Shared Hosting vs Managed Hosting: Which One Is Better?

Jatin Kathuria January 07, 2023
When it comes to choosing a web host, many users get confused about whether they should use Shared Hosting or Managed Hosting for their websites.

Well, if you are one of those users, you will get the answer to all your questions by the end of this article.

Choosing the wrong web hosting can badly impact every important aspect of your website like loading speed, user experience, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), website security, growth, etc.

Usually, most users start their online journey with shared hosting instead of managed hosting.

But the biggest confusion is which of these two web hosts is better for you, this article will end all your dilemmas.

In this article, we will explore the difference between shared hosting vs managed hosting along with their pros and cons, and will also explore some of the best hosting recommendations.

So without much ado, let's dive in.

Shared Hosting vs Managed Hosting: Complete Guide

Shared Hosting vs Managed Hosting: Which One Is Better?
Shared Hosting vs Managed Hosting: Which One Is Better?


What is Shared Hosting?

Shared hosting is considered the most popular and widely used web hosting service.

This is a setup of a web hosting service in which your web hosting provider powers multiple websites from a single server.

In other words, your site shares resources with other sites on the same server on which your website is hosted.

Shared hosting is considered one of the cheapest hosting types, but here you will have a limit on the total amount of server resources you can use.

Shared hosting is ideal for users who run small websites with very little traffic.

What are the Pros and Cons of Shared Web Hosting?

So let's have a look at the advantages and disadvantages of shared hosting below to understand it clearly:

Pros of Shared Hosting (Good)

  • Shared hosting is the cheapest and most affordable as compared to all other hosting types, which is enough to start your online journey.
  • Shared hosting is a great option, especially for users who are on a low budget.
  • It is a great option for beginners, small websites, and bloggers.
  • cPanel or Dashboard is required to manage your hosting account, website, domain name, email, etc. Most hosting providers offer cPanel over shared hosting, making it very easy for you to manage your site.
  • You need a domain-based email address to build a successful website or business. The good thing is that most of the hosting providers offer email account service facilities with shared hosting at no extra cost.
  • Users do not need to pay much attention to technical maintenance related to their hosting account on shared hosting.
  • Many hosting providers also allow you to host unlimited websites on shared hosting plans. Shared hosting is a good option for users who want to host unlimited websites on a single hosting plan.

Cons of Shared Hosting (Bad)

  • Whether you know it or not, on shared hosting, hundreds to thousands of websites are hosted on a single server. In this case, it has many bad consequences.
  • Shared hosting is a great option for beginners, startups, and small websites, but when the number of visitors to your website starts increasing, your website performance gets badly affected. In short, it is not a good option for high-traffic websites.
  • Websites hosted on shared hosting will have to settle with slower loading times as compared to managed hosting.
  • On shared hosting, your site also has to face problems because of a 'bad neighbor'. If a neighboring website has become infected with a virus or malware, it can affect all other websites hosted on the same server.
  • Sometimes the server may be overloaded by other sites sharing the same server and then a situation like a downtime keeps on arising.
  • On shared hosting, you are not given many customization options to improve the performance of your website.

What is Managed Hosting?

Managed hosting, as the name suggests, is a premium hosting solution where the hosting provider provides dedicated servers and associated hardware to the users.

In other words, users here are free from the responsibility of managing the technical aspects related to their hosting account.

Here your hosting provider manages all the IT tasks themselves so that the server provided to you always runs at high performance.

Basically, in managed hosting, improving your website performance, speeding up loading times, updating plugins, managing security functions, maintaining servers, etc. is all done by the hosting company.

Your full focus is solely on the growth of your website and handling software. The hosting company will handle the entire hardware.

Let me tell you one more thing there are two types of Managed Hosting: Semi Managed Hosting and Fully Managed Hosting.
  • Semi-managed hosting costs slightly less than fully managed hosting and is ideal for users who have the technical knowledge and feel comfortable managing their own servers.
  • Fully-managed hosting is certainly an expensive hosting service but is best suited for users who do not have much technical knowledge or who do not have the time to manage their hosting account themselves. Here you just have to focus on the growth of your website.

Note: Managed hosting is ideal for high-traffic websites.

What are the Pros and Cons of Managed Hosting?

