Is shared hosting suitable for starting a social networking site?

[Divdot]

I am planning to start a social networking site having very less features. Since, it is at initial stage, my blogging friends recommended me to go for a cPanel Shared Hosting plan. Is it really enough to start a social networking site ?

[Mr.Chapman]

May I ask how much are you going to invest in fetching users to your social networking site to make them register ? and how many users out of all are going to register? The decision of choosing a web hosting plan to start with will be determined by the forecasting volume of the users that are going to come on your site and register.

Choosing a robust web hosting platform would be a great start that lets you to scale-up without changing the platform and risking downtime. The right solution will also make sure that the user is satisfied with the speed of page loading and will keep coming back to your website. Hence, compare every plan and make a wise decision.

[Macdale]

As suggested by Mr.Chapman, you should calculate your site visitors and then determine a right solution for your social site. However, in my personal opinion, one should always think of the future expansion. So, I would recommend you to opt for a VPS or a Semi-Dedicated Hosting plan since you are at initial stage. Even if there is a sudden growth in the number of members, your website will still function smoothly and efficiently.

[Mr.Chapman]

Indeed. Also, starting with cPanel web hosting package (shared hosting) will led to several issues. With shared hosting you get limited access to the server. You have to depend on the provider for everything. Since, there are thousands of websites hosted on a shared hosting server, your website visitors might face poor performance issues.

Rather than upgrading the a hosting plan several times, it is better to have a future proof solution.

[Divdot]

Thanks for your suggestions, but I don't have enough budget right now, and want to start a social networking site within the budget. I have gone through Semi-dedicated plans, but they are too costly and I don't have that much budget. Please suggest me a scalable and future proof solution.

[SeanyG]

You can consider a cloud web hosting solution for your requirements. Cloud solution is a future of online businesses. Most of the large online shops and businesses have switched to cloud due to its greater reliability, higher performance, greater scalability and high availability it offers.

You can expect 100% network uptime on cloud web hosting solutions. For more details about cloud solution visit the following page:

eUKhost's Cloud Server Hosting Services in UK Only at eUKhost

[Stan]

I am planning to start a social networking site having very less features. Since, it is at initial stage, my blogging friends recommended me to go for a cPanel Shared Hosting plan. Is it really enough to start a social networking site ?

A shared package should be enough initially, though you may think of opting for our Shared Cloud for now and later upgrade to a Cloud Hosting package. The shared cloud plan inherits the core features of a Cloud hosting plan hence you can achieve 100% uptime for your website.

[DPS Computing]

I would say that if you are just starting out then a shared / shared cloud solution would be sufficient. You can always upgrade at any time and the time you will have to upgrade will be dictated by the success of your site .

[Catherine]

The hosting plan or server you should choose also depends on the type of content you will have on your website. If you are planning to have audios, videos, pictures etc. then you should definitely go ahead with a dedicated server as no other hosting plan will fulfill your needs. However, if you are not planning to host this type of content, you can go ahead with the Cloud hosting solution.

[Macdale]

Indeed Catherine. The type of data is also one of the factors need to consider. If you are going to host a simple and plain social networking site then a shared cloud as suggested by Stan, could do well. However, if you intend to host videos, music files, gaming applications, etc... which usually eat up lots of server resources, definitely you should choose a Dedicated Hosting plan if you are economically strong.