The most comprehensive testing of web hosting of all time has already taken place. If you are about to choose the hosting for your business, find more reliable tools that resolve this problem on this site. The inspection includes time, security, download speed, technical support, etc. Learn about the best of the best from our article, compare free and paid web hostings to choose your own.
Web hosting: what is it, and how does it work?
Web hosting is a service that provides space on the Internet to store a site or a program on a server. So, what does the whole process looks like? Your users get access to the website after entering the domain name in the browser. Next, the computer connects to the server where your website is hosted.
The #server sends files stored in the repository to your web visitor. In simpler words, your #website becomes visible on the Internet, and then other computers can connect to it through #hosting. Click To TweetHosting is an important part of anything on the Internet, and you have many choices. So as not to scare you, we have prepared material comparing free and paid web hosting.
Shared hosting
Shared hosting is an arrangement of several websites stored on one server. These are paid resources, and the access is updated every month. The principle lies in its name – you share a server with other users.
Shared hosting resources:
- RAM (Random Access Memory)
- CPU (central processing unit)
- 10 GB of memory
- The bandwidth of 10 Mbps.
This is the cheapest type of hosting and is the most popular option for small business sites, personal blogs, and startups. It costs from $0.99 to $6 a month. Convenient for beginners, shared hosting providers also offer a free domain name, an integrated website designer, security scanning, etc.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting
This is an upgraded version of a shared hosting plan. You can share the physical space of the server with other site owners, but your site is also on independent virtual “real estate.” You get private access to RAM, bandwidth, CPU while not sharing these resources with others. The VPS costs an average of $10 to $60 a month. Best for small and medium business websites and high content sites.
Your server is not a physical machine but a virtual one. Hosting is configured with limited elasticity, providing a temporary increase in disk space and bandwidth for traffic processing. VPS hosting has more settings and scalability than the shared one and requires active maintenance and configurations.
The Virtual Private Server option is reliable and affordable hosting with dedicated server space, root access, and the ability to install any software. The only thing that may cause additional expenses is that you have to fix software and adjust the server performance by yourself.
Managed hosting
Managed hosting is a subset of available solutions where a managed service provider (MSP) provides a plan, infrastructure support, and sometimes equipment management and maintenance.
Managed web hosting includes:
- Managed cloud hosting
- Managed Air Force hosting
- Managed local data center
- Managed shared hosting
What are the features of managed web hosting?
- Providing standard settings for all hosted web applications
- Consolidation of obsolete service resources
- Expansion of the local data center
- Reducing delays in certain regions
- Enabling data backup
- Information recovery plans
- Almost round-the-clock customer support
This option should be considered when you want to get a modern environment.
Managed VPS hosting
For $30-80 per month, “housekeeping” is provided – monitoring of proper configuration, upgrades, and maintenance. Hosting is a system administrator that may be an alternative to keeping IT staff on the payroll. Best for growing your online business without a permanent staff to save some money for company development.
Managed WordPress hosting
WordPress is the most popular content management system, a website platform for new business owners. This is a solution for maintaining your website with minimum effort to keep it up-to-date. It’s both attractive for users and effective. When you choose managed WordPress hosting, you will be charged $15-60 a month.
Main characteristics:
- High site download speed
- Higher performance compared to other hosting services
- Backup copies of sites
- Regular updates of plug-ins
- Security fixes
- Version upgrade
This option is suitable for beginners, small business owners, entrepreneurs. When it comes to blog security in WordPress, you need to be prepared. Check the reset and recovery settings, install a proven antivirus, get an SSL certificate, use two-factor authentication. These things seem quite simple to implement, but people forget to take care of them in advance. Start with the basics to make your site bulletproof.
Dedicated hosting
This type of hosting provides exclusive rights to rent a web server. This helps to fully control the environment and avoid people with whom you need to share something. The program is also paid and costs between $70 and $130 per month. This is the most expensive type of hosting, suitable for high-traffic sites, applications with confidential data, e-commerce sites.
The host owner installs the operating system (such as Windows), adds tools to run operations, and builds a security perimeter to protect your infrastructure. If you have an IT team, then this kind of hosting is an inconvenient solution. This type of hosting is suitable for mature sites with consistently high traffic. Additional capacity is available at an additional cost.
Colocation
This is an alternative to managing your own data center or renting a dedicated server. This strategy helps entrepreneurs to reduce the size of their data center expenses. However, the price is still high, and you’ll have to hire personnel to service the premises.
Colocation is not a viable hosting option for most small businesses. However, when you own more than one server, you can stick to it. Colocation services cost from $45 to $300 a month. Compared to local data centers, collocation has lower hosting costs.
Conclusion
Web hosting should be set up for self-hosted sites. You choose what determines your ability to handle traffic and provide fast usage to visitors.