What Hosting Package Do I Need?
There are lots and lots of option available for your hosting needs: free web hosting, shared hosting, dedicated server, etc etc.. Each one provides you with the same result: making your website available for thwe world to see and (hopefully) enjoy. If they all result in the same thing, what’s the difference then?
Free Web Hosting
What’s better than free? Everyone likes free.
Free web hosting is perfect for hosting a personal website or to create a homepage to use. Free hosting does have its drawbacks, though, and often these include the lack of features, security, customer support, and sometimes integrated advertising. This advertising is how free hosters can afford to provide their service. Obviously, this advertising is not something you want on a commercial site for your business or for your aspirations to be a powerful web presence.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is exactly as it sounds: you occupy a small corner of a larger space with dozens or hundreds of other tenants. Since you are sharing space on a single server this certainly helps to alleviate the cost of trying to pay for the entire server by yourself. With value, though, comes its own unique issues.
Shared hosting means that you benefit from spreading the cost of the server between yourself and all your neighbours but that also means you are subject to their issues affecting your hosting account. If one of your neighbours make a scripting error your service can suffer. If one of your neighbours suddenly becomes the next Google or Facebook your site could slow down significantly as your neighbour suddenly becomes exceptionally popular and attracts more attention than normal.
Dedicated Hosting
When your site takes off and your needs expand you might find it time to move to a dedicated hosting account instead of shared hosting. This means that the power of a single server originally intended to provide space for a hundred or two hundred websites is now just for you. With this comes the added responsibility of directly managing the server that were before handled by a team of technical staff. If you don’t have any experience managing this level of control you can get by with managed hosting. Managed hosting is overseen by your hosting provider so that you can focus on what you’re good at rather than having to learn something new. Managed hosting, though, is more expensive than dedicated hosting but a good option for most people.
What is the Best Hosting For You?
In summary the best advice we have for you is to do your research to find what is best suited for you. Free services are meant for personal sites, shared hosting is the most common and best suited for small business, dedicated servers are meant for large scale server needs. A good knowledge and analysis of what your site needs will help you to figure out what hosting package is right for you.
Most people, though, don’t know what they need. Sometimes its best to reach out to the hosting company you want to go with and ask their sales people what you need. Most want to make sure you get waht you need so don’t hesitate to ask the question: what hosting package do I need?
