Shared hosting: definition
Shared hosting is one of the most common solutions for website hosting. This more economical approach facilitates the sharing of a physical server's resources between several remote websites, reducing infrastructure costs. This low-cost option encourages website creation while maintaining adequate performance for most needs. This solution is recommended for blogs, showcase websites, or projects with moderate traffic, without major challenges on the application side.
It should be noted that this solution is completely different from shared data centers, also known as colocation data centers as proposed by UltraEdge, which allow you to reserve your own space in a data center.
What is shared hosting?
Shared hosting, also known as shared web hosting, distributes the resources of a physical server among several hundred websites. This sharing allows hosting providers to offer attractive rates by spreading the costs of infrastructure, maintenance, and administration across a large number of customers. Each site has allocated disk space, preconfigured bandwidth, and shared access to system resources: processor, RAM, and storage.
This architecture relies on high-capacity servers equipped with redundant components to ensure service availability. Web hosts use lightweight virtualization technologies to isolate customer accounts and maintain fair and efficient resource sharing. This technical approach achieves high hosting densities without compromising the overall stability of the system. Technological scalability boosts the attractiveness of shared hosting. Servers such as LiteSpeed, NVMe SSDs, and advanced caching improve performance, even with shared resources. While there are still notable limitations related to resource sharing, shared hosting remains a competitive solution for smaller players with less demanding applications.
How does shared hosting work?
Role of the host
The host is responsible for the technical infrastructure and therefore manages all IT devices and equipment, including server software, perimeter security, cabling, servers, and operating systems.
It takes full responsibility for hardware and software, freeing users from any technical complexity. System administration, updates, security patches, and continuous monitoring are therefore solely their responsibility. This fully outsourced option is ideal for customers or end users without real IT expertise or available resources.
The hosting provider proactively monitors, anticipates, detects, and corrects malfunctions. Support teams are on call 24 hours a day and maintain high service availability through effective incident resolution. For the most reputable hosting providers, uptime is close to 99.9%, but this also depends on the terms of the contract.
Automated backup prevents data loss in the event of loss or failure. The simplified administration interface allows users, even novices, to manage hosting services directly via the control panel. Depending on the package chosen, these services generally include domain name management, professional email configuration, the option to add a database, and the implementation of a secure SSL certificate. This makes shared hosting an all-in-one solution that does not require any technical expertise.
Use cases
Smaller projects with low application requirements may be of interest. Competitive value for money includes basic features such as MySQL databases and email accounts. Although resources are limited, transparency in use is relevant for the most common uses with low complexity.
Some e-commerce sites with a small catalog can use this type of hosting. Platforms such as WooCommerce can run properly on a shared server, which remains a viable solution for a catalog with hundreds of products and thousands of monthly visitors. This may be relevant for a local e-commerce site or highly specialized stores.
A Test & Learn environment and a development interface can take full advantage of shared hosting, and then validate the project before it goes live. The easy deployment via tools in just a few clicks facilitates the prototyping and technical validation phases.
Avantages and disadvantages
Shared hosting advantages
We can outline three key advantages:
● Affordability
This is the main advantage of shared hosting. With monthly rates generally below $5 per month for most providers, this option allows you to take your first steps toward a professional website. This makes it an ideal solution for small businesses, even if the infrastructure, while effective, does not allow for a high degree of customization.
● Ease of use
This can appeal to non-technical users. With the development of no-code, the very quick installation of popular CMS for small websites or blogs such as WordPress reduces technical barriers. An intuitive administration interface facilitates domain management, messaging, and database access. The user-oriented approach may be relevant for entrepreneurs who focus on their main site with a limited number of pages rather than on pure technology.
● More time for the end customer
With IT maintenance constraints handled by the host, this represents a significant time saving and reduces the risks associated with faulty administration.
Drawbacks of shared hosting
There are three main drawbacks to shared hosting.
● Unstable performance
This is a significant limitation of this type of hosting. Resource sharing is a low-cost solution, but slowdowns can occur during peak activity times because multiple sites are hosted on the same server.
● Reduced optimization
Sharing also impacts specific optimization possibilities, which can be limiting for high-stakes websites. CPU resource allocation and memory allocation are generally insufficient for complex or critical websites or applications.
Limited agility effectively reduces advanced configuration customization. It is not possible to install specific system modules or modify the server configuration. This can cause difficulties and frustration for projects with specific needs. In this case, it is better to migrate to more flexible solutions such as dedicated hosting at a minimum. Or, for more complex sites with a powerful application and internal IT resources, migrating to the Cloud or server colocation in data centers will provide optimal flexibility and ultra-high responsiveness.
● Greater vulnerability to attacks
Cyberattacks will primarily target these multiple sites because shared security constraints and less stringent security policies make them potential targets. Indeed, if a site is compromised on the server, this can affect the various hosting services. This requires increased vigilance, particularly when updating code. As security policies are less complex, it is not possible to have security measures that are as robust as those of a hyperscale player (Amazon, Google) or a data center operator such as UltraEdge.
