What type of hosting should I use?
Selecting the right type of web hosting is an important decision that everyone setting up a website has to ask themselves. The good news is that it's actually a pretty easy question to answer. TheWebsiteFriend.com is going to go over the different types of web hosting and what their benefits are and who will want to use them to make it easy for you to decide what type of hosting is right for you.
Which type of hosting is right for me?
There are 4 main types of website hosting with different variations of those depending on the hosting provider you select.
- #1) Shared Hosting aka Virtual Hosting
- #2) VPS Hosting or Virtual Private Server Hosting
- #3) Dedicated Server Hosting
- #4) Reseller Hosting
Here is a detailed breakdown of the 4 different types of web hosting listed above... Who should use them and why?
Shared Hosting aka Virtual Hosting can be considered "regular hosting" in that it's the type of hosting that will best meet the needs of the vast majority of people. It's affordable, feature-packed, easy to manage and a great place to start if you are new to building website or if you have a new website that you are putting online. Shared or Virtual hosting is a great place to start as it's extremely easy to upgrade from this type of hosting to one of the other types.VPS Hosting also called a Virtual Private Server is considered the next step up from Shared or Virtual Hosting. A VPS (also called a VDS) would best meet the needs of those who are looking for the affordability of Shared/Virtual hosting but the reliability and security that goes with having a Dedicated server. TheWebsiteFriend.com recommends a VPS or VDS for ecommerce or online store websites that are starting out since a VPS/VDS will provide you with the security you will need in order to perform secure financial transactions right on your website (storing Credit Card information in a database, etc). This is the best type of hosting for a business website if you plan on storing your customers sensitive info within the website. VPS/VDS hosting is also good for anyone who uses their website for mission critical needs and can not handle any downtime, missed emails, given that you are also willing to pay extra for this feature. VPS/VDS hosting is more expensive than Shared/Virtual hosting but it is also more reliable and secure as well as flexible since you have complete control of your entire hosting environment with VPS/VDS hosting where a shared account is managed for you by the hosting company.
Dedicated Server Hosting is the ultimate in hosting. This is the type of web hosting all the big businesses that you know and love use. This type of hosting is best suited for large and successful business websites that can afford the extra cost associated with a dedicated server. A Dedicated server is extremely powerful, reliable, secure, and flexible. It's everything a Virtual Dedicated Server is and more but it also costs on average 10 or 15 times more than shared hosting, and 2 to 4 times more than a Virtual Private Server (VPS/VDS).
Reseller Hosting is a type of website hosting which is where you get a large shared or virtual hosting account with extra features. These extra features allow you to host many different accounts while paying for only one larger sized account. The benefit of this is that you can host other peoples websites for a fee and make a profit. This type of website hosting is generally only used by individuals looking to sell website hosting accounts for a profit. However, some people use a reseller hosting account just so they can host multiple websites of their own at an affordable fee (it's less expensive to buy one large reseller account than it would be to buy many small regular Shared/Virtual Hosting Accounts. Reseller hosting is basically the same as any other Shared Hosting or Virtual Hosting website hosting account just with more resources and the abiliity to create additional sub-accounts within them.
If you have any questions about what type of hosting is right for your particular needs please feel free to email us via our contact page and provide us some details on what type of website you are going to be hosting and what type of features you'd be looking for. TheWebsiteFriend.com will write back with an informed opinion for you as to what type of website hosting will best meet your needs.