What Is Scalability? Best Practices and Solutions in Web Hosting

Increasing sales. More website visitors. Growing databases. These are all reasons to scale up your hosting resources. And when I analyze a hosting provider, scalability is one of the main factors I consider. That’s because I — just like any other business owner — require the potential to grow online.

Will my hosting company give me additional RAM, storage, and CPU at a moment’s notice? Can it accommodate growth and handle increases in seasonal traffic? All of those questions define scalability – which means the ability of a web host to help your business grow.

Scalability is the ability of a hosting platform to grow in response to increasing demand.

I am going to explore the types of scalability and show you how to choose and measure hosts based on scalability potential. This way, a website that sells Halloween costumes doesn’t have to worry about the boost in traffic it sees in October, and all website owners can upgrade server resources without any downtime.

I used to think that scalability had one definition, but it actually comes in a variety of types. The type of scalability you need depends on your business requirements.

Types of Scalability

Two general types of scalability exist: vertical scalability and horizontal scalability. I’ll explain them both to show how you may want one or the other in certain situations.

Here’s a clue: Although some businesses will need horizontal scalability, most of you are looking for vertical scalability.

Vertical Scalability (Scaling Up)

You often hear about “scaling up” a business or website. Another term for scaling up is “vertical scalability.” For hosting, that just refers to how a hosting company can offer you more of the essentials: storage, RAM, and CPU.

Vertical scaling involves upgrading one server without adjusting the entire hosting infrastructure. For businesses, this means cheaper, quicker upgrades without downtime — upgrades of the basic hosting essentials.

You might, for instance, scale up vertically by:

• Increasing storage capacity: More storage for things like backups, user databases, and applications. Along with extra data storage, this upgrade can help improve website or app performance.
• Upgrading the CPU: For speedier data processing, which leads to faster websites.
• Adding more RAM: That way, the server can handle more simultaneous tasks, once again leading to faster websites.

I’d say the term “scaling up” is more recognizable than “scaling out” for a reason. It’s the most common scalability method. I’d argue — at least for web hosting — most businesses need to scale up. Yet, the occasional situation requires horizontal scalability, or scaling out.

Horizontal Scalability (Scaling Out)

When I think of horizontal scaling, I imagine massive data center expansions. In the realm of web hosting, larger enterprises are more likely to opt for horizontal scaling. That’s because they might manage their own dedicated servers and need to add more machines.

From a business perspective, horizontal scaling comes into play when the current server, or collection of servers, can’t keep up with growing traffic and resource demands.

Here are some examples of horizontal scaling tactics in web hosting:

• Adding more hardware: Horizontal scalability hints at a more physical type of scaling. Often, that means you’re buying extra servers to spread the load across several machines. You can also add hardware elements to current servers or implement software for improved load handling.
• Buying or renting more space: This also shows how horizontal scaling is often a physical endeavor. When you get additional data center space for those new servers, that’s part of the scaling out process.
• Adding software for greater efficiency: A less physical way to handle horizontal scalability is by lessening the load of website traffic and resources with software. For instance, load balancing tools help you spread incoming traffic across multiple servers, while database sharding chops up your databases to make them more manageable.

In my experience, most businesses don’t have to worry much about horizontal scaling. That is, unless the business manages its own dedicated server (or for some VPS and cloud hosting instances). Overall, however, hosting users need to figure out which hosts offer the best vertical scaling.

Scalability in Different Web Hosting Models

As I mentioned above, dedicated hosting users tend to worry more about horizontal scaling. The type of scaling you can handle depends directly on the web hosting model used. How do you scale a website with shared, VPS, dedicated, and cloud hosting? I’ll explain each below.

Shared Hosting

I like to compare shared hosting to public transit where you share a bus, train, or subway with other folks. It’s cheap, but perhaps not so luxurious or speedy. Multiple stops slow down your ride, and for goodness’ sake, why does the guy next to you keep putting his foot in YOUR leg space? Shared hosting is kind of like that (sans foot-in-leg space).

