All websites and internet-based communications begin first and foremost with hosting. Hosting has a number of different variables to consider, and sometimes even developers can get lost when it comes to understanding what hosting really means.
Following, we’ll take a look at some of the most common types of hosting that are used today, from dedicated hosting, to VPS, to shared hosting and cloud solutions.
1. Shared Hosting Solutions
Shared hosting is perhaps the best option for beginners or those with a small budget. It’s very cheap, but it’s not necessarily the best solution for everyone. Shared hosting can be great for development sites, test sites, or websites where uptime doesn’t matter too much. You could get a personal website created for your family, and though it might go down a few times a month, that shouldn’t be a huge issue. Shared hosting is also good for those on a very tight budget, as such it can be perfect for creating websites in countries where otherwise developing your brand would be impossible.
The problem with shared hosting is that the websites on this server will all share the same resources. That means that if one website has a problem or some faulty code, then it could take up a great deal of the server’s memory, leaving the remaining websites to share a smaller amount of memory overall. This often leads to websites crashing and other significant problems, and these issues are often completely unpredictable, which makes them harder to manage.
2. VPS Hosting
VPS hosting is far more powerful than shared hosting. Especially if hosted in the cloud. It stands for virtual private server, and it might be the most popular service that you can upgrade to and one of the most well-balanced ones too. A VPS server is a form of shared environment, but the way that you can share it with others is also very different. For instance, a VPS service is usually limited to around ten or twenty people which helps to limit the stress placed on the system.
VPS is best for people who have a reasonable budget to spend each month – but doesn’t want to go over the top with their hosting expenses. While VPS can get to be costlier over time, it’s often very cheap, and even the lowest tier is far better than a range of different shared hosting systems.
3. Dedicated Hosting
If you want hosting that’s really going to be incredible, and you’re not as worried about budget constraints, then dedicated hosting can be the perfect solution. It eliminates any bad neighbor issues because you’re the only person on a server. Since you get a computer all to yourself, you should be able to customize your hosting solutions extensively, choosing the amount of memory you need, what kind of OS you want to install, and what other hardware elements you might want to use.
Most experts suggest that you definitely need to consider a dedicated server if you have specialized needs when it comes to hardware, or you want to make sure that you get as much control as possible over your data’s privacy.
4. Cloud Hosting
Finally, cloud hosting is basically the same as VPS hosting. Cloud based hosting means that you can use the resources of various servers within a single network, that means that it’s more scalable than a lot of standard networking solutions, and it also provides a host of additional benefits. What’s more, cloud hosting is also considered to be very secure.
While it’s possible to scale your business hosting needs using a VPS system, the amount that you can achieve will always be limited according to the hardware that you are using. However, cloud based systems can be scaled a great deal further, and also have a much higher chance of defending you against DDoS attacks that would rush against your website with several unmanageable requests and cause your server to crash. At present, the best solution to protect against such attacks is to block as much of the requests that you can. Cloud hosting systems are ideal if you want to be able to scale your website as your business grows. They can also be the perfect solution for people who want to be able to access constantly updating hardware and software.
