Managed vs Unmanaged WooCommerce hosting

If you have a WooCommerce webshop, or want to start with one, you’ll always have to deal with hosting. You can choose from two different types of hosting, namely: managed and unmanaged hosting. In this article we explain what this exactly means, what the main differences are and why you should choose managed or unmanaged hosting for your WooCommerce webshop.

Back to basics: what does hosting mean?

When you build a webshop, you will always need hosting for your webshop platform. Quite simply, hosting is renting a piece of space on a server (or an entire server) on which you store the files that make up your shop. Hosting consists of several components: the hardware, i.e. the server, and the software, the operating system (WooCommerce) that is used to run the websites.

Good hosting is the basis of a well-functioning webshop and ensures, among other things:

• A fast webshop: the faster your shop, the higher your conversion.
• A stable webshop: your webshop can handle many visitors, without getting stuck or down.
• A safe webshop: online security takes a lot of time and attention and a good hoster takes care of this as much as possible.

Hosting companies, such as Hypernode, can offer in a lot more than these basic elements stated above, such as automated backups, virus scanners, caching, etc.

Managed hosting

These are a few examples of extra features that you get when you choose managed hosting, i.e. a managed service. With managed hosting you get hosting with extra benefits and services. This makes managing your hosting a lot easier. Another pro is that it can save you a lot of time, which means you can focus on the things you find important, namely running your webshop successfully.

Unmanaged hosting

With unmanaged hosting you use hosting without additional services. Often you only have (a part of) a server with an operating system that is already installed, the hardware. This means that you then have to install the required software yourself. The hosting company then does not perform any services or management tasks on your server. You will have to do this yourself, and therefore also have the technical knowledge that is required.

The difference between managed and unmanaged hosting

In summary: with managed hosting you get ready-made hosting, which you (almost) no longer have to worry about. With unmanaged hosting you only get the server space, which you have to maintain yourself, together with your application. If you haven’t done this before and you don’t have the technical knowledge that is necessary, it will be quite a challenge.

What additional services do we offer as a managed hoster?

To give you a better insight into what we support you as a managed hoster, we have listed a number of our features below. We offer you:

• Built-in caching options with ‘out of the box’ Varnish, Redis and FPC with which you create an optimal user experience.
• An advanced software stack (NGINX, MySQL. ElasticSearch and RabbitMQ) for optimal load times and user experiences.
• Automatic multi-day backups in case something goes wrong
• Performance monitoring
• Automatic software updates
• Protection against hackers with, among other things, a self-learning tool that scans your webshop daily for malware
• A simple Control Panel where you can manage your hosting
• Built-in development tools like N98 MageRun, composer, Modman, zsh, fdupes, geoip, jpegotim, git-flow, MailHog and many more.
• Dedicated support engineers who are always on standby to assist you. They know everything about stability, security and performance.

And much more!

The choice between managed and unmanaged WooCommerce hosting

The first thing you should always pay attention to is that your hosting package, managed or unmanaged, connects well to WooCommerce. Not all hosting packages do that. So pay close attention to whether the hosting plan is specifically aimed at WooCommerce. Then you should be able to make a choice between managed and unmanaged WooCommerce hosting. If everything was clear so far, you now know what the differences are between managed and unmanaged hosting ;-). We have drawn up three points to make the choice as easy as possible.

Your budget

Your budget is an important factor in the choice between managed or unmanaged hosting. Unmanaged WooCommerce hosting is often cheaper, but please note that you have to invest a lot of time yourself in setting up and maintaining the hosting of your webshop. If you have some room in your budget, you will find managed WooCommerce hosting a worthwhile investment. You don’t have to spend time maintaining your hosting and you can be sure that your webshop is hosted by experts. This allows you to fully focus on your shop.

Your technical skills

If you have little technical knowledge in hosting, it is probably wise to choose for managed WooCommerce hosting. If you are an experienced developer and like to work hands-on, unmanaged hosting could also be a good choice.

Your time and responsibility

If you don’t want to spend a lot of time on hosting and if you want to be completely relieved in terms of security, protecting your shop against hackers and regularly performing updates, then managed WooCommerce hosting is the best choice. If you are comfortable taking responsibility for this and can invest the necessary time in security, then unmanaged WooCommerce is probably the best choice.

Do you want to experience what our managed WooCommerce hosting can do for your shop? Then contact us!