“Website hosting”—the once uncertain term—has become a familiar term! But since platforms like WordPress hosting have opened up new horizons for everybody to create an online presence, there’s a lot of confusion between the terms WordPress hosting vs. web hosting.
Also, signing up for some type of web hosting plan is crucial if you wish to launch your website. Moreover, if you’re starting afresh, you’re likely to have many questions about which hosting is right for you.
Because of that, we’ve set out to compare WordPress hosting with regular web hosting for you. Choosing the right web host can improve your website’s SEO and revenue and take your business to the next level.
Do you still feel trapped in a tight spot? We’re here to help you! In this blog, we’re going to find answers to questions like are regular web hosting solutions easy on your wallet? Do they provide the security you require? Does managed WordPress hosting justify higher costs?
So, let’s Find out.
All About WordPress Hosting and It’s Benefits
WordPress hosting is a special type of web hosting solution custom-designed to fulfill WordPress websites’ distinct performance and security needs. You might have heard about “managed WordPress hosting,” which generally comprises various features such as automated updates, advanced security measures, and performance improvements. This is the best option for fastest hosting for WordPress websites.
As WordPress hosting could be managed, it’s not compulsory. It is often an all-inclusive service and manages website tasks on your behalf. A major difference between WordPress hosting and web hosting frequently lies in their advanced features.
WordPress hosting packages usually contain pre-installed plugins intended for improving website performance. Furthermore, WordPress hosting providers might offer customized tools for customers handling more than one website, like multisite hosting i.e. hosting and managing multiple sites from a single dashboard.
Benefits
Choosing managed WordPress hosting services over a regular web hosting plan provides a great number of benefits for anyone planning to launch a WordPress website:
- Easy Setup – Already installed themes and plugins lead to an improved WordPress hosting experience, simplifying the technical configuration and installations.
- Increased Performance – WordPress website hosting packages make use of web servers specifically configured for WordPress websites, often integrating in-built caching software for faster loading times.
- Automatic Server and Software Updates – WordPress hosting providers make sure that their servers run the latest versions of the software and offer automatic updates for websites, leading to increased compatibility and efficient performance.
- Efficient Website Management – WordPress hosting services manage the majority of the WordPress technicalities, allowing users to focus on boosting SEO strategies.
- Server Security – Managed WordPress hosting packages consist of in-built security features to avoid any malicious threats, like automatically updating the plugins to eliminate vulnerabilities.
- Excellent Technical Support – Major WordPress hosting service providers offer an excellent technical support team available to help customers with WordPress-related website issues.
All About Web Hosting and Its Benefits
Web hosting is an online service that helps make your website or web application easily accessible on the internet. When a website owner purchases a package from a web hosting provider, they lease a portion of the company’s server space to save their website/(s) files.
In simple terms, website hosting refers to all the types of web hosting solutions available. You can say it’s an umbrella term that pertains to any kind of hosting plan you come across. WordPress hosting is a distinct part of website hosting packages that focus more on the WordPress platform.
Benefits
Let’s have a look at the benefits of web hosting services that we’re required to weigh when availing of hosting services.
- Lower Cost – Standard web hosting is often priced at a lower cost as compared to managed WordPress hosting. But having said that, weighing the allotted tools and resources is important to evaluate the overall cost.
- Hosting Resilience – Choosing a regular web hosting solution provides resilience to host different platforms or custom-made websites, making it uncomplicated to manage several websites.
- Server Configuration – With web hosting, you get more control over server setup, specifically with virtual private servers (VPS) or dedicated hosting. This is anticipated to fulfill specific needs.
- Server Caching and Upgrade Choice – Regular web hosting allows you to choose and set up caching and optimization as per your requirements, offering a custom-made performance setup.
WordPress Hosting Vs Regular Hosting: Crucial Differences
Now that you’ve understood everything about WordPress and regular hosting, it’s time to further analyze the crucial differences between these two hosting types from the point of view of features and services.
Optimization
Optimization is the key feature of WordPress hosting, which distinguishes it from regular web hosting services. As discussed earlier, regular hosting is a service that is used by all kinds of websites, but the websites that are built on the WordPress platform will greatly benefit from WordPress hosting.
Web hosts prioritizing WordPress use custom-made hardware and software to ensure that your website is functioning properly.
