DEFINITION

Web hosting is a situation. whereby a hosting provider allocates space on a web server for a website to store its files,  Web hosting makes the files that comprise a website (code, images, etc.) available for viewing online. Every website you’ve ever visited is hosted on a server.

Types of  web hosting

VPS Hosting

VPS stands for “virtual private server.” This hosting type is a step above shared web hosting. When a website outgrows their shared plan, it’s common for owners to upgrade to a VPS.

With a virtual private server, your website will still be sharing a single server with other websites. However, the number of websites you’ll be sharing it with is significantly lower.

The main server is split into multiple virtual servers—hence the name. These virtual servers can be customized by individual websites.

Even though the main server is shared with other sites, your website will have dedicated resources with a VPS.

WordPress Hosting

WordPress hosting optimizes for WordPress as your content management system.

You’ll normally see two different types of WordPress hosting offered by providers.

• Shared WordPress hosting
• Managed WordPress hosting

Shared WordPress hosting works the same way as regular shared hosting, except WordPress might be pre-installed.

Managed WordPress hosting provides added benefits like enhanced security, server caching, staging, and faster loading speeds.

WordPress hosting usually has added security that’s specifically designed for websites that are running on WordPress. Since WordPress is the most commonly used CMS across the globe, those websites are a higher risk for cyber crime. So that added security is definitely a great benefit.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated servers are typically considered the best choice in web hosting. That’s because you have a dedicated server that belongs to you, and you alone. You typically get more benefits with dedicated hosting too such as more uptime and faster speeds.

However, it comes with a catch: This is the most expensive type of web hosting.

Since you won’t be sharing resources or anything else with other websites, your site will operate at peak performance.

Websites being hosted on a dedicated server have complete technical control over the server settings. You choose the software, configurations, and anything else you need.

If you get a dedicated server, you should expect extremely high uptime rates and lightning fast loading speeds. You won’t have to worry about traffic from other websites impacting your performance.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is a newer type of web hosting. It can best be described as a hybrid version of a VPS, but more cost-effective.

Cloud hosting plans come with multiple remote servers. Each server has different responsibilities. If one of the servers is compromised or has a problem, the other servers on the network will take over those responsibilities and pick up the slack.

That’s what makes cloud web hosting such an appealing alternative to traditional web hosting.

With cloud servers, your website will have higher uptime rates and won’t have as much unexpected downtime due to server errors. Your site will remain fluid and perform at a high level.

The best part about cloud web hosting is scalability.

With traditional hosting, there is always a constant dilemma between server resources and price. You don’t want to overpay for a plan with resources that you’ll never use, but at the same time, you don’t want to exceed the resources of a lesser plan and negatively affect the performance of your website.

Unless you know exactly how many page views your site will get per month, then this is nearly impossible to predict.

But website traffic is never an exact science. At times, you’ll experience spikes or surges to your site—which is great news. You just need to make sure your plan can accommodate that traffic.

That’s why cloud hosting is the ultimate solution to this dilemma. The best cloud hosting plans allow you to scale your resources on-demand.

You pay for what you use, and you can always adjust these resources within your admin dashboard.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting is definitely not for everyone. If you’re building a small website from scratch or just looking to host a website on your own, then this will not be the best option for you.

But if you want to sell web hosting to other sites, then you should look into reseller hosting plans.

Reseller hosting is basically white label web hosting. You buy hosting from a provider and then resell those services to your clients.

As the reseller, you get to choose the pricing options for your clients. Since you’ll be paying wholesale rates to the provider, then you have the opportunity to make substantial profit margins.

How To know which hosting option is best for your website?

The type of server you choose impacts elements like performance, security, scalability, and management level of your website.

Your decision also depends on the type of website you have and the amount of traffic you get.

For example, a small personal blog with 5,000 monthly visitors have different hosting needs than a large ecommerce site with 250,000 visits per month.

It’s also worth noting that different hosting options are offered at varying price points. So it’s important that you find an option that falls within your budget as well.

I’ve outlined and explained the six different web hosting options below. You can use this information to figure out which hosting type is the best choice for your website.

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