Types of hosting that you need to know

In the previous article, we discussed about Hosting and domain name and their functionality.In this article I will explain the types of Hosting,their uses,application and how they differ from each other.

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server owned or leased for use by clients, as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center.

Now to the types of Hosting..

In all there about 17 different types of web hosting services.All of them have their own pros and cons.More or less,the particular type of hosting is based upon the type and requirement of the website or as the administrator wants it to be.

But in general,there are 4 types of web hosting.They are Shared Hosting,Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting,Dedicated Hosting and Cloud Hosting.

While all types of hosting servers will act as a storage centre for your website, they differ in the amount of storage capacity, control, technical knowledge requirement, server speed, and reliability.

Let’s have a look at the main differences between a shared, VPS, dedicated, and cloud hosting.

1. Shared Hosting

Shared web hosting is the most common type of web hosting, and is also the easiest to start out on. Shared hosting is a service where one server is shared between many customers. This typically offers the following advantages and disadvantages:

It’s cheaper – you don’t need to pay for the whole server upfront.
It’s easier to use – the server is preconfigured with the most popular options and your hosting company will take care of any maintenance and security updates for you.
You share the server resources with your neighbors – if one site becomes really busy it may affect (and slow down) all other sites on that server.
It can be less flexible – like living in a shared apartment block your neighbors need to be considered. Similar to exclusions on keeping pets or throwing wild parties (but less fun), you probably won’t be able to block a specific port or modify a core component.
Because shared web hosting is the most common type of web hosting, most hosting companies simply refer to it as web hosting or website hosting.

Disadvantages:

No root access, limited ability to handle high traffic levels or spikes, site performance can be affected by other sites on the same server.

2. Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

Also known as Virtual Dedicated Server.VPS hosting is a type of web hosting that uses Virtual Private Servers. Although the websites are hosted on the same physical machine, VPS allows each website to be fully independent as if each were on its own separate machine.

Somewhere between shared hosting (a lot of people on one server) and dedicated hosting (one account on a server), is Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting. In this model you have your own dedicated server, but the server is a virtual machine, not a physical one.

This provides a mix of the benefits (and disadvantages) of both shared and dedicated hosting plans.

With VPS hosting, you have complete control over the environment, just as you would with a dedicated server. This is especially helpful if you are developing custom applications or are running a SaaS (software-as-as-service) business.

You generally have much more access to server resources with VPS hosting as compared to shared hosting. While the various virtual machines are all sharing server resources, there are usually many fewer of them on a server in a VPS environment. You are alloted a much larger portion of the overall computing power and bandwidth.

There also many fewer security issues. VPS accounts have their IP address, and the virtualization layer means that you are insulated from any problems that might arise from problems on other sites.

Disadvantages:

Limited ability to handle high traffic levels or spikes, your site performance can still be somewhat affected by other sites on the server.

3. Dedicated Server Hosting

With dedicated server hosting, you have complete control over an entire server. This has many advantages, but it is also more expensive and more complicated.

When you have direct and complete access to the server that is running your website, you can install any kind of niche software you like, make changes to the operating system or language interpreters, tweak configuration settings. For certain applications, like running an enterprise management system or building custom software, you need this level of control.

The other major advantage to a dedicated server is that you are the only one consuming server resources. This significantly increases your speed and performance.

Of course, if you are able to do anything you want on your server, you also become responsible for doing pretty much everything that needs to be done. This includes keeping all the software up to date and debugging issues if you accidentally create any weird conflicts or problems.

Dedicated server hosting can be very expensive also. With shared hosting, there might be 100 customers on a single server. With a dedicated server, you are the only one — and the difference in cost reflects that.

Disadvantages:

With great power comes a greater cost. Dedicated servers are very expensive and it’s only recommended to those who need the maximum control and better server performance.

4. Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is essentially a meeting place half way between shared hosting and dedicated hosting, yet has some pretty cool advantages as well. Cloud servers still share the physical server hardware with other cloud servers, but special virtualization technology partitions, or splits-up, the physical hardware so that each cloud server has its own dedicated resources and can be configured almost like a fully dedicated server.

VPS customers still share the physical server hardware with other VPS customers, but special virtualization technology partitions the server so that each partition has its own dedicated resources and can be configured almost like a full dedicated server.

This typically offers the following advantages :

Get the most flexibility – cloud servers provide the most flexible environment available in the hosting sphere.
The cloud adapts to physical hardware problems and puts your site in a reliable location automatically. It also offers a fast and seamless upgrade option for those times when website traffic gets high.

Your website will have dedicated resources – with dedicated bandwidth, CPU and memory. So even though you are sharing server equipment with your neighbors, you are not sharing the resources that you purchased. That way, those high traffic neighbors sharing the same equipment won’t be stealing your server resources when you need them for your business.

Fewer websites occupy the same server – your website will have more resources at its disposal than shared web hosting.

Freedom to configure your server – the virtualization software provides much more freedom to make your server they way you want it; but it also assumes a higher level of technical experience.

Cloud hosting offers unlimited ability to handle high traffic or traffic spikes. Here’s how it works: A team of servers (called a cloud) work together to host a group of websites. This allows multiple computers to work together to handle high traffic levels or spikes for any particular website.

Disadvantages:

Many cloud hosting setup do not offers root access (required to change server settings and install some software), higher cost.

These are the general types of web hosting.Please do share if you found the article useful.

Here is a list on Other Hosting Types.

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2 thoughts on “Types of hosting that you need to know”

Unknown says:

April 5, 2018 at 11:30 am

Nice information shared, nowadays hosting is very much significant so we need to know the important aspects of hosting so that we can easily grab the industry easily.

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Nina Athena says:

December 20, 2018 at 6:53 am

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and knowledge on this topic. This is really helpful and informative, as this gave me more insight to create more ideas and solutions for my plan. I would love to see more updates from you.

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Types of hosting that you need to know