Support
The quality of support services offered to WordPress hosting users differs considerably from regular hosting services. Web hosts primarily focused on WordPress usually offer more detailed and WordPress-specific support as compared to other kinds of hosting providers. This could be a great resource to consider if you’re just getting started with the platform and need help with stuff like website configuration, plugin installation, or problem-solving.
Features
The features and functionalities offered by regular hosting versus those provided by WordPress hosting aren’t similar. With regular website hosting features like email accounts, FTP access, and a control panel, several WordPress hosting providers offer extra features and services like automatic WordPress updates, pre-installed plugins and themes, and customized caching to improve website speed.
Cost
Cost is another significant factor before you choose between regular hosting vs. WordPress hosting. However, WordPress hosting usually costs extra than regular web hosting as a result of its advanced functionalities and dedicated client support service.
Therefore, it’s necessary to compare prices before deciding on a web hosting company.
Whether you decide to choose regular web hosting or WordPress hosting, you’ll have to sign up for a hosting package. Let’s learn more about those hosting plans.
WordPress Hosting Vs Regular Hosting Plans
The popular hosting services provided by both WordPress and web hosts include – shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and reseller hosting. Sometimes WordPress hosting providers also offer managed WordPress hosting services that come with top-of-the-line features.
These hosting plans are bundled with exceptional features and usually include a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re unhappy with the service.
Let’s check out each of these hosting plans in detail.
Shared Hosting
When you choose a shared hosting package, your website will share the server resources with other users on the same physical server. This is an affordable hosting option that is easy to configure. Shared hosting is ideal for beginners, startups, or websites with less traffic. Several renowned web hosts also provide a free domain along with these services.
VPS Hosting
VPS stands for a virtual private server, and in this hosting, a virtual machine offers virtualized server resources on a physical web server that are shared with other customers. With this package, you’ll get exclusive allotted server space and be more secluded.
The VPS hosting plan is perfect for those users who are working on a lower budget but want superior control and custom features.
Dedicated Server Hosting
If your website gets heavy traffic and you want improved performance and fast loading times, dedicated server hosting is ideal for you. These servers give you total server control, enhanced features, and increased reliability, including an option to scale your resources. Therefore, it is a heavy investment option.
Reseller Hosting
It is a hosting type where a reseller buys different website hosting services in bulk from a web hosting company and then resells them to his customers. With reseller hosting, you can purely concentrate on your business because your parent hosting company manages back-end tasks and servers.
Reseller hosting companies also offer scalability features to you so when your business starts to grow, you can add extra resources as well as storage space.
Managed WordPress Hosting
The majority of WordPress hosting companies offer managed WordPress services, where the web host manages all the technical aspects of your website on your behalf. These plans can be run on any of the aforementioned servers.
Is WordPress or regular hosting right for you?
Determining which hosting is right for you will be based on your requirements and experience. Additionally, you might also want to weigh the particulars of a hosting package and evaluate if additional managed WordPress hosting features are useful to you.
For example, ask yourself the following questions:
- Are you planning to build your website using WordPress?
- What is your budget?
- Are you worried about security?
- Do you prefer that your server maintenance be managed behind the scenes?
- Are you well-acquainted with WordPress? Or do you need some assistance?
- What kind of content are you planning to upload to your website?
- And lastly, how much traffic do you expect?
Thus, will a shared hosting plan be sufficient for your requirements? If you expect a large number of visitors immediately after going online, you might need to consider other hosting solutions.
The Final Verdict
All things considered, if your answers to the above questions are affirmative, then you must choose WordPress hosting. It’s an outstanding hosting solution for beginners as well as experienced developers since it can help you save a lot of time.
WordPress hosting can offer you a magnificent start as compared to standard web hosting. On the contrary, regular web hosting offers you more control over all the elements of your website, which could be a crucial aspect for experienced users.
Regular hosting is cheaper overall, but the difference in prices might not be crucial for shared packages. The majority of web hosting companies offer a similar entry price for all shared hosting plans, so ensure to weigh the features to know what you’re getting.
Eventually, regardless of what kind of web hosting you choose, ensure that your hosting company meets the following standards:
- Good reputation
- World-class security measures
- Flexibility to scale as your website starts to grow
- Exceptional technical support
