You can publish your website or web application on the Internet with the help of web hosting. It can be compared to your website’s home. You must host your website or web application if you want it to be accessible online. In essence, the host rents space on a server when you purchase a hosting service. You can store the files and data required for your website in that rented space, according to the terms set forth by the service provider.
Types Of Hosting
There are different types of web hosting. Most web hosting service providers offer multiple types of web hosting services with plans to meet the requirements of different clients. In this article, we discuss four of the most common types of web hosting.
- Shared Hosting
- VPS Hosting
- Dedicated Hosting
- Cloud Hosting
Shared Hosting
Like sharing a room with roommates in a house, shared hosting is similar. It is the most popular kind of web hosting and is appropriate for new users, blogs, and small companies. As the name implies, the hosting service will give you access to a server that is shared by the host’s other customers. It denotes the sharing of all resources, including memory, disk space, and processing power. Shared hosting is typically cheap because, in addition to sharing all resources, you also share the server’s expense.
Shared web hosting is ideal for novice users. You can therefore concentrate entirely on developing your website rather than worrying about configuration. Server administration and maintenance are other areas of concern for the hosting provider. One word of caution: since you are sharing server resources with numerous users. Your site may become slower when traffic spikes occur on other websites. Therefore, you should definitely think about using a different hosting strategy if you have a mission-critical website, are getting ready for a major event or PR push, or simply need to make sure your site loads quickly at all times.
VPS Hosting
A better alternative to shared hosting is VPS (Virtual Private Server). While you have your own partition on the server, virtual private servers (VPSs) share a server with other users. It is typically more costly than shared hosting, best suited for medium-sized companies, and a great option for websites needing high performance and dependability.
It is the kind of web hosting service that is most balanced. No website is permitted to use more resources than what is allotted, and all resources are distributed equally. Your site may crash if it uses more resources than it is allowed to, sparing the other sites on the server but not yours. Likewise, your website will not be impacted by spikes in traffic on other websites. Another significant benefit of this setup is that, in contrast to shared hosting, you can customize your server environment. Because it enables customization and grants you root access to the server. Having said that, managing a server and having technical (backend) knowledge are prerequisites for working with VPS hosting.
Dedicated Hosting
As the name suggests, dedicated hosting allows you to rent a whole physical server for your website or web application. A fully dedicated server for a website offers a great deal of flexibility. Your server can be set up to suit your needs. You have complete control over the entire hosting environment, including selecting the operating system and software.
No other website is able to compromise server security or use up server resources because the server is exclusively dedicated to your website. Because of this, dedicated hosting has an advantage over other forms of hosting and is the most dependable and secure choice. It works best for people who require total control over their hardware requirements and resources.
All of this, of course, has a cost. Additionally, one needs possess strong web server technical expertise to set up dedicated hosting correctly; hiring an administrator will increase the cost of the service. You do, however, get what you pay for, as they say.
Cloud Hosting
The newest and most dependable kind of hosting is cloud hosting. Your site’s resources will be replicated across a cluster of cloud servers when you use cloud hosting, as opposed to a single physical server. The traffic to your website will be automatically redirected to another server in the cluster if any of the servers is down or overloaded.
Typically, cloud hosting offers unlimited disk space along with dependable, unmetered bandwidth. Large companies have therefore shifted to cloud hosting. Because your virtual server is a mashup of multiple computers, you can use this option to get the resources you need for your site. As a result, you only pay for the resources that you really utilize. The drawback of this strategy is that expenses can be difficult to estimate as traffic varies.
5 Signs To Upgrade Your Web Hosting
1. Site Performance
Speed and performance of a website are mission critical. These factors will help you achieve better search result ranking and user experience. People expect websites they visit to load in a few seconds, max. If your website is taking time while loading and not performing up to expectations, you might need hosting with better resources. Try loading your site on your mobile device through your phone’s network – if it doesn’t load quickly, you should consider an upgrade.
2. Too Much Traffic On Your Site
An increase in your website’s traffic is certainly good news, but you must be prepared for that spike. Shared hosting is suitable for websites expecting low traffic. If you have a big event coming up or anticipate a news story or your content to go viral, it would be a wise decision to upgrade your hosting.
3. Frequent Slowdowns & Downtime
The importance of websites uptime is obvious. If visitors can’t visit your site the first time they try, they might never try again, and the impression it gives is unprofessional. It’s fair to expect 99.9% of uptime and quick load speeds from your web host. If you’re not getting that, it’s time to upgrade your hosting plan to include better resources and support.
4. Security Issues
The best hosting provider will secure your website as much as possible. However, no hosting platform is 100% secure regardless of the plan you choose. And your site might get attacked by viruses if you don’t take active steps to protect it. Be vigilant when it comes to the security of your site, and always take necessary measures to secure your website against malware and viruses. As your site grows, you can avail yourself of advanced security features offered in non-sharing hosting plans. It’s always a good idea to proactively ask your hosting company and developer about site security.
5. Resources Restricted
As you add more content in your website, your website grows. It generates more user activity and gains traffic. Therefore, you need more disk space and other server resources to run your site smoothly. If you don’t have access to these resources (say on a shared plan), you may have to upgrade.