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When you open a WooCommerce product page, you actually look at the code written in different programming languages. It is your browser that transforms the information into images or text. The code must be stored somewhere so that browser can access it every time when typing the WooCommerce store URL in the search bar.
The storage place is called as a server: a powerful machine that has its own processor, memory, hard drive, and bandwidth. Your hosting provider offers a portion of the server (or an entire server as we will see later) in exchange for a monthly price. It is also usually committed to providing you with certain services such as server management, technical support and so on. You can check out these VPS Servers here for more info!
WooCommerce Hosting Step-By-Step Guide
To simplify the task, we will present the different types of WooCommerce hosting options and see which is better for your online WooCommerce store. There are four types of web hosting:
- Shared Hosting
- Dedicated Hosting
- VPS Hosting
- Cloud Hosting
WooCommerce Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting means that several websites, including your WooCommerce store, share the same server. Thus you have the status of the roommate of the machine and you have the right to use the same resources others have.
This type of hosting is ideal for projects that do not receive many visits and do not consume a lot of resources. This is the case for a blog or a personal website for example and the great advantage is that it is cheaper than others.
Hence with Shared Hosting, you can start without making a huge initial investment, launch your website.
WooCommerce Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated Hosting offers you a physical machine at your disposal. In this hosting, you have more freedom: you can, for example, acquire the server resources that suits you best.
It is therefore ideal for your project if you have a deeper knowledge of system administration in order to take advantage of options offered by the dedicated server.
It is also the right choice for you if your store is about to receive a large volume of visits: this is the case for an online store for example. As compared to Shared Hosting, it has a drawback in term of pricing; it’s expensive whether or not you use the resources you acquire.
WooCommerce VPS Hosting (Virtual Private Server)
VPS Hosting is halfway between the Shared Hosting and the Dedicated Hosting. In the case of VPS, you do not have a physical machine but rather a virtual machine that is installed on a server.
The biggest advantage of this type of solution is that it can be customized: that is to say that you have the possibility to choose the exact parameters you need (processor, RAM, bandwidth, or disk space).
Another advantage of VPS is its price: much cheaper than the dedicated server, the VPS also gives you the opportunity to improve your settings as you grow. Unlike Shared Hosting, the VPS Hosting can divide the power of the machine into as many parts as you want: that is, you, as a user,
WooCommerce Cloud Hosting
Cloud Hosting is characterized by its flexibility: it offers services on demand. That is, just like the home appliances that you plug into the network, you consume only what is necessary for your website.
In the case of the cloud, you do not have access to a single server but servers connected to the network. This type of solution is very practical in terms of protection against DDoS attacks. The most effective method of protection against these attacks is to block as many queries as possible and propagate the rest in a large network since the cloud already has a network.
Cloud Hosting is a radical change in traditional hosting solutions (Shared Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, and VPS Hosting). It also has some advantages that distinguish it from the other hosting solutions.
To further highlight the leveraging power of the cloud, I choose Cloudways and discuss its service and features in detail:
Cloudways — Managed Cloud Hosting Platform
Cloudways is an ideal platform WooCommerce simply because of the optimize platform it provides to WordPress hosting and thus WooCommerce-powered stores. In particular, Cloudways helps out WooCommerce stores in the following areas.
Reliability
At Cloudways, a WooCommerce store instead of being hosted on a single physical server, it is hosted on a virtual partition that draws resources (e.g. RAM, bandwidth, disk space) from a network of underlying servers. If one of the servers goes offline, it slightly dilutes the level of available resources to the cloud and hence there is no impact on the availability of WooCommerce store.
Some cloud platforms may even survive the offline completion of a full data center because their cloud resources are drawn from multiple data centers located geographically distributed to minimize risk.
Multiple Data Centers
Data centers are the heart of the organization of search engines. When you search products on a search engine, it is often the data center closest to your home that is responsible for providing you with the results that are appropriate to your request. If the nearest data center is busy, another data center will then take over to answer you.
Cloudways data centers are spread all over the world and consist of hundreds of servers to cope with the incredible amount of research being done every day on the Internet.
You should always opt for a hosting provider that has a data center closer to your target audience. For example, if I have my online WooCommerce store that ships only in India, then it would make complete sense for the data center to be located in India, or anywhere near to India.
Security
Cloudways Platform assures that underlying physical server are hosted in data centers can benefit from the security measures implemented by these centers to prevent third-parties from unauthorized access to your WooCommerce store.
Flexibility
Resources are available on demand and in real time and are not limited to the constraints and physical capabilities of a single server. If a customer’s site requests additional resources from their hosting platform due to peak visits to their WooCommerce store, the resources are available without problems.
Even when using a private cloud model, it is often possible to allow the service to use more capacity in order to access resources from the public cloud, in case of non-sensitive data and peaks in activity.
Usage-based Pricing
Cloudways offers pay-as-you-go pricing model in which the customers only pay for what they use. The hosting resources are also available in the event of peak demand (such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Holiday Season) but there is no waste of unused capacity once demand drops.
Other Features
- Free Cache Breeze Plugin
- Free SSL Certificates
- Free Backups
- Free Migration
- 1-click Features
- 24/7 Live Human Support
- SSH and SFTP Access
- Two-factor Authentication
- PHP-FPM
- CloudwaysCDN (Optional)
Wrapping Up!
Traditional Hosting (Shared, Dedicated and VPS) and (managed) Cloud Hosting both have their place in web hosting but traditional hosts are not ideal for WooCommerce stores.
In addition, Traditional Hosting is cheaper, Cloud Hosting, on the other hand, is the ideal option for WooCommerce store owners who want to scale up their resources quickly with losing a minute.
About the Author
Saud Razzak is the WordPress Community Manager at Cloudways – A Managed WooCommerce Hosting Platform. Saud is responsible for creating buzz, spread knowledge, and educate the people about WordPress in the Community around the globe. In his free time, he likes to play cricket and learn new things on the Internet. You can email him at [email protected]