Shared hosting — an affordable, limiting type of hosting where you share a server with other people — has just one main option for scaling. If I were using shared hosting, for instance, and the traffic to my website increased, I might see a dip in performance. I would need to scale.

In that case, I could sign up for a more expensive, higher-tiered shared hosting plan. This happens with the click of a button. You make your request, and the host gives you more resources (vertical scaling).

Advanced scaling with shared hosting, however, is limited. For more powerful scaling, you’re better off upgrading to VPS or cloud hosting.

VPS Hosting

If shared hosting is like riding the bus, VPS hosting is like renting a car. The car doesn’t belong to you, but for this moment in time, you’re the only driver. In VPS hosting, you rent a virtual portion of a server that’s isolated from other users. They’re there, but you can’t tell.

VPS hosting also gives you more control over things like the operating system and software — hence why you’re the driver instead of a rider in this analogy.

I like VPS hosting for scaling because the virtual private server you receive opens up many options for control. Most hosts offer quick upgrades to VPS plans, where you add CPU, RAM, or storage with a simple click. This gives you a streamlined vertical scaling solution.

I also like that VPS hosting provides greater control with its interface. You can optimize for performance and choose your dashboard and operating system, all of which help a growing business.

Dedicated Hosting

All right, here’s where things get more comfortable and convenient. Having a dedicated server is like having your own car. Dedicated hosting — where you’re the sole user of an entire server — offers the ability to vertically or horizontally scale. And that’s the case for those who rent a server from a host or manage their own server.

For vertical scaling, you might simply add CPU, storage, or RAM to the server. This often requires you to add new hardware components. Alternatively, horizontal scaling lets you add other servers to the operation to distribute the traffic and performance load across several machines.

Cloud Hosting

You can think of cloud hosting like ordering an Uber. Uber has a network of drivers at the ready when you need a ride. Whether your group has two people or 10, you can order as many as you need. Cloud hosting works in the same way, because it relies on a network of cloud servers.

As my favorite hosting option for quick and affordable scaling, cloud hosting offers immediate scaling thanks to this network of servers. In short, when your website or app needs more resources, another server in the network jumps in to help.

This setup allows for real-time scaling. For example, when a Christmas eCommerce store sees a boost in traffic during the holidays. Cloud hosting responds to the spike and adjusts accordingly. Another advantage of cloud hosting is its pay-as-you-go pricing model, which minimizes unnecessary costs as you scale.

I find it’s necessary to understand the technical aspects of hosting to better grasp scalability. Unfortunately, the topic of hosting can get fairly advanced. That’s why I’ll break down the technicalities of scalability in hosting for everyone to understand.

Web Hosting Infrastructure

Let’s say I’m married with one child and living in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. We have the resources needed: a bedroom for my spouse and me, a bedroom for our kid, a kitchen, bathroom, and perhaps a living space for the adults to lounge while the kid plays.

But what happens when another baby comes along? Or two? Or three? We need a bigger place pronto. We need more bedrooms, a bathroom with a tub, and probably a larger living space with more storage. Think of your web hosting infrastructure like a house with kids.

When your website’s database grows, it needs more storage. When traffic increases, you must add resources, too, like RAM and CPU. Both RAM and CPU help handle that increase in traffic and keep performance high. Those resources are similar to the extra beds, bathtubs, toys, clothes, and space you need to accommodate more children in a house.

Scalability in Web Hosting Services

You should look for web hosting services with scalability options built into the pricing plans. Here are the scalability measures I recommend you look for:

• Load balancing and traffic distribution: Ideally, your host offers load balancing, which distributes traffic across multiple servers. This brings a greater number of servers to the fight so one server isn’t overloaded.
• Content delivery networks (CDNs): A content delivery network does exactly what the name implies: It delivers content (like images and videos) to website visitors through a network of servers. Content served from a machine closer to the user gets delivered faster. So, a site on a server in Chicago can still deliver content quickly (to users in other countries) by using computers all over the world.
• Auto-scaling and elasticity in cloud hosting: Reputable cloud hosting providers have auto-scaling built into their systems. This provides real-time resource and server adjustments to account for seasonal fluctuations. The word “elasticity” simply refers to the cloud host’s ability to automatically scale those resources up or down.

