Once you have chosen Magento for your store, the next decision is how to host it. There are several options, and they differ mainly in how much control you get, how much you manage yourself, and what you pay. There is no single right answer — the best choice depends on your team, your budget and how you want to spend your time.
This guide walks through the main Magento hosting options, how they compare, and when each one makes sense.
The Main Options at a Glance
The table below compares the two serious ways to run Magento — managed hosting and self-hosting — alongside a hosted platform such as Shopify for reference. Basic shared hosting is a fourth, budget option, covered separately below.
| Requirement | Shopify | Managed Magento | Self-hosted Magento |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy initial setup | Excellent | Good | Poor |
| Infrastructure management | Included | Included | You manage it |
| Application control | Limited | High | Very high |
| Magento extensions | No | Yes | Yes |
| Server administration | No | Provider | You |
| Customisation | Moderate | High | High |
| In-house expertise required | Low | Low | High |
No column wins outright: Shopify leads on ease of setup, self-hosted Magento offers the most control, and managed Magento sits in between.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the cheapest option, where many websites run together on the same server. It is fine for small brochure sites, but it is a poor fit for Magento: stores compete for resources, and the services Magento needs — such as in-memory caching and a dedicated search engine — are often missing. The result is usually slow pages and instability under load.
For most Magento stores, shared hosting is a false economy. We look at why in detail in Magento hosting versus shared hosting.
Self-Hosting (Self-Managed)
Self-hosting means running Magento on infrastructure you administer yourself — a virtual server, cloud instance or dedicated hardware. It offers the most control of any option: you decide exactly how the environment is built, tuned and secured.
The trade-off is responsibility. You own the setup and tuning of every service, plus security patching, backups, monitoring and troubleshooting — and the expertise and time all of that requires. For teams with strong in-house operations skills, or specific compliance or cost-at-scale needs, this control is worth it. Done without that expertise, it is where most Magento performance and reliability problems begin.
Managed Magento Hosting
Managed hosting keeps Magento's flexibility while a provider runs the infrastructure for you: the server environment, the supporting services, patching, backups and monitoring. You still control the store, its extensions and its data.
It suits merchants and agencies who want to spend their time on the store rather than on servers. You give up some low-level control of the environment in exchange for saving significant operational effort — a worthwhile trade for most stores, though not for teams who need to control every server detail themselves. For more on what a provider takes care of, see what managed Magento hosting is.
Shopify and Other Hosted Platforms
It is also worth remembering that you do not have to run Magento at all. Hosted platforms like Shopify remove infrastructure entirely in exchange for less control and a different cost model. If getting to market quickly with minimal technical involvement matters more than deep customisation and ownership, a hosted platform can be the pragmatic choice.
How to Choose
A simple way to narrow it down:
- Avoid plain shared hosting for anything beyond a tiny store.
- Self-host if running infrastructure is a strength you want to keep in-house and control is paramount.
- Choose managed Magento hosting if you want Magento's flexibility without operating the platform.
- Consider Shopify if you would rather avoid Magento's requirements altogether.
Cost is part of every option too — see how much Magento hosting costs for what actually drives the price.
Where MyShopCarts Fits
MyShopCarts is one managed option: it provides managed hosting for Magento Open Source, running each store in its own isolated environment with dedicated resources and managing the infrastructure, backups, HTTPS and email. It is aimed at merchants who want Magento's control without self-hosting — while recognising that self-hosting, or even a hosted platform, is the right call for some.
Learn more about managed Magento hosting and choose a plan that fits your store.