general, you do not need dedicated hosting in order to create a specific website, and therefore you are not obligated to purchase WordPress hosting in order to create a WordPress website, nor WooCommerce hosting in order to create an online store.
But there are certainly reasons why hosting companies allocate part of their resources specifically to WordPress and WooCommerce sites, especially since the cost of hosting WordPress or WooCommerce hosting is more expensive than shared hosting.
Therefore, in today’s article, we will discuss the difference between WordPress hosting and WooCommerce hosting, and the difference between them and shared hosting, so continue reading with us.
The difference between WordPress hosting and shared hosting
We will begin by clarifying the basic difference between WordPress hosting and shared hosting, and then we will compare them to WooCommerce hosting, and the main difference between them is in the server configuration, as the WordPress hosting server has dedicated and optimized resources to improve the performance of your WordPress site, for example the type of storage unit, it may be a hard disk drive ( HDD) in shared hosting is considered the slowest type of storage unit, and Solid State Drive (SSD) in WordPress hosting is considered 30% faster than the HDD type, thus increasing the loading speed of your site.
The difference also comes with additional features, as both hosting may come with additional features such as a free domain , a free SSL certificate, etc., but WordPress hosting may come with additional features specific to WordPress, for example, automatic updates, and a set of templates and important plugins paid for free.
These differences affect the price in general, so you will often find that the cost of WordPress hosting is twice the cost of shared hosting, especially if it is managed.
In general, these differences vary from one hosting company to another, and some hosting companies do not provide any difference between WordPress hosting and shared hosting, and the only difference is in the name only, and this is considered a type of advertising or fraud! But what we are talking about today are the companies that actually provide differences, so we can talk about them as follows:
Features of WordPress hosting
- Uptime guarantee : It is considered one of the most important features of WordPress hosting, because most hosting companies offer an “Uptime” guarantee on WordPress hosting of up to 99.9%, and it is not completely advanced on shared hosting.
- Server speed : Server speed in WordPress hosting is improved, because most companies that provide WordPress hosting rely on an SSD storage unit, and some other technical matters, for example, caching plugins.
- Number of users : Hosting companies divide servers into a smaller number of users in WordPress hosting than in shared hosting, and this is the main reason behind ensuring uptime and server speed.
- Technical support : Most hosting companies allocate technical support for WordPress that is available to WordPress hosting customers only, to solve all customers’ technical problems related to hosting in general and to WordPress in particular, or technical support for WordPress hosting may be distinguished from shared hosting, for example, speed of response or Availability 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Security level : The security level of WordPress hosting is higher than shared hosting due to increased protection against common threats.
- Ease of setup : Most WordPress hosting comes with features that are easy to setup and install, for example, installing WordPress with one click, or pre-installing WordPress when purchasing WordPress hosting.
- Free plugins : Hosting companies offer some paid WordPress plugins for free with WordPress hosting, for example the jetpack add-on.
Read also: Web Hosting concept for beginners
Examples of the difference between WordPress hosting and shared hosting
Let us explain to you the difference between WordPress hosting and shared hosting in practice through some examples from hosting companies.
Example 1
We will start the first comparison with one of the companies. You will find that the company’s shared hosting starts from $2.75 per month and comes with the following features:
- The ability to add only one site.
- Install WordPress with one click.
- The ability to transfer your site for free to the hosting company Hostgator.
- Unlimited data transfer rate.
- Technical support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Free SSL certificate.
- Free domain for one year.
In the same company, you will find that WordPress hosting starts at $5.95 per month, which is almost double the cost of shared hosting, but it comes with all the features of shared hosting in addition to the following features:
- The average monthly visitors has become 100 thousand visitors instead of the unlimited number found in shared hosting, and allocating and sizing resources in turn improves the performance, speed and stability of the server, even if you see it as a defect.
- WordPress is already installed on your hosting.
- Improved security level.
- Professional email with your website name for free.
- Ad credit on Google up to $150.
- 99.9% server uptime guaranteed
Therefore, in exchange for all these additional features, the cost of hosting WordPress with this company is twice the cost of shared hosting.
Example 2
We continue the comparison between WordPress hosting and shared hosting in practice on another company. You will find that shared hosting starts at $2.95 USD and has a set of features as follows:
- The ability to add only one site
- 50 GB SSD storage space
- A set of ready-made templates
- Technical support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- Free domain for one year
- Free SSL certificate
- Free 1-year Microsoft 365 account
- Install WordPress with one click
We now see WordPress hosting in the same company. You will find that the hosting price starts from $2.95 per month as well.