How to choose the right shared hosting?
Performance, reliability, and scalability
An accurate performance assessment relies on various technical KPIs such as guaranteed availability, server response time, and the technologies used. NVMe SSD servers, cache systems such as Redis or Memcached, and integrated CDNs optimize display performance. Although these additional options come at a higher cost, they are levers for optimizing the customer experience and organic search engine optimization.
Reliability is established according to contractual availability criteria and customer feedback. An uptime of 99.9%, rarely achieved by shared hosting providers, represents less than nine hours of downtime per year, which is an acceptable level. In UltraEdge data centers, uptime is close to 99.99% and any downtime will be reduced to less than an hour and a half. This is what sets UltraEdge's shared hosting apart from its server colocation offering. An efficient infrastructure—combining electrical redundancy, air conditioning, and connectivity—will directly influence this reliability. It is necessary to ensure that the host has ISO certifications and that external audits are carried out to verify the credibility of the various commitments.
The sometimes exponential growth of certain projects, even without requiring complex migration, requires very significant scalability. In this case, solutions other than shared hosting, such as cloud or server colocation, can be considered. Systematic migration tools facilitate the transition to the new hosting offer and limit potential technical risks to the infrastructure.
Compatibilité serveur mutualisé avec CMS, apps et besoins métiers
Native compatibility with the most widely used CMSs is an important criterion for most web projects. According to W3Techs website, WordPress and Shopify are the two leading CMSs and require an optimized environment with specialized modules. Some hosting providers offer turnkey solutions for WordPress, enabling automated installation and providing fully preconfigured environments.
Each specialized business application requires a specific configuration with pre-established versions for the PDP, extensions for SEO, for example, or alternative databases. Compatibility must be assessed before committing, otherwise the limitations of shared data center hosting may affect certain developments. A test environment must be requested to validate the compatibility of applications and services before any commissioning.
The integration of third-party tools, such as online payment, CRM, or newsletters, impacts the choice of hosting. These integrations are greatly facilitated by the presence of APIs, secure protocols, and SSL certificates.
Security and maintenance
What security measures are in place for shared hosting?
The implementation of perimeter security protects the entire hosting provider's infrastructure through advanced firewalls, anti-intrusion systems, and continuous traffic monitoring. Shared protection guarantees expertise and IT investment by the host, and represents a relevant first level of security for smaller projects. By default, anti-DDoS protection limits high-volume attacks before they can potentially affect critical servers.
Theoretical isolation between customer accounts prevents the spread of security incidents. Containerization and virtualization technologies create barriers between each hosted site. This separation prevents a compromised site from impacting other sites on the same server. However, protection is not absolute; resource quotas can limit the negative impact of sites with failures on overall performance.
Automated backup and monitoring, with anticipation capabilities, complete the security system. Each anti-malware detection system allows for very regular analysis of hosted files and alerts in the event of contamination, with quarantine if required. Increased monitoring facilitates swift intervention and neutralizes potential threats.
User responsibilities
In this shared hosting configuration, the user is entirely responsible for the security of the application. It is necessary to ensure that the CMS, plugins, and themes used are regularly updated. According to a 2024 ENISA report, approximately two-thirds of attacks are caused by ransomware and DDoS attacks.
Password management directly affects account security. Setting complex passwords, using two-factor authentication, and limiting administrator access minimize the risk of intrusion. These best practices can mitigate some of the security limitations inherent in shared hosting.
Monitoring content and suspicious activity allows you to anticipate and detect potential data breaches early on. Depending on the services included in the hosting package, log monitoring and suspicious activity notifications can facilitate this monitoring. Proactive action on the part of users is essential in order to limit the impact of incidents while speeding up the implementation of fixes.
Shared hosting in UltraEdge data centers
UltraEdge goes far beyond the concept of shared hosting and the server colocation offering allows customers to benefit from the specific features of edge computing by integrating edge data centers thanks to an ultra-dense network of 250 sites. This approach offers tangible advantages, including reduced latency for end-customer infrastructures. This meets the multiple needs of the most critical and latency-sensitive services and applications, while maintaining optimal cost-effectiveness.
Thanks to its distributed architecture, UltraEdge deploys shared servers as close as possible to end users. This local responsiveness is particularly useful for e-commerce sites, SaaS applications, and complex online services. Unified IT resource management greatly simplifies the administration of distributed infrastructure. Automated orchestration enables optimal and equitable distribution of inter-site loads according to local requirements, in compliance with applicable regulations such as the GDPR.
This allows users to benefit from shared data centers with greater ease of use. The UltraEdge approach thus combines performance and proximity and meets the growing needs of AI and IoT.