Shopify website hosting: which one to choose

If you were looking for a way to start your own ecommerce business, there are plenty of options for you to choose from. And among all of them Shopify definitely stands out offering its customers tons of possibilities to start their own online store and enhance it with different apps and plugins.

But before you get your Shopify site up and running, you need to find out what hosting options are there for youю Led’s dive deeper into hosting solutions for Shopify.

Hosting solutions for Shopify

Just as you come up with one of Shopify’s pricing plans, you’ll get an SSL certificate, which is essential for all ecommerce businesses, as your Shopify store is going to get access to users’ private data and it needs to be secure on your Shopify site. 

There will also be a need to use Shopify’s point-of-sale gateway, and according to the plan you select, you’ll have a low credit card charge rate of anywhere between 2.9 and 2.4%, with $0.30 per buy fee. Using this option, you’ll be able to not only accept online credit card purchases, but accept them in person as well - in case you’ve got a physical location where you sell your goods. 

There are also some benefits for those who choose Shopify hosting, among which are:

  • File storage with no limit.
  • Dedicated support.
  • Unlimited number of products to add to your store.
  • Fraud analysis.
  • Discount possibilities.

And if you’re looking for some other hosting options for your Shopify store, there are plenty of them Let us discuss them below.

What is DNS hosting

Shopify site DNS hosting refers to a web-based service conducting Domain Name System servers. Frequently, domain name registrars provide DNS utility with registration, but charge-free DNS services are out there too - they are sometimes under the sponsorship of some popular providers and telecommunication services. Also, oceans of third-party DNS hosts equip Dynamic DNS. 

This category of web hosting utility is the first-best selection when in a situation where the provider has numerous servers situated in separate regions all over the world providing endurance and narrowing latency period for people. Through establishing DNS hosts closer to end customers, DNS queries have to move a significantly shorter distance, resulting in rapid web address resolution. 

What is VPS web hosting

A VPS is a virtual private server. You can call it a virtual OS, making it simple to reside in a parent server and hendle virtualization technology to guarantee dedicated assets to other virtual servers. 

The exclusive, emulated VPS hosting surrounding is built on some machine - host (PC or any tool united with others and forming some kind of network), parent server or as much as a cluster of servers. 

And however VPS reproducts lots of the parameters of a “real” server, it’s still a piece of software, acting with similar practices and functionality. Typically, VPS provides users with these opportunities: 

  • Getting access to their VPS environments from anywhere. 
  • Acquiring assigned bandwidth for every instance. This allows you to make sure that the performance won’t be influenced by third-party companies that are also present on the server. 
  • Getting more productive capacity and storage. 

VPS generally uses a parent server to host numerous virtual servers that are disconnected from one another. And through the use of a software that is called a hypervisor, a provider can implement a virtual layer on the top of the operating system to segment the servers. The separation allows users to apply their own operational system and software, which culminates in creating their own genuinely private server. 

VPS is good for: 

  • Hosting servers
  • Hosting 1-10 sites - Shopify-based or any other
  • Building and granting cloud-based maintenance
  • Creating and providing virtual workspots for remote workers
  • Storing files to provide an access to them from anywhere in the world
  • Databases

With you know what VPS is and how it functions, you surely can make an informed decision whether it’s a form of web hosting that meets your Shopify website needs. 

What is shared hosting

Shared web hosting implies a form of hosting where you host your Shopify site on an individual “real” server that is also hosting some supplementary sites. There are also present additional instruments and possibilities accessible in the host server that are there to make accessing your Shopify website way easier. 

There are also hundreds and thousands of users who have an opportunity to be hosted on the same server. And they can benefit from it as it signifies that they share the payments too. This “group” usage makes this form of web hosting among the most cheap ones and actually convenient for small Shopify site owners. Many bloggers, small companies and other site owners choose to start with this kind of hosting. 

Shared servers are semblable to computers in a way that they have a hard drive, a central processing unit also called CPU, and RAM. All of these resources are also shared with all other users that are also hosted by this particular server. This makes secure storing of all the hosted data, files, and information achievable. 

Just when a user attempts to get access to your site from their computer, the data kept within the server is sent to the user by the host. Used jointly web hosting reaps profits of the best server services as each separate Shopify site causes a different amount of traffic at a various distance of time. 

Here you’ll find a list of profits a user of a shared web hosting has: 

  • The best prices. As we’ve indicated above, the prices of this type of service tend to be low thanks to other users endowing to its costs. 
  • Adaptability. There are numerous plans for a user to choose from. And they’re all direct at fitting the needs of large amounts of sites hosted within one server. 
  • Preservation. Those sites, that also apply your shreable server, can’t access your website’s data. And some hosting businesses also provide some extra security options. 
  • Seamless setup. It’s really quick and simple to set up a Shopify website on a shareable server. 
  • Easy to handle support. Usually, the shared server is managed by a host provider and does not request any movements at your side. In this way you can focus on developing your Shopify site and evolving your business, not hosting problems. 

From there, in case you don’t have much of a knowledge of web hosting, wish to be tight with money, value your time and are more interested in evolving your Shopify website, then shared web hosting is just for you. 

What is cloud hosting

Cloud hosting stands for the process of outsourcing some company’s storage and computing opportunities to a service provider granting its infrastructure services as a utility model. The cloud provider also called host - manages cloud infrastructure, setup, security, and maintenance. Occasionally clients are allowed by a host to set up tools and applications, as well as scale servers online. Calculating and storage opportunities are spread across hundreds of virtual machines (VMs) that need I/O load balancing within a cloud infrastructure shape. 

It's a much cheaper model compared to a usual dedicated host server. The last mentioned one stands for that companies have to create their own data centers and handle them. They can account for really high spendings for an organization. 

Below are some of the benefits cloud hosting l for Shopify offers: 

  • Cloud hosting offers Shopify site owners to set aside a power of money on having and managing data centers. 
  • Shopify website owners get the possibility to scale more aptly, settling only for those services and capabilities they need. 
  • Businesses selecting cloud hosting acquire all data protection pros - from high availability to fast disaster recovery. 
  • Applying cloud hosting assures malleable and beneficial scalability in building apps, Shopify sites and other services. 

In conclusion, cloud hosting suits those Shopify audiences, who want to have almost perfect uptime and are planning to grow their servers as they see fit, without experiencing any delay. 

There's also a great option to add cloud-based Google Reviews Shopify app.

What is dedicated hosting

One more form of hosting to acknowledge - dedicated hosting. This category presumes that a physical server is granted by a host to one single customer. The client is given total control over the machine, so it can be improved according to their needs and requirements, performance and security included. 

The hosting provider here provides the server and environment, same as technical help and any other linked services. And here are some arguments why a Shopify site owner might want to look at using a dedicated model of hosting: 

  • It makes stronger control. Control over the dedicated environment is handled by a host company’s IT staff. 
  • More flexibility. Companies are handed a possibility to easily adjust server configurations, benefit from new software and adjust all the possibilities to make them meet their expectations. 
  • Improved performance. Any team behind a Shopify site gets an opportunity to optimize a dedicated host server to reinforce their most demanding services. 
  • Great security. In the event that there are some particular security interests a company needs to fulfill, the host server may be adapted. 

So supposing your Shopify site has more custom tasks, there's a great chance to accomplish them by selecting dedicated hosting.