So let's have a look at the advantages and disadvantages of Managed hosting below to understand it clearly:

Pros of Managed Hosting (Good)

  • In managed WordPress hosting, the customer support service is offered to the users by a dedicated expert team, where you are given very quick and satisfactory responses every time as compared to shared hosting.
  • The servers offered to you in managed WordPress hosting can handle heavy traffic with ease, so your website always loads faster.
  • There is no possibility of your website going down due to heavy traffic. Overall, your website is always available to visitors even in high-traffic conditions.
  • Here your website always remains up-to-date as all the updates are done here automatically.
  • Here the users do not need much technical knowledge to handle the IT work related to their hosting account, as all these are taken care of by the hosting company. Users just need to focus on their content. In short, it saves you a lot of time.
  • Managed hosting is considered the most secure in terms of security. Robust security features are provided here to keep your website safe and secure from hackers and malware attacks. Shared hosting is the weakest in terms of security.
  • To keep your website data safe, you are also given the facility of automatic daily backup, which you can also restore with a single click. Although backup is offered on shared hosting as well, managed hosts go far above and beyond in this area.

Cons of Managed Hosting (Bad)

  • Compared to shared hosting, you have to spend more for managed hosting as it is considered to be one of the more expensive hosting solutions.
  • A monthly visitor limit is provided on managed hosting. If the number of visitors to your website exceeds the limit, you will have to pay an overage fee. The good thing is that even if the number of traffic is high, there will be no reduction in performance.
  • You are not allowed to install certain plugins in managed WordPress hosting which may affect website loading speed, performance, and security. In short, some plugins are banned here.

Our 2 Best Recommendations for Shared Hosting

Here are our 2 best recommendations if you want to go with shared hosting:

1. Hostinger

Hostinger Shared Hosting
Hostinger is a complete package of web hosting solutions. If you want to get the best-shared hosting service on a low budget then you must go with Hostinger.

It is also the most popular hosting platform in the industry, hosting more than 29 million websites in approximately 178 countries around the world so far.

Hostinger's shared hosting services start at $1.99 per month and if you are from India then you have to pay just Rs.69 per month, which is very economical.

Pros of Hostinger (Advantages + Best Features)

  • Hostinger's customer support service is very commendable and you are provided with email support and live chat support. Here you can connect with experts 24/7 via live chat and get a response within 2 minutes.
  • Here a domain registration for one year is provided for free on each shared hosting plan (except single shared hosting).
  • Hostinger also offers Script Auto-Installer, which lets you install over 100 applications with just one click.
  • Users do not require much technical knowledge to use Hostinger. Users can perform tasks like setting up an email address, installing WordPress and other CMSs, and much more with just a few clicks without any hassle.
  • Hostinger also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all shared hosting plans. You can get a full refund if you are not satisfied with the services. (No refund after 30 days of purchase)
  • Hostinger provides its own customer control panel (hPanel), through which you can easily manage your hosting account, email accounts, resources, domain, etc.
  • At Hostinger, you can easily upgrade to other hosting plans without any issues. The good thing is that there is no problem like downtime during the upgrade.
  • With your hosting plan, you will also get SSD storage, free email, unlimited bandwidth, SSL Certificate, automatic backup, free website migration, and more.

Cons of Hostinger (Disadvantages)

  • It does not offer phone support
  • Most hosting providers provide a cPanel control panel. If you are looking for a cPanel, Hostinger will surely disappoint you.


2. Bluehost

Bluehost Shared Hosting
Bluehost is the best hosting platform for WordPress websites. Not only us but also WordPress itself officially says so.

Yes, in fact, WordPress itself officially recommends Bluehost on its website “wordpress.org”.

Whether you are a novice or running a high-traffic website or a large business, Bluehost offers a wide range of hosting plans for everyone.

Bluehost's shared hosting plans start at $2.95 per month and if you are from India then you have to pay just Rs.169 per month.


Pros of Bluehost (Advantages + Best Features)

  • Bluehost offers a free SSL certificate on each shared hosting plan, which protects the personal information, online transactions, and other sensitive data of visitors and customers accessing your website.
  • Bluehost also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on shared hosting plans, within which you can cancel the plan within 30 days and get a full refund.
  • With each shared hosting plan, users will also get a free domain name registration for one year.
  • Bluehost offers an easy-to-use cPanel control panel that makes managing your hosting account extremely easy.
  • To give your site even faster speeds, Bluehost offers a Cloudflare CDN with each shared hosting plan. It is also a great feature for security purposes that protects your website from DDoS attacks.
  • Bluehost provides 24/7 customer support service through phone support, email support, and live chat support to resolve your issues regarding hosting services.
  • Bluehost also provides an extensive knowledge base and video tutorials, which is great for beginners as here you get step-by-step guidance about the platform.
  • It offers unlimited websites, unmetered SSD storage, and unmetered bandwidth on all shared hosting plans (except the basic plan)
  • Bluehost also offers free website migration for WordPress website

Cons of Bluehost (Disadvantages)

  • Automatic backups and domain privacy are not provided for free if you choose the Basic or Plus plan on Bluehost.
  • Bluehost uses a selling strategy during final billing. Do not buy those addon services which are not necessary.