I compared the web hosting infrastructure to a house with kids, but just about every technical aspect of web host scaling applies. Load balancing is the nanny or daycare you might use to handle the load of more children. A CDN is like the bus that brings the kids to school. And auto-scaling is like that convertible crib that changes to a bed when your baby becomes a toddler.

Database Scalability

Scaling a database requires a unique set of strategies. You can still scale up or scale out a database with vertical or horizontal scaling. Vertical scaling involves adding hardware or software to the current database server. Horizontal scaling means distributing the database across several servers.

Other database scaling tactics include caching, replication, and database sharding. Caching stores frequently needed data in a “cache” for quicker access. Replication copies data to other servers for more immediate access to the data. Database sharding separates the database into more manageable chunks.

If I planned on scaling a database, I’d start with vertical scaling through my web host. Then I’d consider caching. After that, I’d look into replication and database sharding, and finally, horizontal scaling for more robust scaling measures.

Another way to understand scalability (and how it may work for your organization or project) is to explore real-world use cases. My review of use cases highlights when and why you might want to scale your web hosting to achieve greater performance, storage, and redundancy.

eCommerce Websites

Growing online stores must account for increasing traffic, seasonal demands, rushes for sales, and thousands or millions of simultaneous transactions.

With the proper scalability from a web host or eCommerce platform, online store owners can achieve quick loading times, rapid transactions, and smooth user experiences.

I’ve reviewed a lot of eCommerce platforms, and although people have differing views on the topic, here’s my ranking of the eCommerce platforms from most scalable to least:

1. Shopify Plus
2. Adobe Commerce (Formerly Magento)
3. WooCommerce
4. Regular Shopify
5. Bigcommerce
6. Salesforce Commerce Cloud
7. Wix
8. Squarespace

Shopify Plus is a proprietary eCommerce platform with a far more robust infrastructure than its standard plans. It’s perfect for enterprise online stores.

Adobe Commerce and WooCommerce offer affordable, flexible, open-source solutions, while Bigcommerce and Shopify force vendor lock-in but have solid vertical scaling measures.

Wix and Squarespace are fine for small businesses, side projects, or wedding websites, but I would never choose one of those for serious scaling.

Content-Heavy Websites

Media-rich websites, even those that start as small blogs, eventually need to grow — or at least that’s the goal for most bloggers, myself included. Readership increases, and you have a consistent flow of posts with heavyweight images and videos.

If you have a content-heavy site, you need to efficiently manage web hosting scalability. Content delivery networks work well for performance, but you can also implement auto-scaling and load balancing.

News sites like MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News require robust scaling measures. As do social networks like Facebook and streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu.

Startups and Growing Businesses

This is a somewhat generic use case, but it’s perhaps the most overlooked of them all. Startups and growing businesses like to save money wherever possible. But in the world of scaling, that’s a big mistake.

Built-in scalability — especially in web hosting and databases — helps promise future growth and customer satisfaction.

It’s clear to me that startups and growing businesses must balance cost and performance. Therefore, I recommend cloud hosting alongside tools for auto-scaling, load balancing, and content delivery (CDNs).

Stick to vertical scaling unless horizontal scaling is absolutely necessary.

There’s a saying in business, “If you don’t measure it, it didn’t happen.” Scaling involves planning for the future, so you must log current metrics alongside future metrics to see if you’ve improved. It’s also important to test if future scaling methods will work.

