This is another important decision that you will need to make when you are looking to get your website hosted. Let’s start with understanding what these two terms mean in the world of web hosting and when to go for one or the other. 

Shared server, as the name suggests, is a server that is shared by a number of websites. So, if you were to go for shared web hosting, your website will be hosted on a server that is already being used for (or that is intended to be used for) a number of other websites. That means the resources of the server are shared by a number of websites. In shared web hosting, each website is allocated fixed, maximum amount of server resources (based on what plan the website owner has chosen).  

Shared web hosting is generally opted-for by small businesses that have a simple website (mostly static) which doesn’t need much of server space and which is not expected to get too much traffic. Shared web hosting is advertised much more to the general public through the internet and through offline marketing. So much so that when we talk about web hosting in general, we are actually referring to shared web hosting. Most web hosts provide multiple web hosting plans in order to cater to the needs of various businesses/ people. The main difference among various web hosting plans is in terms of server space and transfer allowance. You can choose a web hosting plan based on your needs. However, it is recommended that you start with a low end plan and upgrade to a high end plan as you feel the need for it.   

Dedicated servers or dedicated web hosting refers to web hosting wherein you hire the entire server just for hosting your website. So, there is no sharing of server resources with other websites. The server space, transfer allowance etc are all dedicated to your website (and hence the name dedicated server/ web hosting). You can generally host unlimited domain names on your dedicated server. Thus, dedicated servers give you more control and are more powerful than shared hosting.  

Dedicated web hosting is especially suited for medium and large businesses that expect a lot of traffic to their site and that have dynamic websites need quite a lot of disk space.  

So, evaluate your web hosting needs and accordingly select the type of web hosting – dedicated or shared.