Cloud hosting: shared versus dedicated

A quick guide to help you choose the right hosting plan for your business.

What’s the difference between shared and dedicated hosting? Both shared and dedicated hosting options safeguard your data in a private and secure data center. So then what are the advantages and disadvantages of shared and dedicated servers? Is the upgrade to a dedicated server worth the cost? In order to help you make the right decision, we’ll break down both options.

Shared hosting

A shared hosting environment is a pool of resources that multiple customers leverage to drive their business applications. While the resources that power your applications are shared, your business data is never shared with other customers. Most businesses that leverage a shared platform are just getting started or need a single application hosted for a small group of users.

Advantages of shared hosting:

  • Lower cost
  • Simple setup

Disadvantages of shared hosting:

  • Server resources are shared with other businesses
  • Limited customization
  • Potential performance impact at peak usage times

Dedicated hosting

A dedicated hosting environment is just what it sounds like — your applications run on purpose-built servers for your business. This eliminates the primary drawback of shared hosting: sharing resources. The resources needed to run high-performing applications or cloud desktops are always available. Most businesses leveraging our dedicated platform have over ten users utilizing a cloud desktop or application(s) running in the ProSource Cloud. Many of our Cloud customers use a dedicated hosted desktop and/or application platform that supports 10 or more of their users at a time.

Advantages of dedicated hosting:

  • Complete customization of your cloud environment
  • Provides greater technical agility
  • Tailored and dedicated server resources
  • Improved performance
  • 24/7/365 US-based ProSource support

Disadvantages of dedicated hosting:

  • Higher cost
  • The need for a skilled team to build and support the environment

Choosing the right solution for your business

Which plan you go with largely depends on your business size, use case, and expected growth. Choosing the right hosting provider early in the decision-making process can save your business time and money. We work with clients of all industries and sizes to review what their future holds when looking at the cloud. We take the time to evaluate workflows and application interoperability so your transition to the cloud is both seamless and tailored for you. If your business could benefit from either shared or dedicated hosting, we’re here to help.