There are two types of web hosting concepts managed hosting and unmanaged hosting. Managed hosting is the more popular and more widespread today among small to medium companies while large corporations opt for unmanaged web hosting. There are advantages and shortcomings of both the practices and it would eventually depend on a company and its expertise in hosting, servers and associated technology whether or not managed hosting or unmanaged hosting is ideal for them.
The primary difference between unmanaged and managed hosting is that the former is offered by a host where only a basic level of service would be offered and the rest would be entirely a responsibility of the company and the latter is offered by hosts where every service and support is offered rendering the company free of any such responsibility.
In simple words, web hosting companies typically offer a domain, server, storage space, emails, control panels, applications associated or preinstalled in the panels and round the clock support at a price. This is managed hosting whereas in case of unmanaged web hosting, the hosts would not offer any servers, storage space, control panels or any support. There may be a level of support such as an indication of problems or fixing the hardware but any software problems, troubleshooting and patching up of errors would be the responsibility of the company using the servers.
Managed hosting uses shared servers and a company doesn’t typically know where the server is, doesn’t have complete control and doesn’t have access to the servers or any other hardware. This cuts down the freedom of what the company wishes to do with the servers but it does allow the company to be free of any responsibility of the server operations. With unmanaged web hosting, a company will have complete access and control over the servers without having the need to share it with anyone but one would have to invest in the servers in the first place.
Managed hosting may appear to be restrictive but in reality, there are many features at a very affordable price whereas with unmanaged solutions, the initial investments are hefty and one would have to create all features including control panels and the likes without any help from a host or a hosting company.
Managed hosting is the best solution for companies that do not have expert technicians as employees and would not wish to make heavy investments at the outset. Unmanaged solutions work well for large companies who can afford the investment and the associated troubles and do not wish to share their servers with anyone.