You will notice that all the features of WordPress hosting are identical to the features of shared hosting at the same price, so if you place the shared hosting image in place of WordPress hosting, you will not feel a difference, and the difference may only be changing the hosting name, in addition to providing an additional fourth plan.
Therefore, we explained in the previous points that some companies do not provide a real difference between WordPress hosting and shared hosting, but they decided to change the names only, and this may be a type of fraud, or a type of marketing propaganda, as the company wants to target the word WordPress hosting from search engines, so it creates A special page for it even if it does not provide that service, or as a kind of satisfaction for the customer to feel that the hosting company provides all types of common hosting.
Now that we understand the difference between WordPress hosting and shared hosting, let us clarify the difference between WordPress hosting and WooCommerce hosting, so continue reading with us.
The difference between WordPress hosting and WooCommerce hosting
The main difference between WordPress hosting and WooCommerce hosting is in the additional features and not in the configuration of the server itself, but first let us clarify what WooCommerce is.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is one of the most popular platforms for creating online stores, and it is an external component that is installed on WordPress.
WooCommerce first appeared in 2011, and in just two years it was able to achieve 2 million users, so Automattic bought WooCommerce entirely. It is worth noting that Automattic is the same company that owns WordPress, and now the number of WooCommerce users exceeds 10 million users, i.e. a percentage of up to 35%. Of the entire total of online stores.
WooCommerce is completely free, and also open source, so you will find great flexibility in modifying and dealing with it, and you will also find hundreds of templates and special plugins associated with it.
What is WooCommerce hosting?
Before we go into the details of the difference between WordPress hosting and WooCommerce hosting, we must first explain to you the meaning of WooCommerce hosting, because after reading the previous paragraph you will certainly feel confused about distinguishing WordPress hosting from WooCommerce hosting, even though WooCommerce is an external add-on for WordPress.
Therefore, most WordPress hosting is suitable for WooCommerce without problems, because as we mentioned, it is just an external addition to WordPress.
But WooCommerce hosting can be defined as WordPress hosting enhanced with some additional features that make it more suitable for adding WooCommerce and facilitate some other things that online store owners need.
Features of WooCommerce hosting
The advantages of WooCommerce hosting are related to the mechanism of operation of the online stores themselves, and are divided into 5 points as follows:
1. Improved caching
Caching is considered one of the most important features of WordPress hosting, as it saves a copy of your site pages in the browser for the user to refer to when they visit your site again, thus increasing the speed of loading your site and reducing pressure on the server.
But this cannot be fully applied to online stores, as there are some pages that should not be cached, for example, payment gateway pages, goods inventory, and other important pages.
Therefore, most WooCommerce hosting features an enhanced caching service, which automatically recognizes important WooCommerce pages and excludes them from caching. It even excludes specific parts of the page and leaves other parts such as images and videos.
For example, WooCommerce hosting in a company relies on a caching system that automatically recognizes link files and home pages and excludes them from the caching process.
2. Databases
Online stores use a large number of databases, as all site data, including customer data, product quantities, colors, descriptions, orders, etc., are stored in separate databases.
Also, most visitors to online stores rely on searching for products, and therefore all databases will be requested from the server and searched, which increases the pressure on the hosting company’s servers. This may cause your site to slow down, and you will be obligated to purchase a larger hosting plan.
Also, online stores cannot rely on temporary storage completely, as we explained in the previous point, so hosting companies deal with databases better in hosting online stores, or they allocate databases in particular to reduce the pressure on the servers.
For example, WooCommerce hosting in some companies allocates special search databases known as Elasticsearch , which makes the server use the least possible amount of server resources when searching for products, and in some other companies they prepare custom databases that reduce the pressure on the server by 75% when downloading. Databases, 95% in search results.
3. Technical support
Technical support is considered one of the most important features of WooCommerce hosting in most companies, because when your online store is exposed to hacking or technical problems, this will cause the loss of customers and thus direct financial loss, especially if the holiday period is long.
Therefore, hosting companies provide technical support for online stores, which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a very fast response speed, so that it can solve the problems of your online store as quickly as possible and thus reduce losses as much as possible.
4. Uptime guarantee
The operating time of your online store is considered one of the basic and important factors. If a customer wants to order a specific product and finds your site unavailable, he will search for an alternative and may find it in most cases, and you will lose the customer permanently.
Therefore, hosting companies offer the largest possible uptime guarantee in WooCommerce hosting. For example, some companies offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee on WordPress hosting, and a 99.99% uptime guarantee on WooCommerce hosting, and the difference between 99.99% and 99.9% may seem a little in your face given , but actually expresses a difference of 8 hours per year, that is, more than 40 minutes per month.
