When you want to start an online business, you have a wide range of hosting services to choose from that can often confuse you and finding what you need is difficult. However, depending on the complexity of the website and its needs, your possibilities will be narrowed to a smaller batch of services.
Choosing the right hosting plan depends on your business, and each website has different requirements. It takes time for both, to identify the best hosting solution and to find out the best solution to meet the set goals can be tiresome.
When you decide on a hosting service, you need to take into account not only the hardware components, but also if you expect the business to grow over time, the need to focus on the scalability of the resources is critical.
Below we will talk a bit about the hardware resources a hosting service offers to a customer, including the RAM and processor (CPU) cores you would need.
What is RAM memory and how much do I need?
RAM is a form of memory that holds data temporary when the website is running multiple processes at a time, such as when the scripts of a website must be executed. As the number of simultaneous processes increases, more RAM is needed.
If the website does not have enough RAM to handle the load, it will display an internal 500 error to visitors when the domain is accessed in a web browser. If the website has many daily unique visitors and consistent traffic, it has to keep up with all requests, but you consistently receive errors then it is recommended to upgrade your RAM.
Typically, there are several situations when the website may need a RAM upgrade: a high volume of increasing traffic, an operating system that requires more resources than before; usually dynamic websites require more RAM than static ones as the traffic increases; if you install CMSs such as WordPress, Joomla, Prestashop, Magento you will need extra RAM. Instead, if your website runs a static page with a cache plugin installed, you may not need too much RAM.
What is a CPU and how much do I need?
A CPU is the short term for a processor. The server on which the website is hosted usually has multiple processors. The more CPU cores the web hosting package has assigned, the website will perform better. In the case of a shared hosting service, the processors are divided, and only a certain percentage of a processor can be allocated per account.
A CPU can process multiple requests at once, and it can use a timer, ensuring that requests are handled very quickly. However, there are situations where a CPU can be overloaded. If there is a spike in traffic or if there are specific requests for scripts, then the website performance can suffer.
So if you have a high CPU usage or a website with lots of traffic, it is recommended to switch to a VPS or even a dedicated server.
What other features do I need to consider when choosing a type of hosting plan?
Beyond RAM and CPU there are other features you need to take into consideration when choosing a suitable hosting plan for your website. One of these is the disk space. If you have a website that requires to store files and emails permanently, it is a good idea to purchase sufficient disk space for ever-increasing needs. There are other essential features to take into consideration such as the control panel (preferably cPanel), a dedicated IP, an SSL certificate, a backup service, the spam filter and so on.