The most essential part of a website is web hosting. The speed of the website mostly depends on the hosting, if the software is broken, it can be fixed, but if the hosting is weak, you need a new hosting provider.
Most of the websites hosted all over the world use wordpress hosting or shared hosting as their hosting platform of choice.
I say that because 42.5% of the internet runs on WordPress. Furthermore, WordPress can be installed on both shared hosting and wordpress hosting.
The differences between wordpress hosting and shared hosting are negligible to some. To some people, purchasing wordpress hosting won't make a difference.
WordPress hosting is mostly for newbies, features that will very much make it easier for the website owner. Shared hosting, on the other hand, is much cheaper than wordpress hosting, but it is a little harder to operate.
Recently, however, shared hosting has caught up when it comes to WordPress. Especially with the addition of WordPress Toolkit to cPanel hosting.
When choosing between wordpress hosting or shared hosting, the first thing you need to get out of the way is the price. WordPress hosting costs a lot more. If the price is a problem for you, you can skip to the next heading.
You will not find managed wordpress hosting under $15/month, which is 7.5 times higher than our lowest priced shared hosting. The features sometimes justify the price though. It does matter who you are, and what you want to do.
Sometimes, wordpress hosts like WP Engine will add in extra features to better justify the price. Even though the price still might be high, getting some free additional goodies might sway you to get it anyway.
Managed wordpress hosting is usually better than normal shared hosting. The "managed" part of the phrase means that the website or more accurately the whole platform is managed by the hosting and optimized for WordPress.
To be fair, shared hosting is also managed, however, not in the same sense as you might not get the same WordPress-related tools as with managed wordpress hosting.
This lessens the workload of the website owner and passes it onto the hosting. They will take care of speed, security, updates, and other maintenance. This means that your website will always be up-to-date and at a much lower risk of a successful attack.
The support team that comes with a shared hosting is a universal one for with expertise related to all the websites, usually thousands, hosted on the same server. These websites might run on different platforms.
While not always the case, our support team can assist you with specific wordpress-related issues as well.
As opposed to that, wordpress hosting comes with a team with specific expertise in WordPress. They're experts in that field, and they will help you with anything you need.
Moreover, some wordpress hosting providers also offer a technical team to help you build your website.
Shared hosting is mainly characterized by its low prices. There's a lot of controversy going on about whether you should choose wordpress hosting or shared hosting, and most people seem to suggest that you should always use wordpress hosting if you're hosting a WordPress website.
I'm here to tell you that you shouldn't always do that. I've personally hosted websites on both sides and I don't think the gains of wordpress hosting are big enough to justify the price. For me personally, I'd use shared hosting unless I have a really high budget.
With shared hosting, you can almost always install more than one website on it. Shared hosting supports all kinds of websites. Basic HTML/CSS/JS websites are not a problem, and it also supports any tool — such as WordPress — you want to install onto it, provided the required libraries are available (e.g. PHP when it comes to WordPress)
This allows you to get more bang for your buck, and if you're just starting out, this might make a huge difference to you.
With most WordPress hosting services, you do not get email hosting. Meaning, you'll have to pay more to have a branded email (ex. [email protected]). This might be a problem if you need to host a lot of emails.
Opposite of that, shared hosting most of the time comes with email hosting baked into it. There will usually be limits on how many emails you can create and/or how many you can send per hour, however, it comes at no additional cost.
Speed is the most important thing when building a website. And you're right, WordPress hosting will usually be a little faster for WordPress websites, but this usually is not enough to make a big difference. Most of the speed of your website comes from the optimizations you perform such as reducing image size, caching, and more.
Shared hosting might run on a server with the same specs as the computer of the wordpress hosting, and these servers can handle a ridiculous number of sites.
In the end, if you can get your site to open in under 3 seconds, you are golden.
With managed WordPress hosts, there are usually some imposed limitations which shared hosting does not have.
For example, some hosts will limit the number of visits you can have on a certain plan and charge you overage fees for any additional visits.
This limit does not exist in shared hosting. In reality, the shared hosting can handle a lot of visitors per month if your website is properly optimized.
If your budget allows it then choosing WordPress hosting might be a good decision for you. However, if you'd like to save some money, then we'd recommend shared hosting.
WordPress hostings are usually high-price as they're specialized for a single platform only.
To finish, WordPress hosting does provide nice value and lenience when it comes to managing your website. Shared hosting on the other hand, provides a way to start your digital journey for the price of a coffee.
