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Managed and unmanaged hosting services are designed for customers with different requirements. Both have their pluses and minuses, and should be chosen on the basis of the technical expertise and the requirements of a website.

Managed hosting, as the name suggests, has several advantages. The most important is that it provides end-to-end server management, and takes care of all server-related troubleshooting needs. This is a big relief for a website owner who need not worry about server needs or maintenance.

The website owner also need not worry about server side hardware and software requirements like the choice of the operating system, network connectivity or administrative control. All these are part of the managed hosting package. The site owner's responsibility is limited to the hosting of content only. This can be done from the same city, another city or even another country.

Several managed hosting companies even provide easy to use control panels to enable inexperienced site administrators set up and run websites. These control panels are programmed to execute complex commands at the click of a button. They also fix problems that may arise at the server end during the course of hosting.

Another important place that is handled by managed web hosting services is bandwidth. They monitor the sites to study the traffic density, and make arrangements for smooth data transfer. They also take care of load balancing, which is extremely important for sites that are attracting high traffic. Without this, the traffic will get choked.

In comparison, unmanaged hosting services give customers remote server administration capability. The customer then takes care of all server-related needs. However, to do so the customer should be well versed in server management or else hire a technically qualified and experienced server administrator.

Unfortunately, server administrators don't come cheap. They are difficult to afford for small and medium websites. They also leave a vacuum when they quit. The new server administrator then has to spend several weeks to understand how the sites are configured.

It therefore makes sense to go for managed hosting. It saves websites the botheration of managing the server, and focus on their core area of activity - that is hosting content. They also save money in the process because managed hosting is invariably cheaper than the cost of hiring a full-fledged server administrator.