Most people associate web hosting accounts with websites - and rightfully so. Web hosting is a service that makes it possible for website files to be visible online. Hosting plans have evolved quite a lot in the past decade, though, so they often allow users to do so much more. This is why sometimes a lot of the system resources remain unused. In this article we will explore ten ways to use a web hosting account for (more or less) non-traditional purposes. Some of these projects can probably be called websites, but they go beyond the conventional format – a set of web pages with navigation, text, and images. We will focus on the most widely used type of hosting – shared hosting with a standard setup that is offered by most providers.

• Why use a hosting account for non-website purposes?
• 10 ways to use your hosting plan
• Set up custom emails
• Host educational tools and resources
• Set up a customer support platform
• Set up a personal digital library
• Launch a community forum
• Build a collaborative workspace
• Create a test environment
• Set up a personal backup solution
• Host a CRM platform
• Run a public API service
• In conclusion

Why use a hosting account for non-website purposes?

There are certain advantages of using a standard hosting account for projects beyond standard websites. You will certainly find alternatives offered by dedicated platforms for our use cases. Unless you really need such a provider, though, you may be better off using a standard hosting account. One key benefit is that you will have more control over various settings and over the content that you add. You will also have more privacy as you will not rely on a service offered by a large tech corporation, which may want to track or monetize your data. Last, but not least, setting up a service on a shared account is often easier than using a cloud service or a virtual/dedicated server. The learning curve is lower, so even people with limited technical experience can use this option.

Depending on the use case and on your preferences, you can either run a project alongside your website and utilize the unused resources of your existing account, or you can order a separate account that will be solely for the particular project.

10 ways to use your hosting plan

The list we have compiled is not exhaustive, so you can probably use a shared hosting plan for various other projects. Nonetheless, it is a great starting point and it offers ideas on how to utilize the system resources in your web hosting account.

Set up custom emails

You may not need a full-fledged website, but a shared hosting plan allows you to create emails with your own domain name. Your correspondence will look far more professional if you use such an email address rather than a mailbox from a generic email provider. A custom email address will enhance your credibility more than a generic one on business cards and marketing materials as well. It will also be a cost-effective alternative to dedicated email providers, and you can still enjoy a fully managed service. The hosting provider will take care of server settings, message backups, routing issues, etc.

For even greater flexibility, you can install a webmail client in your hosting account and customize it extensively, adjusting themes, branding, settings, etc. You can use it instead of the webmail client offered by the provider to create a tailored email experience that aligns with your personal or business preferences.

Host educational tools and resources

A shared hosting account can be a powerful tool for education that will allow you to create a digital library or to offer online courses. Using а learning management system, you can set up courses, distribute and collect assignments, track student progress, and more. You can use Moodle (standalone, feature-rich platform) or LearnDash (plugin for WordPress), for example. You can also integrate video conferencing tools and offer virtual classes, or add accessibility plugins for students with disabilities.

One advantage of using a shared hosting plan is that it is affordable and scalable, which makes it a perfect choice for small or medium-sized classes, independent educators or training courses.

Set up a customer support platform

If you run a business, you may have to provide support to your customers, even if you have no web presence. You can use a shared hosting account to set up a customer support platform, where your clients can browse knowledge base articles, open a support ticket, or even chat with you or with a support representative. You can use a self-hosted platform or integrate a third-party service. This way, you can customize and brand the support platform. If you use a self-hosted solution, you will save the fees for an external platform.

Set up a personal digital library

You can utilize the unused disk space of your hosting account by setting up a personal digital library. If you own ebooks, audiobooks, academic papers, or any other content to read or listen to, you can store it in the account. This way, family members or colleagues will be able to access the content as well. With a digital library, you can:

• Easily add or remove content, as your collection grows

• Create password-protected areas

• Customize content for different users

This way, you and anybody who has access will be able to read or listen to items from that library from any location and on any device without third-party accounts or subscription fees.

A personal digital library requires disk space to store the files rather than intensive server resources. This is why, a shared hosting plan will be an ideal choice and you will not need an expensive, high-performance server.

