Before we get into the details of choosing the type of web Hosting that matches your need, let us first try to understand what is meant by the term ‘web hosting’. To put it in simple terms, the web browser has downloaded your HTML files, and converted them into viewable pages for you, as you see them on a website. So, for e.g., you store your files in your hard drive and access them. Similarly, when it comes to a website, HTML files are stored in another computer called ‘Server’, which is more powerful than your computer. This server has the capability of managing many clients and people trying to simultaneously access a website. The owner of this server rents a portion of it out to the client (in this case, yourself) who owns the site. The process of providing this type of service to clients is called web hosting, and the company that does this is called the hosting service provider.

There are various types of web hosting that are available for different purposes. What you want to ensure is to select the best low cost web hosting provider that matches your needs and affordability. Let us look in more detail on how you can decide the best type of web hosting to publish and manage your site, as each has its own features, varying technology used, cost, management level, performance, security, and scalability.

• Shared hosting

This is the ideal type of hosting service if you have just created a new website or have financial limitations. It is exactly like sharing the server amongst hundreds or even thousands of other sites. This number varies between service providers. So, you will get a small amount of space in the server amongst the others.

The advantage of using type is that you will be able to share the cost of the server with so many other website owners. So, what happens here is that the affordable web hosting company puts all the clients in one server, allowing them to share the operating cost amongst them. This is why this type of hosting is the cheapest. Another plus point with this is that you don’t have to worry about the setup or configuration as these are taken care of, and you can focus just on building the site.

The downside of using this type of hosting service is quite obvious. Imagine sharing a space with so many others, that includes finite resources such as hard drive space, CPU speed, RAM, etc. You might have gone through the frustration when your computer hangs when you run multiple programs simultaneously. Similarly, a server can get jammed when they are handling too many websites. The problem can worsen if one particular site is taking up all the processing power owing to increased demand or erroneous code. This leads to increased competition amongst the others for the remaining resources, which can cause downtime and reduced loading speed, and therefore higher bounce rate.

• VPS Hosting

VPS is an acronym for Virtual Private Server. This is also a shared environment, but it is very different from Shared Hosting. The gist of this infrastructure is that there is a sort of middle area between shared hosting and having a server of your own. This means, although VPS has a server that is shared, it also has multiple virtual machines separately.

The pros of using this hosting are that it is definitely more reliable, scalable, flexible and more stable than shared hosting. Instead of hosting hundreds or thousands of websites in a server, this hosts only ten to twenty sites in a server, reducing the demand for resources. A huge advantage is that you can also customize your environment without affecting the other accounts as it is contained within a virtual machine. All the resources are evenly distributed, and no site can exceed the limits. If the site exceeds the limits, it can lead to loading or downtime problems. This type of setup is usually used by businesses that expect their sites to grow fast and those who are getting good amounts of traffic to their site.

The cons of VPS hosting is the cost. It is more expensive than shared hosting. Also, it involves a whole deal of responsibility to manage this setup, as you can end up deleting important files unknowingly. So, you need popular web hosting providers to support you with this type of setup. However, be sure to check the setup fees, CPU power, RAM, memory, bandwidth, storage space, etc. when you are choosing the provider.

• Dedicated Hosting

As the name suggests, you have your own server for your website.

The gain here is that you don’t have to deal with sharing your space with any other sites and voids any security issues arising from it. All the resources are for your site’s use. You can customize it to your needs, such as choosing the type of OS, memory and other hardware elements, providing you with the flexibility you need.

The cons here are more. It is quite expensive, and you need to be technically well knowledgeable as you might have to often do the security scanning, malware removal, OS installation, run the server. So, basically, you have to manage your own server, unless you are prepared to higher an administrator. If the hardware fails, your site will be down. It can take longer if you are managing the server yourself.

This type of server is not used much and is declining and may not be the ideal hosting setup to go for if you are in the lookout for some of the cheapest web hosting service provider.

• Cloud hosting

This is similar to VPS, but the major difference is that your website is part of a whole network of computers from which it can use resources. This is the future of web hosting and is gaining a lot of popularity these days.

The advantage here is that this is highly scalable as it combines several computers into a virtual server. So, you can use how much ever resource your site needs. So, you are only billed for the resource you end up using. This is a highly secure setup and can counter DDoS attacks.

The downside is that the costs cannot be always predictable. It depends on the amount of traffic your site experiences. So, the cost can go up simultaneously.

So, which do you think is the cheap and best web hosting service for your business needs?

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