One major advantage of WooCommerce hosting over generic hosting is that it can handle security, setup, and maintenance tasks by default. You don’t have to intervene – you can focus on your business.
WooCommerce hosting offers automated WooCommerce and WordPress setup, daily data backup, and reliable protection of user information.
This guide will delve into the details of WooCommerce vs. generic hosting.
Table of Contents
WooCommerce vs. generic hosting: The differences
Contrary to popular belief, not every WordPress hosting provider guarantees WooCommerce optimization. When you’re choosing a hosting provider for a WooCommerce platform, there are some important differences to take into account, such as performance needs, price, data intensiveness, and more.
Meeting unique performance needs
Performance is at the core of one of the biggest differences between web hosting for WooCommerce and WordPress hosting. WooCommerce platforms have unique performance requirements and needs. Not every WordPress hosting plan can support WooCommerce stores.
Caching and database optimizations are the two main areas where there are differences between WooCommerce and generic hosting.
Caching speeds up websites and reduces server load, thereby improving site performance. It does away with the need for the server to query the database every time someone visits your site. This is why a lot of generic hosting providers are now offering built-in caching, even budget ones.
However, no provider can apply generic caching to a WooCommerce platform. Doing so compromises basic features, like the store’s shopping cart icon.
WooCommerce stores are more data-intensive
The database stores most WooCommerce shop content. The files in it determine the front end of the site – its appearance. They include pictures of products, prices, descriptions, order data, stock status, client data, etc. Generally, your average WooCommerce store will be more data-intensive than an average site on WordPress, which exerts more pressure on the hosting provider.
Caching is not the only reason. Your store needs to load a lot of product details on the shop and category pages. Customers’ account pages need to load account details, the customer’s order history, and more. You can’t paper all of those details over via page caching.
Most buyers will use the product search function to find whatever they’re looking for. Each search adds more weight because the request comes with bulky database queries.
Budget WordPress hosting services, in particular, will fail with all the database queries, resulting in reliability problems or very slow loading. On the other hand, WooCommerce hosting will be sturdy enough to keep functioning. Many providers also have inbuilt features and add-ons to reduce the load on your site’s database.
Some WooCommerce hosting providers improve database support by creating their own set of database tables.
WooCommerce hosting is more supportive and reliable
While supportive and reliable hosting is essential for all sites, ecommerce platforms will find the stakes a great deal higher. If you have a blog that goes offline for a few hours, the effect isn’t going to be all that dramatic. However, having a WooCommerce store go down for that same period of time means lost trust and potential revenue.
For most websites, a 99% uptime guarantee will suffice. However, a WooCommerce site is looking for a bare minimum of 99.9%.
Separate landing pages, same product
Some hosting providers will launch a landing page specifically for WooCommerce, but the hosting plan will be the same as the one for generic hosting. If someone thinks they can operate a WooCommerce store on a shared hosting plan for a few dollars a month, they’re in for a big surprise.
Don’t assume a hosting provider offers a reliable plan for WooCommerce because they advertise a separate product. You should look at what functions and features they have for WooCommerce platforms.
Is the price right?
It follows that WooCommerce hosting is more expensive than generic hosting. It even costs more than managed WordPress hosting. In return for the higher price, you get the additional capacity to handle exorbitant database queries, close to 100% uptime, optimized caching solutions, and reliable support.
A simple portfolio site or blog can make do with generic hosting. If you’re launching a store, the price of WooCommerce is worth paying in the name of quality and performance.
