Web Hosting is the service providing space on the Internet for websites.

A Web Hosting Service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web.

Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server owned or leased for use by clients.

Types of Web Hosting

As technology has progressed different types of web hosting have appeared to meet the different needs of websites and customers:

1. Shared Web Hosting
2. Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
3. Dedicated Hosting

Shared Web Hosting

Shared web hosting is the most common type of web hosting, and is also the easiest to start out on. Shared hosting is a service where one server is shared between many customers.

Advantages of Shared Web Hosting

1. Shared hosting plans comes much cheaper compared to dedicated hosting and VPS
2. The administration and maintenance of the server is taken cared of by the hosting provider which means that you don’t need to concern yourself with technical issues of the server.
3. You get to be provided with a cPanel or other user-friendly application that are designed to make website management easy.
4. You get multiple email accounts at your own domain as well as the option to have more than one database.
5. You get MySQL and PHP support.

Disadvantages of Shared Web Hosting

Despite the number of advantages that shared hosting plans bring to their clients, it also has its share of disadvantages. These are the common disadvantages of shared hosting plans:

1. The biggest disadvantage of shared hosting is the security issues that the server faces.
2. You may experience resource limitation as everybody else in the network uses the same CPU, memory and hard drive.
3. The customer support may not be as good as those of dedicated plans.
4. Because of security policy, some available port and connections may be limited.
5. Loading speed of the website is at stake.

Because shared web hosting is the most common type of web hosting, most hosting companies simply refer to it as web hosting or website hosting. Shared web hosting comes with the most preferred operating system: Linux website hosting.

Virtual Private Server (VPS)  Hosting

Virtual Private Server (VPS) is sold as a virtual machine by Internet Hosting Service. A VPS is an affordable method of web hosting wherein you can run your own copy of operating system and users can install any software compatible with Operating system. It works on the similar concept of dedicated server but as opposed to physical server it is software based. If you compare the operability of VPS and dedicated server, VPS will always have an upper hand because it is easily configured and created. VPS generally shares the hardware with other VPS thus reducing the speed of hosting.

Features of Virtual Private Server (VPS)

The key features of Virtual Private Server are as follows:

1. Shared CPU

• As stated above, unlike shared web hosting VPS works on the concept of shared CPU.

2. Dedicated RAM and disk space

• This is the feature which makes VPS hosting stand in between dedicated hosting and shared hosting
• You can have dedicated space on the server along with RAM.

3. Customization is allowed at the server level

• Customization is allowed at the server level due to the fact that the RAM and disk space is not shared. Customization surely will attribute to more space on the server, but in VPS this is not the case

4. Pre-installation of software at server level is provided but it usually varies

• Pre- installation of any software you need varies with the service provider.

5. Technical support varies with different providers

• Technical support offered will also vary depending upon the features offered in the VPS hosting plan.

Disadvantages

Many cloud hosting setup do not offers root access (required to change server settings and install some software), higher cost.

Dedicated Hosting

A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc.

Using a dedicated hosting service offers the benefits of high performance, security, email stability, and control. Due to the relatively high price of dedicated hosting, it is mostly used by websites that receive a large volume of traffic.

Disadvantages

With great power comes… well, greater cost. Dedicated servers are very expensive and it’s only recommended to those who need the maximum control and better server performance.

Five Precautions To Be Taken For Web Hosting

1. Reliability:Before going for any web hosting service, you should find evidences of its reliability, which means finding its testimonials
2. Security Strength:Smaller businesses require better security for their websites. This is because of two reasons. First is that it builds credibility and second is it keeps their data secure.
3.Estimate the Space:Before buying any hosting, you need to estimate how much data you would need to build your website on. Just calculate the space consumed by videos, photos, documents and other such files.
4. Value Vs. Price: Consider buying a valuable hosting for your website because if your site went down for days and couldn’t bear much traffic load then, you would loose your customers.
5. Test Customer Support:After you buy a hosting, you sometimes need to have 24/7 support from them. If customer support doesn’t satisfy you before buying, then leave the idea of buying hosting from that company.