Hosting is simply known as web spaces used to host website files and documents. When you use your personal computer then you have to use some spaces known as hard disk space. This hard disk space gives you the opportunity to store or host your text, audio, video and other various types of files and you can use those whenever needed. Similarly, you need to use some web spaces in order to store or host your website files that is why you and your visitor can find those online through the internet.
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Some reputed web hosting providers
- Bluehost
- Hostgator
- Namecheap
- InMotion
- Siteground
- WPengine
- Godaddy
- A2Hosting
- iPage
- DigitalOcean
- Dreamhost
- Hostinger
There are two types of web hosting service providers:
Free hosting services: You will find some giant web services providers like Blogger.com, WordPress.com, Hubpages.com and many more provide free hosting services with a sub-domain name like yourbrand dot wordpress dot com. You can use those services in your learning period. Of course, there are some restrictions as those are free to use. For example: As far I know WordPress.com provides about 3GB web spaces for each website.
Paid hosting services: There are thousands of providers who sell web spaces for you. You can just choose packages that fulfill your requirements. In this post, we will discuss only paid hosting services.
Various types of web hosting services
There are several types of hosting packages such as shared hosting, resellers hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated hosting services, etc.
Shared Hosting:
Shared hosting is shared with other users under the same servers and IPs. A maximum number of webmasters use this type of hosting service. It is relatively low-cost hosting. Shared hosting is helpful for starting. It has some merits and demerits that are discussed below:
Merits:
- It is relatively cheap and cost-effective.
- You can purchase a low amount of spaces even 500MB or 1000MB to start.
- It helps you to use add-on domains that is you can host several websites in your hosting spaces. Thus you can manage your websites in one place.
Demerits:
- If you use shared hosting then your webspace is shared with other users. That is if you have purchased 1000MB and using about 400MB right now then the rest of 600MB is sharing with others. You have a limit to use a maximum of 1000MB.
- As your hosting space and also IP is sharing with others so some times when the maximum or the total number of users are browsing their websites at a time then you may face relatively low loading speed.
- It does not allow several C-Panel that is why you must use add-on domains in one C-Panel. That is why it is not possible to create individual C-panel for each website even if needed.
VPS Hosting:
VPS means Virtual Private Server, it is a part of a dedicated server but acts as like dedicated server. VPS has own operating system, RAM, CPU allotted to function properly. Intermediate users who have one or multiple websites and who wants full freedom with full access for his/her server use the VPS server.
Merits:
- You have full control of your server.
Demerits:
- It requires technical knowledge to manage.
- Definitely costly comparing with shared hosting.
Dedicated Hosting:
Dedicated servers consist of certain dedicated hardware, hard disk, operating system, CPU, RAM, etc. An advanced user who needs full control on server and maintains one big website or several websites use such server.
Merits:
- You have root access
- You can choose your server operating systems like Redhead Enterprise, CentOS, Ubuntu, and Cloud Linux, etc.
- You can choose your desired configuration like CPU, RAM, Hard disk, etc.
Demerits:
- If you are not a tech & server guy then a dedicated server may be difficult for you to manage.
- If you want to use a managed dedicated server then you may pay extra for cPanel, WHMCS like server software.
- It certainly is costly comparing others.
Reseller Hosting:
It means you can use and resells your hosting spaces to others. Thus you can make a business to earn money. As like shared there are some merits and demerits for reseller users:
Merits:
- These packages give you an opportunity to create shared hosting users.
- It allows you to create as needed as the number of C-Panel (Control panel) for users.
- You can use spaces for personal use and also can sell spaces thus you can make money.
Demerits:
- It costs relatively high if you want it for personal use.
WordPress Hosting:
Such a server is specially designed for popular CMS software WordPress based websites. Few preinstalled server software that is well suit with WordPress CMS is implemented here. Thus your website will enjoy better performance comparing others.
Merits:
- Better for WordPress sites hosting
Demerits:
- Not suitable for other CMS like Joomla, Drupal, etc.
Cloud Hosting:
The cloud hosting server is not hosted into a single destination or hardware setup. Website files in such servers remain in several hosting servers at a time. So if one server location faces any issue then your site will not remain down, on that time website will run collecting data from other available servers. You will get better uptime and flexibility using such a cloud server.
Merits:
- You can increase or decrease server resources like RAM, Hard disk, etc whenever you are in need to do so without closing or changing the current server.
- Pay whatever server resource your website uses
- Nothing to worry for website file backups
Demerits:
- Cloud hosting is relatively costly
- Some technical knowledge required to manage
