If you are planning to start your own blog or build a website soon, you surely know by now that you will need one form of webhosting or another.
By this time, you might have looked into several companies to know what to expect in terms of the costs.
However, you might also feel somewhat confused. Well, you are not the only person who feels that way. In fact, even the most experienced developers have a hard time trying to figure out hosting sometimes because of all the different variables involved.
Today, you will learn about the different types of web hosting to help you distinguish one from another and make it easier for you to choose the right choice for your needs:
Free Web Hosting
Unfortunately, nothing is free these days and if you think that these services will give you free hosting, this is not the case at all. With free web hosting services, you will not technically create your own site and instead, you will just create one or several pages on another person’s website.
For instance, WordPress lets you create a blog or website for free on their platform. However, your site is just a sub-domain of their domain. It means that your URL is going to be www.yourwebsite.wordpress.com instead of www.yourwebsite.com. They let you drop the name WordPress but you need to pay to enjoy this privilege. It means that it is free provided that you are fine with ads all over the page and with WordPress included in your URL.
Virtual Private Server or VPS Hosting
VPS or Virtual Private Server hosting is a poplar webhosting option for those site owners who want to upgrade from the usual shared hosting since this is more balanced from every point of view, with cost included.
VPS servers still require you to share space with the rest of the users on just one physical server. However, its difference from traditional shared hosting lies on how it is achieved.
First off, with VPS servers, it is very rare to have over 20 years. Of course, the benefit is that the machine will experience less stress from the start. But, the true benefit with VPS hosting comes in the form of hypervisor or virtual machine monitor.
The hypervisor is one piece of software that lets you operate and create several virtual machines on one computer. This is similar to having several virtual computers on one server that have their own dedicated amount of HDD space, RAM, and CPU speed.
Shared Hosting
Probably the cheapest webhosting option you can get that gives you your own domain, shared hosting is most suitable for small websites that don’t get much traffic. Upon signing up for shared hosting plans, your site will share space on one server with other sites. For things to be more efficient and to provide cheap hosting options, web hosting companies put several users in one server. There are servers that have more than 1,000 servers. If you consider how each user can have several sites based on the specific plan they chose, you will realize that a single server alone could have up to 5,000 websites.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is essentially the same with using a Virtual Private Server. The only difference between cloud computing and traditional computing is similar to the difference between using a laptop while plugged or on battery. If the laptop is run off the battery, it can be used until its battery runs out of power. With light usage of a laptop such as browsing just a couple of websites or using its word processor, the battery power is going to last longer. However, the power will run out much faster if you are playing resource-intensive and graphics-heavy games.
But, once it is plugged in, you can use the laptop for as long as you want since its power comes from the main grid. It doesn’t matter how heavily you use it as your laptop will continue to run as long as you like it to since its power comes from an extensive network.
The concept of cloud-based computing is the same as you get access to a huge network of servers and these resources can be used according to your needs with no service interruption. With cloud hosting, there is no way that you will run out of resources even if you have a gigantic website.
Dedicated Server Hosting
When using a dedicated server hosting plan, any problem websites or faulty coding are not someone else’s fault but your own since you are the only one using the server. Right from the beginning, one advantage of dedicated hosting is that there is no need for you to worry that other websites will use up your resources like what happens in Virtual Private Server plans.
If you are on a dedicated plan, most providers will allow you to customize the server to some degree. You can also choose the type and amount of RAM that you will the server with together with the rest of the hardware. You can also decide on the operating system where the server will be running on. It means that you can make changes if needed that can help a lot if you are planning to run special software on the server.
Self-Service Web Hosting
Just as its name suggests, this form of webhosting is a completely do it yourself type. You purchase the servers and configure and install every software. You also need to make sure that backups will be made, offer cooling to ensure that the servers don’t melt down, and many more. Based on your needs, you are practically creating a mini-data center that requires staff, hardware, and space to operate.
It is similar to having a dedicated server so expect that as far as the resources are concerned, the sky is the limit or your bank account. You could purchase any number of servers as you want and build your own architecture.
Knowing the different types of webhosting will make it easier and simpler for you to decide on the right one that suits your needs and budget.
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