All the websites and blogs on the Internet start with a web hosting. A web hosting is like a home/office where peoples can reach and look for their requirements.
Hosting is a kind of beasts with so many variables that everyone gets lost, even the developers with plenty of prior knowledge. Selecting the wrong type of web hosting for your hosting may cost you more if you decide to switch different hosting plan or move your website.
You might be feeling a little confused by the various types of services and the web hosting plans offered by Different Providers.
If so, you don’t need to feel bad; you’re not alone. Hundreds of web companies competing in this business with thousands of different web hosting plans, things can get pretty confusing pretty quickly for beginners.
Let’s take a quick recap about.
What is Web Hosting?
Webhosting is a place where a user stores their websites. A site on the internet has to have a host to run. This can be referred to as a web hosting service, which is defined by Wikipedia as
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web.
Types of Web Hosting
In this article, I’ll clarify the differences between the most common hosting types: free, shared, VPS, dedicated and cloud in an easy way.
Having said that, let’s take a look at some of the most common web hosting types offered by most Web Hosting providers. For easy explanation, I have used bungalow/house as the online component(Web Hosting).
Let’s get started.
1. Shared Web Hosting
You have got a BIG room on rent including kitchen and bathroom, and You have 1 Distant relatives and 1 unknown guy who is paying some rent to stay with you. Now, You have no ownership over the home and so You all three will use the same kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom to stay.
You are sharing everything with them, and You can’t control them if they make excessive use of water, electricity or anything for which you need to pay additional or can get the light off, live without taking a bath for few days.
Here a BIG room means A server is having (probably) hundreds (or thousands) of other user’s websites and paying less as all are paying for the exact shared web hosting for using it.
Shared, i.e., that is given to multiple users or a group of users all over the world. Here You have got a shared hosting with unlimited spaces, bandwidth but you are sharing the resources like RAM, CPU, Storage, Bandwidth with users who are on the same shared hosting server.
Shared web hosting plans can cost $2- $20 per month. Some of the best shared web hosting Providers are:
Siteground.com
Bluehost.com
Dreamhost.com
2. Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
As in shared Hosting, You have got a big room with 2peoples. Now You want to get a separate room for yourself. You bought a middle size of room including bathroom, kitchen, etc. The price of the room will be a little high, but You don’t need to share your resources(Kitchen/bathroom) with others. You can use it without worrying about the others.
This is How VPS works; The hosting provider gives You one portion of the resources(RAM/CPU/Storage) without sharing it with others. It will work only for you.
A Virtual Private Server, or VPS, use virtualization technology that simulates multiple individual servers partitioned on one main server.
VPS Hosting is the most popular with online marketers because it is affordable for any kind of busy website. And for those who have to run the e-commerce site.
Most VPS hosting packages can cost $5- $199+ per month. Pricing depends on the guaranteed CPU, RAM, and storage you get. Some of the best VPS hosting Providers are:
Linode.com
Upcloud.com
3. Dedicated Web Server
You have bought a House on rent, no matter if it is a small house or big one. Every House has multiple rooms, You are the owner now, and You are free from renters or someone who was in the same house/flat where you were living before.
You can give someone a room(VPS) or use it without anyone. This is all for your family(Your sites).
Dedicated Web hosting means you are renting a single Physical server from a Hosting company. There are no other sites on that server. It’s yours exclusively. You have full control over it.
You will get have complete control (called “root” permissions in Linux) if you want it and can choose a variety of OS like Centos7 with cPanel for the best management of Your Enterprise website.
With a dedicated server, you don’t have to worry about other sites on a shared server taking up your resources and slowing your site down for hours or days.
A dedicated server is the highest level of a server you would need if your online business grows into a presence that is getting a lot of website traffic. While the costs of a dedicated server is significantly higher than shared or VPS hosting, your business will be at a point that can easily afford the necessary costs of having your own server.
Because of their high-performance machines and resource allocation, dedicated servers are well-known for their speed and uptime. It is an important factor for all web pages, but particularly important for business/enterprise sites, as any downtime experienced translates to a loss of customers and revenue.
Dedicated server plans can cost $45- $999+ per month. Server Pricing is based on the guaranteed CPU, RAM, and storage you get. Some of the best Dedicated Server Providers are:
Liquidweb.com
4. Cloud Hosting
Cloud based computing is similar to how utilities work. If I plug my video camera into the mains, I can use it as much as I need and it will take as much power as it requires at the moment.
If it is on standby, it will use very little power. When it is recording it will use a lot more, but the electric system can handle the changes in power requirements.
Cloud hosting is similar to the VPS hosting. Some companies don’t even call their service VPS anymore, the say Cloud or Cloud VPS.
With Cloud VPS hosting, you don’t have a machine. Your hardware is virtual, which brings a whole host of cool benefits. It’s the most advanced and can be pretty cost efficient when compared with the other types of web hosting, but it’s definitely something that is trending on nowadays.
Cloud hosting offers the ability to handle high traffic load or traffic spikes. Here’s how it works; A team of servers (called a cloud) works together to host a group of websites. This allows multiple computers to work together to handle high traffic levels for any particular site.
The advantage of cloud-based web hosting is that if you get an unusually large amount of website traffic the web hosting plan can accommodate the surge of traffic – rather than shutting your site down.
If your site is growing and you’re driving more traffic to your site, this is probably the first point you would upgrade too from a shared hosting plan.
Cloud Hosting plans start from $5- $499+ per month depends on the resources You get. Some of the best Cloud Hosting Providers are:
Linode.com
Digitalocean.com
Some more type of web hostings are:-
Reseller: – A Plan that will provide you the ability to give some shared hosting to users.
SSD Hosting: – SSD is 20% faster than HDD drives. So, Make sure, You are buying a web host with SSD storage.
Nowadays, Most of the hosting providers give SSD drives with their plans.
Managed Hosting: – You don’t need to worry about the security, Software updates on Your server (VPS/Dedicated or WordPress). Server Mangement Team will take care of it. However, Management as an add-on cost the additional amount.
Unmanaged Hosting: – You need to Manage Your server Yourself means You need to update server software yourself and need to protect from brute force or malware attacks. You need to add or edit server settings yourself, and if something wents wrong, You need to buy add-on as server management, or you need to buy server expert having hourly price to fix the issues.
There are several server management services out there on the web which will help you to install server software, optimize the server and take care of it.
Conclusion
There are different types of web Hosting, but mainly there are Three types of web hosting+Cloud Web Hosting. It’s really up to you to decide which kind of hosting you need. Every person has different needs. Many hosts offer many types of plans. Therefore, you can always migrate to a different web hosting packages.
Still confused? Comment Your questions about the different types of web hostings down below.
Don’t forget to share this articles with your online friends.
Leave a Reply