Can I run a secure ecommerce site on Hostgator Shared hosting?

[ChrisMono]

Checking out a couple of other ecommerce sites and it looks like they're on VPS/Dedicated server/Dedicated IP.

I will be using oscommerce script on hostgator.
Will that be sufficient until I have a few more quid to upgrade?

thanks
chris

[ken_uk]

Not used hostgator, plus I dont know which of their plans you are on, but looking at hostgator.com it appears even the cheapest plan (the hatchling) plan offers mysql and php, and shared ssl.

That should be sufficient for you to run a oscommerce shop, BUT the reason many shops are on vps or dedicated servers is the fact that shared servers are just that - shared...

If you dont have a busy site, then shared hosting will probably do, but if you start getting popular, or busy then you may find that share hosting is not up to the job, you may find it slows down to a crawl, gives database connection issues or timeouts, or just stops working for long periods.

Think of it this way, a host offering shared hosting will put a heck of a lot of other sites on the same server as yours, I know some hosts (like godaddy) can easily put a couple of thousand sites on one shared server.

This means your fighting for cpu/memory/disk resources etc with all those other sites, if one or more of them get really busy, yours can suffer.
Worse, if one of them brings the server or the database server down, yours will go down with it.

At least with a dedicated server, you know that (barring os issues/ISP/Hardware issues) any problems are down to yourself, and not caused by other unknown software on the server. You also know what resources you have available, and are not sharing them with others.

VPS is similar, except you are sharing with other people, just a *lot* less people than on a typical server, and you have more control usually than on a shared server, its a 'pretend' dedicated server.

You could try a test install, and see how it goes, keeping an eye on it for downtime (plenty of free downtime monitors around) and speed, if you start seeing it slow down, or get issues, then you would need to move to better hosting.

Shared hosting wont stand up to heavy demands though, unless you have a exceptionally good shared hosting provider!

[ChrisMono]

thanks ken for your answer, pretty much told me exactly what i wanted to hear! I was just worried because some scripts can be hacked on shared servers

[ken_uk]

Some scripts can be hacked on pretty much any server, shared or dedicated.

A friend of mine bought some hosting from a small UK host a few years back, and we were shocked when we discovered it was so badly set up we could go up a level out of his directory and into other users accounts...

A well run shared hosting server should only let you see your files, never anyone elses.

As long as your host keeps your server up to date with the latest security patches (which good hosts should) then your main worry is making sure you keep on top of any updates to the scripts you install. That would mean ensuring you always install any osCommerce security fixes as and when they become available.

If you stick oscommerce on, and never update it, then chances are over time exploits will be found and made public, which would make your site a prime target for hackers/script kiddies.

You do have more control on a dedicated over security, but your data is always at some risk when hosted elsewhere. Even a dedicated server in a datacenter could be turned of, and have the data copied of it, if the stakes were high enough....

Not heard of it happening yet though.

[brownie]

Will that be sufficient until I have a few more quid to upgrade?

If you're on a budget I can highly recommend www.rapidvps.com (http://www.rapidvps.com), excellent support and no long term contracts. With the weak $ a VPS maybe cheaper than you think and you don't have to use a shared certificate.

Good luck. :)

[awebapart.com]

I will be using oscommerce script on hostgator.
Will that be sufficient until I have a few more quid to upgrade?
If you are sending your clients off-site to do the credit card payment part (e.g. to PayPal, WorldPay, etc), which I usually recommend for most small businesses, then shared hosting should be OK.

Yes you will have to check your host's security setup. If you have server scripting access to upload any PHP code you want, then so do all the other website owners too, and this does open up more security issues.

Not all shared hosting has these issues, for instance if you went for a hosted managed ecommerce service (e.g. ekmpowershop.co.uk, easywebstore.co.uk, our awebapart.com service), although you are on shared hosting, the website owners cannot upload server side code so this risk is reduced.

If you go with hostgator and you are targeting the UK audience, then use a .co.uk domain, otherwise having a .com and US hosting, UK searches will treat you as a US-based company and wont rank you so highly on relevancy.