Managed or Unmanaged? Pros and Cons of Dedicated Server Options

Featured article by Bart Keating, Independent Technology Author

Over the past few years, the web hosting industry has introduced a myriad of hosting options to suit every need. If you’re planning to move from shared hosting to some robust hosting environment, most probably you’re looking for a reliable and cheap dedicated hosting provider. Unfortunately, it is not as easy as it looks.

Apart from searching for a reliable hosting provider, you will also have to decide between managed and unmanaged dedicated hosting. Confused what are these?

Managed Dedicated Hosting

As the name indicates, in managed dedicated hosting, all the tasks associated with the server management are managed by the hosting provider itself. It simply means all the headaches that come while managing a dedicated server will be left to your hosting provider.

When you choose a managed dedicated server package, your hosting partner offers you support for each and every task whether it is routine or emergency. Moreover, you get 24/7 administration and technical support at fingertips.

Apart from these cores services, you also get advanced features such as application installation, regular data backups, load-balancing, timely upgrades, etc.

Unmanaged Dedicated Hosting

Opposed to managed dedicated servers, with unmanaged dedicated servers, you don’t get any kind of management team behind you. Moreover, you don’t have that routine support.

In case you don’t have the skills to manage the server, this might not be an ideal option for you. However, in comparison to managed dedicated server hosting, it is quite budget-friendly.

Now you are enough aware of both dedicated server options. Now let’s take a glance at the pros and cons of both of them so that you can better decide which option you should go with.

Pros of Managed Dedicated Hosting

Scalability

It is very painful to deal with outage when your business is outgrowing. Fortunately, with the managed server, you don’t need to worry about such issues. Because your host always has some additional space to fulfill your expansion needs.

At any moment you feel you need more resources for your online business, you will get it at the moment. On the contrary, with an unmanaged hosting solution, it may take up to a week to upgrade your resources.

Security

Managed dedicated hosting providers undergo audits frequently to ensure the physical security of their data centers and servers. They give special emphasis on network security as well.

In addition to this, a managed hosting also offers timely software updates that ensure that servers are protected against any kind of malware and viruses.

Customer Support

With most managed dedicated hosting providers, you get a team of the certified and experienced support team that provides 24/7 support and server monitoring.

Consof Managed Dedicated Hosting

One of the biggest disadvantages of choosing managed dedicated hosting is its high cost. There is a significant difference between the cost of a managed and unmanaged dedicated hosting. Many small companies and startups will not be able to afford it.

Additionally, Webmasters that are experienced and expert in managing servers themselves don’t see it as the best option.

Pros of Unmanaged Dedicated Hosting

Total Freedom

With unmanaged dedicated hosting, you get a  complete access over your server and other resources.

Cost Effective

An unmanaged dedicated hosting is far cheaper than a managed one. Because you don’t need to bear the cost of the team that manages resources for your website that we see in the managed dedicated hosting.

Learning

If you’re confident enough and want to learn to manage your server single-handedly, Unmanaged hosting can be a good option for you because you will install and manage everything from scratch.

Cons of Unmanaged Dedicated Hosting

Webmasters that are entirely new to this hosting environment might have to deal with a lot of technicalities that is challenging in itself. Moreover, handling web security and keeping eye on every server and website update can be a little struggle.

Conclusion

Both dedicated server options have their ins and outs. It is you who have to decide which solution is right for you. This post attempted to disclose a few of the main difference between managed and un-managed dedicated hosting package so that you make the right decision. Hope this helps!

About the Author

Bart Keating has been making websites for several years. Fluent in WordPress and CSS, he’s currently learning Dog so he can have a better working relationship with his pug.