Performance Metrics

Measuring scalability starts with logging performance metrics (both now and in the future). Then you compare them. My favorite key performance indicators in web hosting include uptime, server response time, and resource utilization (RAM, CPU, and bandwidth).

Rather than try to tabulate everything yourself manually, I recommend using tools to track the important metrics for your website, database, and web hosting. Some helpful metric-tracking gurus include Google Analytics, New Relic, and Datadog. Each has a slight learning curve, but you can get the hang of them with tutorials and practice.

Benchmarking and Stress Testing

Run stress and load tests to assess how your current or future hosting will respond to growth. For load testing, I like LoadRunner and Apache JMeter. Tsung and Locust work well for stress testing.

For benchmarking, I recommend Phoronix Test Suite or SPECweb. Synthetic monitoring tools like Catchpoint help mainly with simulating traffic to see how the server responds.

Even major corporations aren’t immune to scalability challenges. Take Chipotle for example. The fast-casual Mexican grill offered free guacamole for National Avocado Day in 2018. Guac-crazy customers overloaded the servers and crashed Chipotle’s online ordering platform. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

So what’s my point? Scaling is complex. If it were easy, you wouldn’t see system crashes. Lucky for you, I’m here to make it easier to navigate the technical challenges you may encounter. Let’s go over the most common challenges below and how to avoid or fix them.

With scaling comes security threats. I’ll outline the most prevalent challenges and give you the best practices for minimizing and fighting those challenges.

The most prominent challenges I’ve seen with scalable web hosting involve data breaches and misconfigurations (human error).

Data breaches tend to happen due to weak login credentials, like “12345,” or access controls. Scaling almost always requires a human touch, so you must be careful about misconfiguration.

My best practices for secure scalability start with ensuring secure configurations. That includes using secure coding practices (or ensuring your web host does). For data breaches, I recommend rigorous monitoring of your systems, automated security updates, and robust access controls.

As with all business choices, you must take into account any ethical or legal concerns when you attempt to scale. Scaling your web hosting could have legal consequences or affect other people or the environment. Here’s what you should know.

Responsible Scaling

When you scale your web hosting, you may infringe upon data privacy and fair resource usage. To avoid these issues, follow all rules and regulations surrounding responsible scaling. Also, maintain a focus on equitable resource allocation and transparent data usage practices.

Legal Implications

Scaling without considering the legal implications could get you in trouble with regulations like GDPR and data protection laws. For scaling, the most common instances of legal implications involve data breaches and non-compliance with regulations.

You’ll want some tools and techniques to guide you on your scaling journey. My toolbox includes scalability essentials like cloud hosting platforms and techniques like auto-scaling.

Scalability Tools for Web Hosting

My favorite platforms and tools for web hosting scalability include cloud platforms like Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS). I also always suggest CDNs like Akamai and Cloudflare, along with a tool called Kubernetes for creating and managing server containers. I’ll break down some of the noteworthy features for each:

Amazon Web Services is best for large organizations. Personally, I like Google Cloud Platform for its data analytics and integrations with Google products (everyone has a Gmail, right?). Microsoft Azure makes sense for its hybrid cloud (something that 72% of businesses use), and Kubernetes works when you need containerization. Finally, Cloudflare comes in handy for any website needing improved performance through content delivery.

Techniques for Ensuring Scalability

To ensure the efficient scaling of any web hosting setup, start by making sure your web host has the essentials: load balancing, auto-scaling, caching, and upgradeable plans.

I also suggest that you implement processes for automation in the areas of updates, server monitoring, stress testing, and deployment.

Web hosting is already complex enough. If you scale that web hosting, it becomes an entirely different beast. You must consider legal and moral implications, understand how to scale efficiently, and ensure no corruption of data in the process.

I think of it like this: Most businesses outsource the bulk of their web hosting. If that’s the case, you should find a web host with unmatched scaling potential. That goes for all business sizes — small, medium, and large.

With a reputable and scalable host, you can focus on your business and leave technical things like auto-scaling and load balancing to the experts.