When Managed Hosting can be the optimal solution
- mag
- March 24, 2022
- 9:33 am
- No Comments
Managed Hosting, Unmanaged Hosting, Virtual Private Server, dedicated or shared hosting – so many opportunities, but which is the best?
The internet have been around for almost 40 years, as January 1st 1983 is the official birthday of the internet.
The first time the internet was invented and used was actually almost 15 years earlier at ARPAnet who delivered the first message from one computer to another.
Since then, a lot of things have happened and today everybody can get a website easily and often almost for free – you just need to tip into the hosting companies policy of unmanaged hosting.
Unmanaged Hosting vs Managed Hosting
When you want to get online, you need a hosting plan. Virtual Private Servers, a dedicated server only for you, managed hosting, unmanaged hosting and shared services. But what is actually the difference?
Put really simple, unmanaged hosting offers more control and administration over your srever, whereas the managed hosting providers decrease your own administrative needs and offering an easier experience and a higher level of support.
We are at GMEngine daily in dialog with multiple customer and freelancers who is used to doing everything themselves, and who is using our guides for optimizations, as always it depends a lot on your individual needs and your expertise.
Therefore, you need to take the time to understand the differences between the hosting types, so you can take the right decision with a knowledgeable background of it.
The short introduction for Managed vs Unmanaged Hosting
With a number of hosting opportunities and hosting companies available, they all offers additional benefits alongside with the basic service. A Shared Hosting company is very popular low-cost option that places your site on the same server as hundreds if not thousands of other websites.
Virtual Private Servers, on the other hand, is more expensive, but offers you the extra resources, security and lastly the isolation of being the only one on the server. That ends just up in that you are now a full server administrator.
Using a Share Hosting Company, there are here both the managed and unmanaged services. Most unmanaged plans provides you with an FTP and a “here is a guide, good luck” experience, where the hosting company is only responsible for availability.
On the other hand the managed hosting services is a fully outsourcing to the hosting company to take care of speed, security and availability of the server. You are however still responsible for not installing too many plugins, but this is usually guided through with documentation by the hosting company.
Most of the Managed Hosting companies provide an increasing number of additional tasks for you, including backups, automated updates and constant security scanning of your services. But lets take a closer look a the cornerstone differences between the options.
Managed vs Unmanaged Hosting: Pros and cons
It is complicated to set up a clear set of pros and cons between the two services, as they have a number of radically differences between how they are build up internally. But lets go through, so you can determine which matches your needs the most.
There are some clear benefits to find in the managed hosting:
1) A Managed Plan gives you fewer security responsibilities
2) A Managed Plan provides you with higher certainty in case of breakdowns or hacking attacks
3) A Managed plan provides you often with automated plugin updates and security announcements of things to be aware of
4) A Managed plan provides you with automated caching service, prepared for exactly your needs
The alternative from managed hosting is unmanaged hosting, where you gain a higher control over your site. With this kind of plan you’ll often get:
1) A Choice to install whatever framework you wish on the server
2) An option to set up the server as you like, with all the configuration options as a tech savvy developer
3) Lower recurring cost, but without the supportive backend from the providers.
4) Higher security risk of continuously security controls
For unmanaged services, you hosting provider will only support you if the internet breaks down and your internet goes completely offline. But if just NGINX, Lite Speed or Apache breaks down, you still have the configuration responsibility.
This as well means that securing your site, running backups, deploying security updates, and optimizing your loading time is completely on you. In retur, the unmanaged plans often offer a lower yearly cost and in some perspectives higher flexibility.
How to Decide with type of plan suits you
Both types of plans have their pros and cons, and it is here important to assess the requirements you have, to pick the right solution. Consider the key features outlined above, and reach out for a chat with our team if you are uncertain if the Managed Plan offered at GMEngine matches your needs.
Our managed plans costs $15 / €12 per month, and $9 yearly for the domain – giving you the optimal starting scenario for your next online adventure.
Conclution
Selecting the hosting provider and managed plan vs. unmanaged plan, is one of the biggest decisions you will ever make as a website owner. With tons of options available, it is important to ensure you are using the right one for the needs of your website. Ultimately select between a managed hosting provider, managed services or completely unmanaged plan.
We have tried to give an overview of most differences between the different types of hosting, and opened an discussion for you to select the right option for you.
Most companies benefit of using our managed plans, while still many fails by trying to save few bucks per month.
Finally, make it up in sales – is a sale worth more than 5-6$ per month, then our managed plans could be the right choice for you.
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