Hosting Models
Shared Hosting
The cheapest hosting tier, where many websites share one server's resources with no guaranteed slice for any single site.
Shared hosting packs hundreds of small sites onto one server and lets them fight over the same CPU and memory. There's no guaranteed allocation, so a noisy neighbor running a heavy plugin can slow everyone down. In exchange, it's cheap and someone else manages the server.
This is where hosts like Bluehost, HostGator, Hostinger, and SiteGround make their money, usually bundled with cPanel and one-click WordPress. Hostinger's LiteSpeed stack is genuinely quick for the price. SiteGround charges more but backs it with better support and tooling.
Shared hosting is fine for a brochure site, a small blog, or a first WordPress install. The moment you need consistent performance, background workers, or root access, you've outgrown it and a VPS is the next step up.
Go deeper
- Managed vs Unmanaged Hosting: What You're Actually Paying ForThe real difference between a $5 VPS and a $25 managed instance running the same hardware.