Our 2 Best Recommendations for Managed Hosting

Here are our 2 best recommendations if you want to go with Managed hosting:

1. WPX Hosting

WPX Managed Hosting
What is the purpose of your website: blogging, eCommerce store, affiliate marketing, or anything else, it doesn't matter.

You need a hosting provider that will speed up the loading times of your website.

Do you know that websites that load faster tend to rank higher in search engines, which also leads to a higher number of visitors to your website?

Here WPX Hosting is a very good managed hosting platform for you, where you get a fast and secure environment with fully managed WordPress hosting.


Pros of WPX Hosting (Advantages + Best Features)

  • WPX Hosting offers an unlimited free website migration facility. The good thing is that the migration service here is very fast. Thus, your website gets migrated to its servers within 24 hours.
  • Here you are offered an unlimited SSL certificate on all hosting plans absolutely free, which can be installed and activated on WordPress websites in no time.
  • In case your site is down or hacked, WPX will also fix it and return it to you at no additional cost.
  • WPX provides superfast SSD storage to give your site greater performance and faster speeds
  • Here you get full-service backups on dedicated backup servers (automatic daily backups)
  • Here you get a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with WPX Hosting for any reason, you can cancel your hosting subscription within the first 30 days of purchasing a hosting plan and get a full refund.
  • WPX offers its own custom CDN (XDN) with all hosting plans, which is a high-speed custom XDN. Here your WordPress website loads faster than other providers
  • We really like WPX Hosting's customer support service, which is much better than any other hosting provider. Here you get superfast quick responses from experts. They have a very dedicated support team.
  • It is also a domain registrar, if you do not already have a domain name then you can also register a domain name from here at an attractive price.
  • Here you are offered extremely powerful servers that are configured to give your website the fastest loading speed.
  • If you are looking for the most secure managed WordPress hosting solution, then WPX is the best for that too.

Cons of WPX Hosting (Disadvantages)

  • WPX hosting plans start at $20.83 per month, which is a bit pricey for beginner users


2. Nexcess

Nexcess Managed Hosting
Nexcess is one of our favorite managed WordPress hosting platforms that is part of the Liquid Web brand.

If you want a managed hosting platform, especially for eCommerce websites then we would definitely recommend you to go with Nexcess.

Fully managed WordPress hosting plans from Nexcess start at just $15.83 per month.

You get premium features and high-quality servers here at these attractive prices.

Nexcess offers different pricing packages on managed WordPress hosting, starting at $15.83 per month and going up to $832.50 per month.



Pros of Nexcess (Advantages + Best Features)

  • As we told you above most hosting providers charge more for managed hosting when the number of visits exceeds the limit. But Nexcess does not charge an overage fee when the number of visitors exceeds the limit.
  • The customer support service here is also excellent. Providing 24/7 expert WordPress support by live chat, phone, and email. Nexcess also responds very quickly, similar to WPX
  • You can easily upgrade your plan with the growth of your website. Here you can upgrade to a different plan at any time, without sacrificing performance.
  • Here you do not need to worry about backups as Nexcess offers automatic daily backups with each hosting plan, that too at no extra cost.
  • Nexcess offers a 30-day money-back guarantee which means you can cancel your hosting subscription within the first 30 days and get a full refund if you are not happy with their service.
  • Here you don't even need to activate or set up a CDN separately as Nexcess provides a built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN) with each plan, making their hosting even faster.
  • Nexcess offers a slew of premium security features. WordPress core and plugins are updated automatically.
  • To prevent your website from crashing due to traffic surges or spikes, Nexcess provides an autoscaling feature.
  • Here you also get the most powerful security features "iThemes Security Pro". It protects your website from malicious threats and spam.

Cons of Nexcess (Disadvantages)

  • Nexcess is not a domain registrar. So if you don't already have a domain name then you will have to register the domain name from another domain registrar.


Final Verdict on Shared Hosting vs Managed Hosting

Whenever it comes to choosing a web hosting solution, we must take a decision after much deliberation and patience.

Because web hosting is such an important factor that can make or break your online journey.

So, if you want to be successful in your online journey, then invest wisely in the right web hosting solution.

To make your work easier, I suggest that if your budget is less and you want to learn blogging or want to run a small website, then you can start with shared hosting.

On the other hand, if you have a high budget, run a high-traffic website, run an eCommerce website, or expect better performance, faster loading speeds, and stronger security, then definitely go with managed hosting.

Shared hosting is a good option, but not in terms of security.

So what are your thoughts about this Shared Hosting vs Managed Hosting mentioned above, do let us know your opinion in the comment box below.

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