Dedicated hosting is the most powerful type of hosting available. Instead of having many websites hosted on a single server as you have with shared hosting, dedicated hosting gives your website the entire server all to itself. Because your website is the only one on the server, there’s no competition for resources.

Dedicated hosting also brings the greatest degree of control; you have absolute say over how the server will be managed. Many hosts offer managed dedicated hosting so that the server can be maintained without forcing you to manually manage the hardware and software, but most dedicated hosting plans put you in direct control of the server.

If you control the server directly (unmanaged dedicated hosting) you must manually configure, update and manage everything, including but not limited to: OS, all applications, firewall and security programs, performance analysis, intrusions and backups. That’s a great solution if you need a lot of power and have a tech or IT team to support you, but it’s not realistic if you’re not technically inclined.

Most websites won’t need this level of power or control, and the significantly higher costs are usually enough to keep smaller webmasters away.

Who is it ideal for?

Dedicated hosting is best for large websites that have a ton of traffic and use a heavy amount of resources (think: video sharing, streaming, social media, big Ecommerce sites). Your average webmaster simply doesn’t need that much power or control.

How Does Dedicated Hosting Work?

A dedicated server is made available exclusively for your website. Because of this, the server will have to be built according to your exact needs. You get to specify the amount of hard drive space (memory), RAM sticks (application memory), the CPU (processing power) and bandwidth of your server.

It will usually take 24-72 hours for the host to build your server. Once it’s finished, your website will then be placed on that server. Since you are the only one hosted on that server with dedicated hosting, you are the only recipient of the bandwidth and memory.

Quick Overview

Pros:

• You’re in complete control of your server.
• You don’t have to worry about your “hosting neighbors” using too much of your resources. The speed of your site will never change on account of someone else’s site having a month of heavy traffic.
• It’s the most powerful type of hosting.

Cons:

• It’s typically the most expensive type of hosting.
• It’s not as scalable, and doesn’t have the redundancy that cloud hosting has. This means that your files are not stored on multiple servers like cloud hosting.
• Dedicated hosting caters to more advanced users – a plus if that’s who you are, but a drawback for beginners or those without technical knowledge.
• While you have complete control of your server, you are normally responsible for all software upgrades and other maintenance.

Price Range

Since dedicated hosting typically consists of a customized plan that is built for your exact needs, there’s really no such thing as common pricing.

However, you will find that most initial prices start around $100 per month. The pricing can easily go into the thousands based on your needs and the size of your server.