What is web hosting? To explain it, I first have to tell you what a server is.
A server is a very powerful computer, probably 10 times or even 100 times more powerful than what you have at home.
To set up a blog or website, you need somewhere online to place it so that people across the globe can reach it. Your website or blog will sit on servers, probably somewhere overseas. From these servers, thanks to their powerful hardware, people from anywhere in the world will be able to access your site. These servers are owned by companies that provide the service of storing your site. We generally call these companies hosts, or web hosts. Think of it like inviting your loved ones and strangers to your party: you are the host of the party. Web hosting, then, is the business of providing storage space for website assets and access to those assets from anywhere in the world.
Free Web Hosting
Free web hosting is where a web hosting company lets you create web pages inside their own website. That means the address to your site will read something like “yoursite.freehostingcompany.com” instead of “yoursite.com”. From the outside, it may look like you have your own site, but you are really piggybacking on the host’s existing site. It still helps, because you get somewhere to put your site and anyone in the world can reach it as long as they have the link.
The drawbacks of free web hosting are that its resources are usually limited, your site may be flooded with irrelevant ads, and you will have very little control over what happens to it. Your site could be terminated without cause or notice, and it may sometimes be slow or go offline, with no say from you in the matter.
Shared Hosting
By now you know that online, your website lives on some server somewhere in the world. With shared hosting, you get your own site, your own domain, and some say over what happens to it. The catch is that you share a server with various other websites. Remember that servers are usually far more powerful than the average desktop at home. They hold hardware resources that a single simple website cannot use up. So it is common for one server to host many websites, up to the capacity of its hardware.
Shared hosting is much better than free web hosting because you get access to more hardware resources and some say over the quality of service. The companies offering shared hosting tend to be more responsible than those offering free hosting. The main drawback is that since many sites share the same server, if one site has problems or the server is affected in any way, all the sites on it are likely to suffer too. If you want something better, consider VPS hosting.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
VPS hosting is much like shared hosting, but with one big difference: each website on the server gets its own dedicated resources. So if one site has a problem, it will not affect the other sites on the same server. VPS hosting uses virtual machines. A virtual machine is like a whole server in itself, with its own RAM, processor, and hard disk space. With shared hosting, a single server can host up to 5000 sites, which can badly hurt the server’s performance. With VPS hosting, a single machine hosts around 20 sites. On the same server, that means far more resources are available to each site. Virtual machines run independently within the main host, the main server. Whatever happens in one virtual machine is never felt by the others. That makes VPS hosting more reliable, secure, and stable than shared hosting.
The main drawback of VPS hosting is that you are still limited to the resources allocated to the virtual machine hosting your site. If there is room to add more resources to your virtual machine, you can discuss it with the company in charge. Otherwise, VPS hosting is a good choice if your site handles sensitive data or gets a fair amount of traffic.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is similar to VPS hosting, but the better part is that instead of your site sitting in a virtual machine, it sits on a whole server dedicated to it. Yes, all that power I keep mentioning that servers have will belong to just one website: yours. You can already imagine the kind of resources at your disposal. You can accomplish a lot with that much power in your hands.
Dedicated hosting is ideal if your site will handle a lot of traffic, will deal with sensitive data, and if you can afford this kind of resource.
Colocation Hosting
This is where you buy your own server, take it to a data center like one of those web hosting companies, and have them set things up for you. The company has to be one that offers colocation services. Once they set up your server within their network and give you an IP address, you are good to go. You use their bandwidth, but the server you use is your own.
This kind of web hosting can be a bit demanding on your side. If the company you pick offers services that include taking care of your server, you will be fine. But if they do not, or if you choose otherwise, you are the one responsible for anything that happens to your server.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is like dedicated hosting, with the difference that the resource potential is far greater than anything you can reach with dedicated hosting. Cloud hosting combines many hardware resources to provide web hosting to clients. The amount of resources that can go to one site is much greater than with dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting is a single server, but cloud hosting brings hundreds of resources together. The resource capability of cloud hosting has no real ceiling.
This is one of the most reliable and convenient forms of web hosting available.
Self-Service Hosting
It is as simple as this: buy your own server and host your own website from home, or wherever you like. The point is that you are in charge. Every resource you use is your own. No one tells you what you can and cannot do. But since you are in charge, you are also the one to blame when things go wrong. If the power fails, your site goes down. If the server has issues, your site goes down. If you get hacked, you know the drill.
These are the major types of web hosting. You are now informed and in a position to work out which one best suits you.
