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WordPress Hosting vs. Web Hosting: What’s the Difference?

Most beginners are confused by the difference between WordPress hosting vs. Web hosting.

Generally speaking, not every WordPress site needs WordPress-specific hosting. Many hosting companies market their regular hosting in the name of WordPress hosting. These plans may often come with valuable features that will help your site perform better in the long run.

In this article, we’ll compare WordPress hosting vs. Web hosting, their pros, and cons, and also help you determine which hosting option is better for your WordPress site.

Let’s go!

What Is Web Hosting?

You can consider Web hosting as a home for your website. It enables websites to be published online. When site owners purchase a web hosting plan from any service provider, they rent a portion of a server to store the site’s file.

There are various options of web hosting providers to suit different needs, despite the level of expertise, what website builder or CMS you choose, or how large the website is.

To have a clear perception, take a look at the different hosting categories below.

Shared hosting: On a shared hosting plan, a website shares resources with other sites on the same server. It’s the cheapest option, especially for small sites with low traffic volumes.

VPS hosting: A website on VPS hosting plan gets dedicated resources from a virtual division of a physical server. It’s a great option for medium to large sites needing more resources and better performance than shared hosting.

Dedicated hosting: In dedicated hosting, a single server is an alot to a website. All resources are dedicated to one website. It’s more expensive than shared hosting and VPS hosting but gives you high performance. It is suitable for large websites with dedicated technical staff.

Cloud hosting: A website on cloud hosting runs on multiple virtual servers instead of one physical server. It’s an excellent option for busy sites with high traffic volumes since cloud hosting offers higher uptime.

Advantages of Web Hosting

Most web hosting providers offer different plans for different website builders and CMSs. They also provide built-in tools to help ease integration. With these features given, users can freely choose their suitable platform.

Each web hosting plan offers specific advantages depending on the type of web hosting since the level of resources and flexibility vary greatly.

Regarding technical advantages, buying a general web hosting plan typically means the hosting company offers physical tools and hardware maintenance. With their expertise, you get a smooth-running site and high-security precautions.

There are also numerous benefits of general web hosting. In essence, many hosting companies offer different plans to suit any budget.

Generally, hosting providers offer 24/7 dedicated customer support and access to a hosting database. At AEserver, we also provide a 30-day money-back guarantee for all shared hosting plans, easy integration with website builders/CMSs, and a user-friendly control panel. In addition, many web hosts like AEserver provide extra features with hosting plans. For instance, a free domain name, SSL certificate, and a premium email address.

Disadvantages of Web Hosting

Suppose you are using WordPress to build a site; consider the following disadvantages of web hosting.

Less Specialized Support: Most web hosts provide technical support when needed, but they won’t always have experts to handle specific issues related to your chosen CMS.

Less Maintenance: With unmanaged web hosting, WordPress users are responsible for maintenance, such as updating core WordPress, plugins, and themes. You may also have to perform maintenance tasks related to security, such as malware tests.

No optimized server: Websites run on standard servers that support different site builders and CMSs. This means no WordPress-optimized servers, pre-installed WordPress, or built-in WordPress plugins.

What is WordPress Hosting?

First, You may have a question, Is WordPress a hosting site?

Many of you may notice two versions of WordPress: WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

WordPress.org: is a free open-source platform also called self-hosted WordPress. You can install it on your web host and start creating a website that is totally yours.

WordPress.com: is a hosting service provider. It is a paid software with lots of limitations. It is easy to use but not as flexible as wordpress.org.

So the short answer is YES, WordPress does hosting on WordPress.com and has both free and paid plans.

Now let’s come to WordPress hosting.

Managed WordPress hosting is a subcategory of general web hosting configured to optimize websites built on WordPress.

WordPress is the most in-demand CMS worldwide, with around 42.5% of websites using it. This is the reason many web hosting companies offer WordPress-specific hosting services.

Different web hosts offer WordPress hosting under different categories, i.e., shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, or cloud. But these servers are optimized for WordPress sites.

The main difference between WordPress hosting vs Web hosting is the extra features that may include pre-installed hosting, specialized tools, multisite feature, and so on to help you enhance website performance.

Advantages of WordPress Hosting

Some of the WordPress hosting advantages are:

It’s Super Fast: The servers have been tweaked to how WordPress is set up, offering quick loading times. These optimized servers reduce page loading speed and response time by a second or more.

It’s More Secure: WordPress hosting includes additional security to address WordPress-specific vulnerabilities. The support team behind managed WordPress hosting always stays on top of any WordPress security issues and addresses them quickly. Unlikely, if you get hacked, you’ll have a rapid support team on standby who are experts in WordPress-specific attacks and their fixes.

Always Up-to-Date Server: The managed WordPress hosting team will ensure the server is constantly updated to the latest version of the software so your site performs as efficiently as possible. Their goal is to give you peace of mind, and your website is constantly working at its maximum capacity.

Dedicated Customer Support: The support team that manages WordPress hosting has specialized knowledge to help you whenever needed. They offer dedicated support, troubleshooting, and other WordPress hosting-related solutions.

Increased Uptime: With seamless integration between your server and WordPress and automatic updates and backups that keep your website running smoothly in the best version available, your site will stay accessible to visitors more often.

Disadvantages of WordPress Hosting

WordPress hosting is a customized solution, which means it’s not for everyone.

The specialized features of the WordPress hosting plan have a higher price tag than other hosting options. The cost factor for some small businesses or startups makes it a tougher sell than a basic shared hosting plan.

Additionally, some web hosts limit how much customization you can do across your site. For instance, there can be limits on plugin installation due to security concerns. If your site requires functionality from a plugin restricted on your hosting plan, you may need to find an alternative plugin or another hosting option.

And finally, as you already guessed, you can use WordPress-specific hosting if you have a WordPress site, not if you chose any other CMS or website builder.

WordPress Hosting vs. Web Hosting: Which One Is Right for You?

Now you probably understand the difference between WordPress hosting Vs Web hosting. Given that, deciding whether to choose a general web hosting plan or WordPress hosting depends on your website needs and your experience level. You should consider the specifics of the basic hosting plan and determine whether additional features in WordPress hosting are of any use to you.

For this, ask the following questions yourself.

Is your website based on WordPress? If not, it’s obvious WordPress hosting will not be suitable.

What’s your budget? Shared hosting plans are cheaper, while managed WordPress hosting is more expensive.

Are you concerned about security? WordPress hosting offers more security due to increased protection against common vulnerabilities.

Do you prefer server maintenance? If so, you’ll admire automatic WordPress updates.

Are you a WordPress expert, or do you need some hand? Users who have less experience will benefit from dedicated WordPress customer support.

What kind of content will your website include? Suppose you want to include an extensive image or video gallery. In that case, easy access to features like caching or a CDN might be very useful to you.

Lastly, how much traffic do you expect? Determine if a shared hosting plan will be enough for you. If you anticipate lots of visitors in a short time after launch, you might want to consider other types of hosting.

Conclusion

Understanding WordPress hosting vs web hosting can help you with a successful website. It’s not immoral to launch your WordPress site with general web hosting if that’s your preference. However, additional WordPress features in WordPress hosting can save you a lot of hassle in the long run.

To conclude, WordPress hosting is a subcategory of general web hosting optimized for WordPress-specific sites means your server resources will be specially optimized to match WordPress’s unique requirements. Hence, you will benefit from more security and better performance overall. In addition, WordPress hosting comes with automated maintenance tasks and dedicated customer support, making it a better choice for beginners.

If you’ve decided that WordPress hosting is right for you, check out AEserver’s packages of managed WordPress hosting.