Shared Web Hosting

Shared web hosting (also called virtual hosting) is the most common type of hosting service used. As the word implies, shared web hosting means that you are sharing one server with a number of clients of your hosting company. The webhost manages the server to ensure uptime, upgrading hardware and software. The cost of shared hosting often depends on the number of clients being hosted on a server as the hosting company tries to maximize profits per server. You will have no control over the server but full control over your website through a control panel.
When shopping for shared web hosting, you must check the terms of service to see if there are any scripts or types of software that aren't allowed by the host. Since all the resources are shared, it is important to ensure that no one user is hogging the pooled resources. Server software like Apache or IIS allows the administrators to localize any errors or unusual CPU utilization so as to not affect the other users, but there remains a possibility of a problem occuring and all the websites on a given server going down.
Pros of shared web hosting:-
Shared or virtual web hosting has several things going for it. The main being price - they are usually the cheapest and most affordable solutions for an online presence. Since the company hosts tens of websites on one server, they are able to pass the savings to the consumer. Performace could be a downside, but with hardware getting cheaper and software getting better, this aspect might not be relevant for everyone. Take for example web storage space. Hard drive sizes continue to increase and prices fall, allowing providers to give the end-users a better deal. The same holds true for CPUs and other components; dual CPU, RAID, ATA-133, and SCSI based computers are common in the web hosting world. With respect to softare, better management tools have allowed virtual hosting clients to have much of the functionality of their more expensive counterparts.
Cons of shared web hosting:-
Even though a lot of websites run on shared or virtual hosts, this type of web hosting is not necessarily the best solution in all cases. If your web application requires an excessive amount of CPU, RAM or other resources, or you need special software plugins and drivers, a shared hosting environment may not be for you. The hosting company has to consider all the clients hosted on a computer and would not appreciate someone hogging the resources nor will they install foreign software as it could have a detrimental impact on their other clients. If your web site needs to have guaranteed or very high rate of uptime, you wouldn't want to take chances in a shared environment as it might be possible that other clients hosted on the computer could cause problems for everyone.
Shared Hosting Review:-
• Usually the cheapest web hosting solution.
• Good for small to medium size sites and email domains
• Can be used for emergencies or as a backup hosting solution!!