Launch a community forum

A discussion board is a great way to bring people together. Whether it will be for people from your local area or for people with similar interests from all around the world, you can easily set up a forum platform in a shared web hosting account. You can use applications such as SMF, phpBB, vBulletin, or bbPress, for example. Users can engage in discussions, create polls, or share useful content.

Unlike a standard informational website or a social platform group, a discussion board allows all members of the community to express their opinion no matter if they use a particular social network or not, including anonymously (if you enable this option for people who prefer to stay private). Forum applications usually do not require intensive computing power, so a shared hosting plan can effectively support such an application even for a larger number of users.

Build a collaborative workspace

If you run a small company and you need private shared space, where you can exchange documents, files or media, you can install a collaboration platform such as Nextcloud or ownCloud. You can easily set up a private platform and synchronize calendars and contacts, or even chat with colleagues. The advantage of using a self-hosted platform is that you have full control over content and settings. You can set up such a platform in the same hosting account as your website, so you can have everything in one place. Shared hosting plans, especially ones with higher resource allocations, support such collaboration platforms.

Create a test environment

A shared hosting account can serve as a cost-effective test environment for staging websites or web applications. This way, you will not have to set up a local environment or a dedicated server / cloud service solely for testing purposes. You can safely test any changes, including core or plugin updates, code-breaking modifications, etc. without affecting your live site or application. Many shared hosting providers support popular frameworks such as:

• Node.js - for JavaScript-based applications

• Ruby on Rails – for building scalable web applications

• Flask/Django - lightweight Python frameworks

You can use a shared hosting account for small projects, proof-of-concept applications, or testing environments that don’t need high performance. There won’t be real user traffic to the staging site or test application, so you won’t need a lot of system resources. This makes shared hosting a practical and budget-friendly solution.

Set up a personal backup solution

If you have a small website, most of your hosting plan’s disk space is probably unused. If this is the case, you can utilize the space by keeping personal backups. Whether you need to store photos and videos, personal documents, or any other content that you want to keep safe, a non-public folder in your account will allow you to store them in a secure location.

You pay for the hosting plan anyway, so you can avoid additional expenses for a cloud storage service or a home NAS (Network Attached Storage) unit. Most web hosting providers keep additional backups of the content, so you will even have a redundant copy in case that you delete anything in the account by mistake. A shared hosting plan may not be the best solution for large-scale backups, but it is a very practical and budget-friendly solution for personal backups.

Host a CRM platform

Many businesses use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software these days. A CRM platform allows you to store customer and lead data, including purchase history and contact details, track sales pipelines from leads to payments, automate tasks and workflows, segment customers into target groups, generate sales and customer reports, forecast revenue trends, and identify key performance indicators (KPI).

Due to the popularity of this type of software, there are many platforms on the market, including self-hosted ones that you can install in a standard hosting account. There are large cloud-based CRM platforms as well, but their prices can be as high as $500 per user per month. By using a self-hosted CRM installed on a shared hosting account, you can maintain full control over your data and run a fully functional CRM system at a fraction of the cost of cloud-based alternatives. Popular self-hosted platforms are SuiteCRM, EspoCRM, and Vtiger CRM.

Run a public API service

If you have valuable data or functionality to share, you can create a public API to provide access to it. This could include news, financial data, geographic information (GIS), or any other structured information that businesses or individuals can use. Most shared hosting plans on the market support popular technologies that you can use for the API, such as PHP, Python (Flask/Django), or Node.js, for example. Due to the relatively limited system resources of shared hosting plans, an API hosted on such a platform will have certain limitations on concurrent users and request volume. Nonetheless, a shared hosting account is a great starting point for a small or medium-sized project.

In conclusion

Shared hosting remains the most popular and affordable type of web hosting. While traditionally associated with standard website hosting, it is far more versatile and can be used for various other projects. Shared platforms have developed quite a lot. Modern plans come with ample system resources and support for multiple applications. If you host a website and you want to utilize the unused system resources of your hosting plan, or you want to avoid the cost and complexity of virtual/dedicated servers, shared hosting is an excellent option.

You can build simpler projects such as an e-learning platform or a customer support portal, or more advanced ones like public API services or Node.js application development. Shared hosting is user-friendly, so you can focus on developing your projects without the overhead of server management.