Managed Vs Unmanaged Magento Hosting - Which Do You Need?

Operating a successful Magento eCommerce website requires more than a great marketing strategy. There are some technical issues that must be taken into account to ensure the user experience is optimised for easy navigation, upselling, and conversions. If your online presence has grown to the point that you need a hosting upgrade, you’ll want to know what your options are for your Magento 2 website. In this article, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of managed and unmanaged Magento hosting.

It’s a common misconception that managed hosting means having your online shop run by a third party. In fact, with managed hosting you’re still responsible for the day-to-day running of your retail or eCommerce site, with the freedom to scale and adapt your online storage capacity and hosting options to the needs of your customers. What you outsource in managed Magento hosting is server management, i.e. the physical or virtual piece of equipment where your site lives. In other words, managed hosting means your hosting provider takes care of most (if not all) server-related tasks. These tasks include ‘behind-the-scenes’ server management, application and domain management, automated backups, data restoration, server patches, and security updates. Ensuring a server runs smoothly with maximum uptime requires ongoing attention. An overloaded server can cause all sorts of network problems and lead to downtime for the websites hosted on it, which can have serious financial implications - not to mention open a door to security breaches.

Unmanaged hosting is a DIY option where you choose the operating system and have it installed on the server. You may lease the server off-site from a hosting company or part of it in a shared hosting solution or choose to have your Magento site set up on your servers on-premises. After installation, you’re fully responsible for server management, with all that entails: security, optimisation, troubleshooting, updates, etc, although if the server is owned by a hosting company they will probably take care of physical maintenance. You’ll get little or no third party technical or development support for your Magento website itself. You will need to arrange this through an external provider or use in-house resources.

The level of server management and technical support provided by managed hosting makes it an excellent option for Magento-based businesses. Even if you have technical IT know-how or Magento- specific knowledge in-house, server management and network administration can be very time-consuming. At some point, you’ll need to decide whether you want your IT staff to focus on server hosting and maintenance at the expense of other equally important tasks. Secondly, managed hosting is a way of ensuring your site has the most robust security standards. Cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and data protection regulations more stringent. Managed hosting gets you comprehensive support from experts who are familiar with the latest developments in Magento security, keeping your website and customers safe. Unmanaged hosting plans may be cheaper, than managed deals, but in the long-term, medium-sized and larger independent retail businesses are better off paying for managed hosting and knowing there’ll be no surprises or expenses arising from data breaches or server downtime. If you’re looking to maximise operational efficiency in-house, paying for managed Magento hosting is a time and cost-efficient option. Once your server hardware needs are taken care of by experts, you can make strategic use of your company’s time and IT resources and allocate them to tasks that make your business grow.

At MDOQ, we provide a range of dedicated Magento hosting services and Magento-managed deployment options for eCommerce and retail businesses.

Image Source.