Selecting a web hosting for your website can be quite confusing, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the different types of web hosting that are available.
This article will outline the basic differences between all the different types of web hosting that are available on the market.
When you have read this article, you should (hopefully 😉 ) be in a position to recognize the different hosting kinds, and also, you can easily choose which is the best web hosting service for your website.
Table of Contents
Different Types of Web Hosting
1. Free Web Hosting
Web hosting for free is a fantastic alternative for developing your very first website.
A free web hosting service offers the ideal environment for those who aren’t experienced in web designing or web development.
Free web hosting services are offered by various web hosting companies with limited features. Moreover, such types of web hosting plans are mostly ads-supported.
Free web hosting plans usually consists of a subdomain (example:- yoursite.webhostingcompany.com) or a directory (example:- www.webhostingcompany.com/yoursite).
The majority of hosting companies utilize free hosting to showcase their products, and also as an entry point into their more costly services. They typically recoup their costs through referrals, advertising, etc.
However, some web hosting service companies allow the use of purchased or premium domains.
2. Reseller Web Hosting
Reseller hosting is a type of web hosting, where the owner of the account can use the allotted space on his account (hard disk and network bandwidth) in order to host sites for third-party clients.
The reseller purchases hosting services wholesale, and later sell them to clients for profit. A specific portion of the bandwidth and hard drives are assigned on behalf of the reseller. The reseller can lease an individual server with a hosting provider or sell hosting services that are shared.
In the second case, the reseller is granted the right to offer a certain amount of bandwidth and disk space to his customers, but without acquiring an account with a hosting provider he has registered for an account as a reseller.
Reseller hosting can be an affordable way for entrepreneurs who run web hosting to establish a business.
Many resellers hosting plans allow resellers to design their own service plans and select an individual pricing plan. In many instances, resellers can design their own branding using custom control panels and name servers.
3. Shared Web Hosting
In shared web hosting, as the name implies, you will be sharing your hosting server with various other web hosting users. In simple terms, your site will be located on the exact same hosting server with numerous other websites, ranging between a few or even thousands. Most often, all domains have a common resource pool on the server, including RAM and CPU.
Each website “resides” on its own area or partition on the server, to ensure it is distinct from other websites.
This is usually the most cost-effective method of hosting since many users share the cost of maintenance for their servers.
Shared hosting on the web is possible by using two methods either IP-based or name-based, though some control panels will allow the mixing of IP-based and name-based hosting on a single server.
The benefits of shared web hosting come at the beginning of your blog/website when your budget is smaller. In the starting phase, you can create a website using Shared Hosting and upscale your hosting plans as you move along.
4. Dedicated Web Hosting
Dedicated hosting also known as managed hosting or dedicated server is a kind of web hosting where the user opts for a complete server exclusively allocated for a single user, that is a server that is not shared with any other user.
Such types of web hosting are much more flexible than shared hosting since organizations are in complete control over their server(s) with regard to the choice of an operating system, hardware, allocated bandwidth, and so on.
Server administration is usually offered by the hosting provider as an additional service.
In some instances, dedicated servers can provide lower costs and a greater ROI.
The majority of dedicated servers are situated in data centers spread all over the globe, ensuring higher speed for users from all countries.
Benefits of dedicated hosting – As we have mentioned above dedicated hosting can also handle higher volumes of traffic. Technical errors that are apparent to users of the shared hosting are not apparent with dedicated hosting users.
5. VPS Hosting
Virtual private servers, also known as VPS Hosting, are a way to partition a physical server into multiple servers so that each server has the appearance and capabilities it would on its own machine.
Virtual private servers bridge the gap between dedicated and shared hosting services. They offer software independence but are less expensive than dedicated servers. Customers can access the VPS’s operating system instance from their superuser level and install any software compatible with it.
A VPS is a virtual server that allows you to deploy any software you need or continue your e-business growth. This is not possible with shared hosting plans, which restrict you to software options provided by the hosting company. You also have a limited number of checkouts and other software that you can use.
This type of web hosting service is a mix of shared and dedicated hosting. VPS hosting allows you to divide a server into multiple virtual servers.
Virtual servers are provided to host a website. Only the right is granted. This website has more computing power, bandwidth, and space than shared hosting. Page load times are much faster with VPS hosting.
VPS hosting is superior to shared hosting but not as good as dedicated hosting. VPS hosting is limited in traffic. This is because dedicated hosting allows for almost unlimited traffic.
VPS Hosting Benefits – VPS hosting offers many times more power and efficiency than shared hosting. Independent reboot option and own operating system.
VPS hosting is available to help you with technical issues that arise from increased website traffic. You can also connect VPS hosting to your website, except for shared hosting.
6. Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting allows customers to have powerful, reliable, and scalable hosting. It is built on clustered load-balanced servers with utility billing. Customers can pay only for what they actually use, rather than what they could.
VPS hosting and dedicated hosting have storage and capacity limit. Many websites don’t reach this limit.
However, a sudden increase in traffic from highly targeted keywords can cause you to lose traffic. Cloud Hosting is the best choice in such a situation when you are expecting high traffic.
Cloud Hosting hosts your website on many servers, rather than just one.
Cloud Hosting Benefits – One of the best things about cloud hosting is that it allows you to increase your disk space and memory according to your needs.
It is also great for website owners who experience traffic spikes from time to time.
7. Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed WordPress Hosting means that you can outsource the management and administration of your WordPress site to your hosting company or a specialized agency.
This type of hosting may be called special, because it may have been optimized to WordPress or use special tools that will improve the WordPress experience.
Many “managed” hosting companies offer services that are specifically tailored for WordPress. These include Caching Tools and Web Application Firewalls, Version Control Tools, Version-Control Tools and Content Delivery networks (CDN), routing, Staging Areas, and many other categories.
However, they can manage their data remotely via FTP and other management tools. To ensure quality service, the provider does not allow the user full control. This is to prevent the user from modifying the server or creating configuration problems.
Conclusion
By going through the above article you must have a clear idea of different types of web hosting.
After choosing the type of web hosting, if your next concern is about web hosting service companies and the best web hosting services you can check out our article – Best Web Hosting.