4. Backup
Backups are considered important for all websites in general, but their importance increases in online stores because they contain customer data, sales record, products, inventory, and other important details. If your site is exposed to a technical problem or hack, you can contact support to return your site to the latest version in a simple manner.
Databases also change periodically. When a customer requests a specific request, more than half of the existing databases and your website may change.
Therefore, hosting companies offer backup copies at a daily rate or less on WooCommerce hosting for free. For example, one company offers hourly backup copies on WooCommerce hosting.
5. Free add-ons
The WooCommerce plugin is completely free, but there are a large number of additional tools that improve your online store that are paid.
Therefore, some hosting companies provide these additional tools for free with WooCommerce hosting, and this is a definite factor in increasing the cost of WooCommerce hosting over WordPress hosting.
For example, some companies have partnered with WooCommerce, thus providing tools to customize your online store for free when you purchase WooCommerce hosting.
6. Free templates
Hosting companies provide a set of complete and ready-made paid templates for online stores for free, which you can rely on completely to create your online store, and this is very suitable, especially for beginners.
For example, one company offers 10 paid templates for free with all online store plans.
6. Trial versions
Trial copies are temporary copies of your site, which are prepared and modified before publishing them. For example, if you want to change the appearance of your online store, you enter the appearance and start modifying. At that moment, trial copies of your site are issued and the required procedures are carried out, after which the Post it.
This is not suitable for online stores, because a customer may request a specific order and cause a change in the databases, and therefore you need to update the trial version periodically, especially if the modification time is long.
Therefore, some hosting companies that provide WooCommerce hosting create a system that updates databases periodically in trial versions, or link files and essential files are excluded from trial versions and withdrawn directly when publishing trial versions, and this problem will not be felt in most traditional WordPress sites. .
Because of all these features, you will find the cost of hosting WooCommerce relatively more expensive than hosting WordPress, but there may not be any difference between hosting WordPress and WooCommerce in some deceptive hosting companies, and the only difference is in changing the name only.
Examples of the differences between WordPress hosting and WooCommerce hosting
We will now explain to you the difference between WordPress hosting and WooCommerce hosting in practice through some examples from hosting companies.
Example 1
In the following example, a company provides WordPress hosting at a cost starting from $4.99 and with the following features:
- Free SSL certificate.
- Free domain for one year.
- Professional email.
- 30 GB storage space.
- Average monthly visitors: 25 thousand visitors.
- Scan for malicious files once a day.
But when we look at WooCommerce hosting from the same company, you will find that its cost starts at $15.99 , and it comes with the same features as WordPress hosting in addition to the following features:
- Unlimited storage space.
- Unlimited number of monthly visitors.
- Scanning for malicious files and viruses periodically throughout the day.
- The ability to add an unlimited number of products.
- No commission is added to transfers.
- Access to additional WooCommerce tools costing up to $3,000 for free.
Certainly, the huge difference between WordPress hosting and WooCommerce hosting in the previous example is worth the financial difference paid.
Example 2
The second company provides WooCommerce hosting in name only, as when we examine WordPress hosting you will find it at a cost starting from $1.99 and with the following features:
- The ability to add only one website.
- 100 GB SSD storage space.
- The ability to transfer your site for free to A2hosting hosting.
- 30 day money back guarantee.
When we go to see WooCommerce hosting in the same company, you will find it at a cost starting from $1.99 as well, and with the same features as WordPress hosting, but also with the same packages, as the company changed the name only in order to target customers and advertising.
Conclusion
It can now be said from all the previous points that shared hosting is completely suitable for WordPress, but WordPress hosting provides you with some additional features, and in shared hosting you are obligated to perform some manual things periodically, for example, updating the WordPress system.
Shared hosting and WordPress hosting are mostly suitable for WooCommerce, but WooCommerce hosting provides some important additional features specific to online stores that improve the performance of the online store.
It should be noted that the characteristics of the hosting itself are the primary factor in determining the best suitable hosting for your site, whether it is WordPress or WooCommerce. For example, hosting WordPress with large resources from a particular hosting company may be better for e-stores than hosting WooCommerce with limited resources from another hosting company.
The difference between WordPress and WooCommerce hosting may be a difference in names only, with the same server resources and additional features, so you must examine the features of each hosting separately and compare them and see the difference between them and is it worth the financial difference or not?! This is to avoid fraudulent hosting companies.
In this way, we have reached the conclusion of today’s article, and if you have a specific question or inquiry, do not hesitate to comment below the article or contact us through website messages, and we will contact you as soon as possible, God willing
