If you have been told you should get a dedicated server for a website you run, is it really necessary? Or is it possible to run your website the way you wish to run it on a shared server?

 

Why a dedicated server is necessary? -- Unless you have a simple website that does not get much traffic every month then, at some point, a dedicated server will be necessary for you. This is because a dedicated server can handle huge amounts of traffic as your site grows, whereas a shared server will never be able to handle more than a few hundred visits per day.

 

Security is better -- Along with being able to handle more traffic, a dedicated server is also much better when it comes to security. This is because, it does not really matter how much security you have on your own website. Not if you have your site on a shared server with websites of others.

 

After all, all it takes is a security breach on someone else's site on your server, and the hacker can then access other websites on that server as well.

 

With a dedicated server, however, you are the only one on it, and so you set the security parameters.

 

You choose the operating system -- On a shared server, you will be forced onto an operating system everyone else on the server is using. This means, if you wanted to use Linux but everyone on the server is using Windows, that is the operating system you are stuck with.

 

With your own dedicated server, however, you can choose a server with any operating system that you like. You can then load it with the software you like, and make it completely unique to you and your website.