A dedicated server can be used to run a popular eCommerce platform, or it can be a general-purpose workhorse for a small company. Typical uses of dedicated servers include serving as a database server, hosting a number of websites or a single website with a large amount of traffic, providing the backend to a mobile app or a web app, and hosting virtual servers.
Dedicated servers are the best kind of hosting servers for businesses that have websites or web applications that require high-end performance.
Dedicated hosting is when just a single website of an individual or company gets complete control over an entire physical server and all of its resources, so the server hosts just your website.
This means if you host your site on a dedicated server, your site will be able to take advantage of all of the resources that the server has to offer, without having to share RAM, CPU, or other server resources with other users.
With dedicated servers, the server and its resources are strictly reserved for you, so there is no sharing of resources, nor any limits to the disk space, or bandwidth, for that matter, since your site is hosted only on one server.
Since the server and its resources are shared between multiple customers or businesses, operating costs and the maintenance costs are split between the customers or their users, making shared hosting the more affordable option when it comes to web hosts.
In dedicated hosting, on the other hand, maintenance costs are solely covered by the owner of the server, which costs comparatively more.
If you are hosting your site on a dedicated server, you will have multiple resources available to you to deal with additional traffic. Sites with a lot of bandwidth on the backend, such as sites serving up audio or documents to users, will require extra bandwidth (and storage) that shared hosts might not offer, and a VPS or cloud server will work better for these cases.
There are also some shared hosting solutions which provide scaled-up bandwidth, meaning the amount of traffic and data flowing between the site and its users is not capped. There is no asset-sharing, so limits to disk space and bandwidth are based on the requirements of your organization.
Sites that need stronger back-end functions, like ecommerce stores or sites that create documents such as invoices or quotes, or sites that convert audio or video on the fly, might require more allocated resources than what comes in an average shared hosting account.
Professional cloud hosted server providers typically own, deploy, and maintain the dedicated servers, giving you the benefits of having a custom server, without having the headaches of maintaining or physically protecting equipment.
As with shared servers, dedicated servers are generally maintained and operated by professional cloud hosting providers, so you and your employees do not need to worry about managing the technical maintenance.
There are a lot of different types of web hosted servers, but the most common ones offered are shared servers, where you share the hardware with other users, and dedicated servers, where you have complete access to the hardware that you have paid for.
Shared hosting, as its name suggests, is where one server, and resources located on the server, are shared amongst many clients or websites, making shared hosting a more cost-effective alternative for first-time users looking to build a presence on the world wide web.
In turn, dedicated hosting is single server exclusively aimed at one user. In short, difference between shared and dedicated host servers is similar to the one unit in the apartment building vs. a single house with cottage.
Unlike shared hosting, dedicated hosting could be likened to owning a home where all of the space is reserved for you, meaning that the whole physical server is yours to set up and maintain, bringing a ton of responsibility.
