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General Discussion

Stuart Walker
Stuart Walker
4,649 Points
Posted by Stuart Walker
Stuart Walker
4,649 Points

Do I require a more sophisticated server hosting option for a website which will eventually sell products?

I am currently completing the first stage of the web design track. I am being suggested to use shared hosting (webhostingforstudents.com) for my first portfolio website. Soon, I want to develop a website for a shop that can sell products online. Is this web host capable of doing this or should I look at different options? I don't want to use 2 different web hosts.

1 Answer

Anthony Giuliano
Anthony Giuliano
9,569 Points
Anthony Giuliano
Anthony Giuliano
9,569 Points

If you're expecting significant traffic / resource usage, you'll probably have trouble with webhostingforstudents.com, based on their stated goals. Then again, significant resource usage will also cause problems with any other shared hosting plan, although the threshold might be a little higher. Don't be fooled by claims of unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, etc., all shared hosting plans will shut your site down if they feel that you're using more server resources than it should. If you find that your needs can't met by a shared hosting plan you'll have to look at something more substantial like Virtual Private Hosting, or even a dedicated server, but any good web host will offer all three of these products. Personally I like Dreamhost, unless you really like the Cpanel interface for managing your settings, in which case I've found InMotion Hosting is a solid choice as well. Both offer shared, VPS and dedicated accounts. Dreamhost has the added benefit of being a great domain registrar as well, offering free privacy on your domains where other registrars will charge you extra to keep your contact information private.

edit* I don't mean to say that webhostingforstudents isn't a good host because they don't offer VPS and dedicated hosting, it seems like that's just not in line with what their goals are as a company