What is Web Hosting?
Did You Know? There are different types of web hosting …
It is important to understand the different types of web hosting options available, therefore ensuring you choose that which will work best for you. In our previous blog article, we briefly talked about Web Hosting – ‘web hosts are companies who provide the necessary skills, services and technology you need for your website to be searchable on the Internet’.
In this blog article, we look at three types of web hosting options:
- Shared Hosting,
- VPS Hosting, and
- Dedicated Hosting
Shared Hosting
When multiple websites are hosted together on the same server, it’s called Shared Hosting.
(Servers are computers where websites are stored). This is a good option when just starting out online, as, for instance, it’s very affordable. In addition, it’s easy to manage your website on a shared hosting server, as the site usually comes with a built in cPanel. Usually, technical maintenance is part of a shared hosting package, so it’s ideal if you are not tech savvy! This works best for personal blogs and small businesses and shared hosting is quick and easy to get up and running!
VPS Hosting
Virtual private server – this simulates multiple individual servers, partitioned on one main server.
Virtualization technology is used to split one server into multiple virtual servers. Virtualization refers to the running of multiple operating systems (OS) simultaneously on a single server. In other words, it is one piece of hardware/one computer, but it functions as several different servers. You may be sharing the server with other websites, but it simulates as a dedicated server.
There are many benefits to choosing VPS, such as:
- Offering dedicated storage space,
- Allowing for more traffic (visitors) on your website,
- Supporting an online store, and
- It offers your online customers safe and secure transactions when purchasing from your online store.
Dedicated Hosting
This is the highest level of hosting – it means that you rent out the entire server for just one website.
It is ideal for a large organisation, with high volumes of traffic on their website.
Most importantly, the benefits of dedicated hosting is that:
- All resources available are dedicated to this one website
- Enhanced performance (web pages load fast),
- Enhanced security, and
- Flexibility to customise the server, which, as a result, means you are in full control of the server and can therefore configure it to suit your specific needs.
The web host may offer dedicated managed servers, therefore providing technical support such as setup, maintenance and configuration. This is a great benefit as it is very time consuming to monitor, maintain and update a website.
Do your research, before choosing a web host type, so you are sure it will work for you, your business, and ultimately your website.
Here are some important questions to ask:
- What type of website will you offer – Blog site? Online store?
- How much traffic do you anticipate on your website?
- What are the limitations on the web hosting packages on offer?
- Are upgrades to a next level web hosting type possible?
- Monthly web hosting costs?
- What is include/exclude in the costs?
Open Host offers many online solutions and informative articles on our Blog , that will help you ask the right questions and ultimately make an informed decision about web hosting, domain registration and much more!
