Popular Types of Hosting Services
How do websites remain accessible to visitors at any time of the day or night? This is where hosting services come in handy. However, since not all hosting services are the same, it is important to know your options to choose the right one for your needs and of course, your budget.
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Cloud Hosting
With cloud hosting, your website is hosted on a computer network. Here, every time a server goes offline, the visitors will be simply directed to a different server on the cloud network.
There are many benefits associated with having your website on the cloud. It allows your site to be cached on various servers across the world, allowing it to load much faster for your international visitors.
Cloud hosting also supports easy scaling of websites. Once your site takes off, you can simply buy more storage space and traffic with no need to bother with new hardware installation or moving servers.
This type of hosting is most suitable for large-scale sites although more and more web hosting companies are starting to this type. It further lowers the price of the service, making it more accessible and affordable even for smaller creative-based websites.
Dedicated Server Hosting
You should opt for dedicated server hosting if you want to have a physical web server all to yourself. You won’t have to share any resources with others so you will be in full control of the server, not to mention that your website would also perform better.
However, dedicated servers are pricier, making them highly recommended for companies that require highly customized setups or super-fast loading speeds.
Managed Hosting
With managed hosting plans, the hosting provider will handle most of the everyday maintenance tasks of running your site on your behalf. They will check for security leaks, perform software updates, make backups, and ensure the smooth running and performance of your website in general.
You are basically on your own if you don’t have managed hosting. However, reliable web hosting companies provide their users with a reasonable level of technical assistance and support.
WordPress hosting is one of the most popular types of managed hosting. Here, the web hosting company will handle all the daily maintenance of WordPress sites. There are also instances where the host also helps set up plugins and themes.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the most common and affordable form of hosting. Based on its name, your website will be hosted on a server shared with others. Everyone on the server will share the network bandwidth, CPU, hard drives, and memory.
But while it keeps the costs down, your site might suffer from performance problems if there is a massive traffic spike on another website sharing the server. Shared hosting from reputable web hosts provides more than enough stability and performance for websites with less than 20,000 visits a month.
VPS Website Hosting
Virtual Private Server or VPD hosting resembles shared web hosting in the sense that several websites are stored on a single hardware. But the difference is that you will get your specific amount of server resources that others cannot touch or use. Traffic spikes on other sites won’t affect your site, allowing you to scale up your plans easily.