Shared Hosting

JustHost

$3.75

Unlimited

unlimited domains and MySQL database hosting
free site builder and domain name for life
anytime money back and 99.9% uptime guarantee

JustHost review

iPage Inc

$3.50

Unlimited

host unlimited domains and MySQL databases
$450 of FREE extras, free site builder and online store
30 days money back and 99.9% uptime guarantee

iPage review

FatCow

$3.67

Unlimited

Free domain name and site builder included
online store and selling tools / free shopping cart
30 days money back and 99.9% server uptime

FatCow Review

GreenGeeks

$4.95

Unlimited

host unlimited domains, free domain included,
FREE marketing credits, FREE site migration
unlimited databases, professional support

GreenGeeks Review

MyHosting

$4.84

Unlimited

host unlimited websites and get a free domain name
easy to use site builder and e-commerce tools
excellent technical support, 99.9% server uptime

MyHosting Review

Cheap Web Hosting

Customers who are looking for a generally inexpensive hosting option that has the high end maintenance and service administration can benefit from shared hosting.  Shared hosting is basically hosting between several customers that pay for the cost of a single server and any maintenance costs associated with it.  The shared hosting works like most other hosting services but will offer less control of the system.  The process works simply by allowing partitions of the server to be managed virtually, as if they were their own complete miniature servers.

Many of these shared hosting options may even provide access to customized operating system installation for the server partition.  This could allow for a Microsoft Windows environment or a Linux based environment for the server to operate under.  This can provide several advantages for websites that need to have operating system specific software installed onto the hosting to run as necessary where applied.

Shared hosting is possible in two different ways and those are name based or IP-based.  In a name based hosting, multiple accounts are set up with a single IP address.  This means that the server will require a host name to be able to determine which user is accessing the service.  The IP-based shared hosting will provide a dedicated IP address.  This way the several different physical addresses will allow for customers of the service to log into their hosting through the IP they specify.  IP-based shared hosting will tend to be in favor of more clients as it provides access to options such as SSL certificates which are custom rather than shared as in name based sharing options.

Shared hosting does provide some of the most economical plans available for hosting which makes it the perfect option for a variety of different types of websites.  There are several disadvantages that shared options have as well.  If a large number of visitors to the server were to occur at one time, hosting from other shared partitions could experience a heavy load and experience outages.  Partitions which are not properly configured with their file permissions may also make it possible for data to be compromised or accessible.  This may lead to modification of existing files on the partition which may cause damages or unwanted modifications.

Shared hosting services are somewhat easier to make backups with.  Due to the smaller size of the partitions on the server, backup services offered by the hosting plan may make it possible to keep several backups archived at benchmark points.  This makes restoring important data much simpler at a small service cost.

Aside from the disadvantages, several websites can fare quite well with shared hosting.  Most websites will only use a small portion of their hosting storage and bandwidth.  Larger websites which use substantial amounts of bandwidth that are larger than their share will often deplete their available bandwidth and will either need to pay a charge to restore their websites or simply move to a better hosting plan that is off of the sharing option.