Many of my clients are coming and say how to choose a hosting and I mostly make some comparison between hostings between us and other hosting providers. After some comparisons, I have to show what to make some differentiation. Shared Host Choosing Guide is one of the best reasons to find the best host to suits your needs. 

1. Storage

First, in this shared host choosing guide, storage is the life of the hosting. We have to know if they are providing enough storage for your hosting needs. Normal Static Draft needs around 10 MB storage and normal WordPress installation require around 50MB. Drupal needs around 70 MB and Laravel needs around 200 MB. Their sizes are not big but you don't want to see the warning message from your provider about your storage when your project is simply uploaded.

There are specific types of storage definitions. Most shared hosting do not state which types of drives do they use to provide hosting. We provide SSD for our servers, but many are still using Normal HDDs. HDD vs SSD is out of topic but they are mostly 10 times difference, which means SSD is 10 times faster than HDDs. Between HDD and SSD, some hosts use SSD Cached HDD which is 3 times faster than HDD but much slower than SSDs.

2. Bandwidth

Most say unlimited bandwidth, but do they provide actual unlimited bandwidth? Some say unlimited but throttled bandwidth. If you have some needs to say, you should use real unlimited bandwidth. You will need to discuss with the hosting provider to make sure they provide actual unlimited bandwidth. If they are not sure, please make sure to get dedicated bandwidth.

There are two kinds of bandwidth: speed, and quota. Some hostings say they are unlimited but their speed is very slow to show your webpage, which will lead your customer to go back from your website. You also have to make sure that you have enough bandwidth or speed to gain your website to your specific target. If you have some doubt, you should ping or access their websites.

3. Backup

Backup capability is one of the main reasons to choose your best provider. The more frequent they backup, a better chance to recover from failures, including climate or Human error.

In hosting society, there are many unclear statements of backup, backup = Yes. They do not state clearly how they will backup or you will backup yourself. If you are not clear, make clear before you buy. We make backups on ourselves based on the plans. Check it out!

4. One-Click Installer

Many clients afraid, I think including you when reading our shared host choosing guide, is to install apps by uploading yourselves and extract, install and configure. (Oh, Horrible way even when typing). The price tag between cheap and reasonable hosting prices are differing in this way.

In cheap hostings, they do not provide Softaculous or other essential One-click Installer, but some others can.

5. Site Builder

The site builder also omitted due to low-cost hosting. They are not much beneficial but if you are not technically an advanced person, they are worth enough to make your website easily.

6. Cost Calculation

Some websites will welcome you with unlimited discounts, or with additional tools for free. Ads credits are worthy but you have to figure out some costs are coming around you. Some hostings provide you with cheap prices when you buy for at least three years or even more. Some provide as a welcome gift but after a year of subscription, they will charge you more. You have to make sure your budget will suit your needs.

You can easily think that you can grab for the first year and after the first year, you can move to another provider. If you can do migrations and troubleshooting yourself, you are welcome but if you cannot, this process will make you costly.

Bonus: Shared Host Choosing Guide (in PDF)

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