Managed vs. Unmanaged Hosting Plans: Which is Best For You?
The growth of a business does not only mean the rising numbers on the monthly reports but also rising traffic on your business website. As great as this might sound, this increased traffic also indicates that it is time to reassess your site performance. Most site owners prefer to start with a basic hosting plan, probably on a shared hosting platform, in order to manage the initial costs, which is entirely rational. However, as and when your business expands, and so does the website, taking care of the entire system could be an overwhelming task, if not appropriately managed. At this point, you have to decide if you should opt for a managed hosting plan or go with an unmanaged hosting plan.
Managed & Unmanaged Hosting defined
As the name suggests, managed hosting takes care of all hosting related responsibilities, server maintenance, software installations and upgrade, back-ups, etc. so you can focus on business development or other profit-driven activities. Managed hosting frees you from the day-to-day operations of your site. If you are in the second phase of your business, where you need support for the growing site traffic and increased site resources, then managed hosting might be the best option for you. It also works for site owners who are starting with little or no technical experience or support.
On the other hand, unmanaged hosting requires you to take care of all server-related responsibilities. The hosting service will only provide you with a server and a basic hosting plan, but everything else, from maintenance to backup, and upgrades, etc. have to be your prerogative. Unless and until you have an in-house tech team and the right resources to manage the hosting operations daily and monitors the servers round-the-clock, unmanaged hosting can cost you a lot of time and effort.
Benefits of Managed Hosting
For a better understanding, here are a few advantages of managed hosting over unmanaged hosting-
Site performance monitoring – With managed hosting services, your site is monitored throughout the day and helps address issues like slow speed, downtime, or urgent resource requirements. Thus, the hosting team ensures that your website is up and running at all times.
Automatic updates – Most websites are built using content management systems like WordPress or similar, which require constant upgrading, so your site continues to perform well. With managed hosting plans, the service provider takes care of this at regular intervals and keeps your site software, plugins, themes, and databases updated at all times.
Security – While both unmanaged and managed hosting plans cover underlying security, it is not enough. Monitoring probable threats are also an integral part of security measure. Managed hosting plans offer exclusive security measures that instantly flag suspicious activities to avoid further attack. Also, in case of any security breach, it also helps disaster management.
Back-ups – To keep all site data safe, you need to take regular backups. However, with increased site content, it could become overwhelming to do it single-handedly. With Managed hosting, you can get daily backups without much ado and save your time and efforts.
On an ending note…
Managing hosting operations require time, effort, resources, and a lot of technical expertise. Moreover, all this comes for a cost. As compared to unmanaged hosting, managed hosting services are a little more expensive. To get the best out of a managed hosting, you can opt for VPS server hosting which combines the best of dedicated and shared hosting services but for a much lesser investment.
Feature Photo by Web Hosting on Unsplash