Shared hosting term describes a web hosting account, which shares server resources with other hosting accounts. Shared hosting is very popular web hosting business model. In short the web hosting company which owns/leases dedicated server, shares the web server disk space and server bandwidth between many hosting customers (usually hundreds).

Shared hosting is the most inexpensive way to host your domain name. If you have a hobby website or a small business website, then shared hosting is your best bet. The good news is that your web hosting company completely manages the server hardware and software. You don’t have to be a technical guru to use a shared hosting.

You can manage your shared hosting account through web-based software called web hosting control panel. Some of the most popular web hosting control panels are cPanel, DirectAdmin, Ensim and HELM. Your shared account allows you to control your email addresses, ftp accounts, sql databases and make backups of your website.

In most cases all you need to host your website will be a shared hosting account. If you need more computer power, to handle tens of thousands of daily visitors you can lease a dedicated server.