPS containers between servers. Prominent web hosting providers like MilesWeb offer full root access to clients for managing their virtual space. In VPS hosting, clients are often accountable for managing and securing their server (unmanaged server), or the VPS provider may handle server administration tasks on their behalf (managed server).
5. Dedicated Server
With a dedicated server hosting solution, the user is provided with an entire server, allowing complete management over the entire hosting environment. Dedicated hosting solutions come in two types: self-managed or unmanaged. Self-managed hosting is generally the most affordable solution within the dedicated hosting category. The client has full administrative access to the entire physical server, which implies that the user will be responsible for securing and managing their dedicated server. In an unmanaged server setup, the client is fully responsible for all aspects of server management, making it a cost-effective alternative for users with technical expertise.
6. Managed Hosting Service
With managed hosting, the client receives a dedicated environment without root or admin access. Providers manage server maintenance, ensuring optimal performance and security while users manage their own data via FTP or other tools. The user is restricted from executing complete commands, enabling the provider to maintain service quality and prevent potential configuration issues. The client typically does not have possession of the server—it is leased to the client, granting exclusive access and control over the hosting environment.
7. Cloud Hosting
This is an advanced category of web hosting solution that allows clients powerful, scalable, and reliable hosting depending on clustered load-balanced servers and utility billing. A cloud-hosted website may be more resilient than others, as other computers in the cloud can assist when any server goes down. Also, local power interruptions or even disasters are less harmful to cloud-hosted websites, as cloud hosting is decentralized. In a cloud hosting environment, users only need to pay for the resources they consume, instead of paying a flat charge based on the anticipated usage or a fixed upfront hardware investment. Additionally, cloud hosting clients can demand additional resources during peak traffic periods while migrating IT management to the cloud hosting provider.
8. Colocation Web Hosting
Colocation is identical to the dedicated web hosting service, but with one key difference—the user owns the server hardware. The web hosting provider company offers physical space that the server occupies to host it. This is the most robust and expensive type of web hosting service. Generally, the colocation provider may offer little to no support directly for their client’s machine, offering merely the power supply, internet access, and storage solutions for the server.
In most colocation setups, clients are specifically responsible for maintaining their hardware, usually requiring their administrator to physically visit the data center to make upgrades or changes. Previously, many colocation providers would accept any system settings for hosting, but the majority of web hosts now require rack mount enclosures and standard system configurations.
9. Clustered Hosting
In clustered hosting, several servers deploy the same content for superior resource utilization. Clustered servers are an ideal solution for highly available dedicated hosting or crafting a scalable web hosting solution. A cluster may also segregate web serving from database hosting capability. (Typically, web hosts use clustered hosting for their shared hosting plans, as there are several benefits to bulk management of users.)
10. Grid Hosting
It is a type of web hosting where your business website is composed of multiple nodes powered by a robust network of interlinked servers (a grid) instead of depending on a single physical server. This model divides resources—like CPU, RAM, and storage—across various machines, allowing for superior scalability, performance, and uptime. For increased security, most grid hosting plans allow scheduled scans for malware and vulnerabilities.
Conclusion
To wrap up, selecting an ideal web hosting solution can make a substantial difference in the long run for your business. In this blog, we have considered some of the finest web hosting solutions and discussed their unique strengths.
Ultimately, choosing a reliable web hosting solution that offers exceptional loading speed, security, and productivity significantly impacts the success of any business—and that’s where MilesWeb shines with its high-performing servers and comprehensive features.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to web hosting. However, by considering the above factors and analyzing your business needs, you can land on an ideal web hosting solution that supports your vision.