Shared web hosting is a service offered by web hosts wherein more than one website is hosted on a single server. It is an economical option since the overall cost of running and maintaining the web server is shared among many websites. A real-life comparison can be that of a students' dormitory where all students share the same facilities. Except that in case of shared web hosting, individual website owners do not normally know each other. Usually small websites prefer shared web hosting to keep overhead cost minimum. It is quite common to find websites from any part of the world availing shared web hosting service from a single provider.

If you are dipping your toe in web-world for the first time, shared web hosting will be a good choice. Costs are low since you are entitled to a small portion of the whole pie. More than that, shared web hosting offers unique advantage of many features and software that already come installed in host server. In addition, a system administrator, available 24x7, will be there to help you in case of any trouble with your shared web hosting. Depending on service provider, typical freebies in shared web hosting include open-source software such as fully-featured shopping cart (like Agora, Oscommerce, CubeCart, Zen Cart, etc.), content management system or blogs (like Nucleus CMS, Drupal, Wordpress, etc.), image galleries (4Images, Coppermine, etc.) and so on. This apart, most shared web hosting plans come equipped with web statistics facilities like Awstats and Webalizer, and sometimes even with a site-builder so that you can design your website in no time.