What type of web hosting do I need?
The best answer is asking yourself a couple of questions:
- what kind of website do I want? Is it going to be a static website with information about your own company, a blog dedicated to your favourite hobby, a well on track webshop with lot of customers per day or a new business opportunity?
- How are my IT competencies? Am I a beginner, a proficient user or anything in between?
These two questions can guide you to different kind of services and related web hosting types. The following list is covering the most common options:
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Shared hosting (for beginners/blogs/small businesses, economical solution)
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Dedicated hosting (for proficient users/big websites/complex business, expensive solution)
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VPS hosting (a mid way of the previous two, economical solution)
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Managed hosting (for specific Content Management Systems like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal)
Before introducing these four hosting services, just imagine to rent a holiday house and go through the different possibilities.
Shared hosting
With “shared hosting” you are going to share the holiday house with somebody chosen by the landlord. It is the budget option: you will pay 10/15 euros a month but you will depend on someone else’s behaviour. The webhoster will be putting one single server in share with up to 1k people and this might slow your website down in any time. Still it is a good choice for those who want to test a new activity, to have a blog or an information website at laughable prices.
This might be your first step in case of a start up activity: it will be easy to upgrate afterwards in case of a succesful business.
Dedicated hosting
If you have proficient IT competencies or an ongoing activity, the “dedicate hosting” will allow you to have one server at your complete disposal. You will rent your holiday house for yourself and your family only. This choice allows fully customized and flexible settings, faster performances and a higher level of security.
Dedicated hosting is therefore the most reliable service thanks to the exclusive relationship between the webhoster and the owner of the website.
VPS hosting
With a “Virtual Private Server Hosting” you will choose a flat inside a holiday condominium. Technically speaking, you will be sharing the same server with other 10-20 websites but the server itself will be divided into multiple “virtual” private servers. That means you will have a total administrative control over the VPS software (IT competencies will be required) without any of the hardware and maintenance costs that “dedicate hosting” requires. You will keep your costs down and still have freedom to customise your service.
This option is ideal for website owners with some IT knowelegde who want to low-cost advantages of a “shared hosting” service plus the flexibility of a dedicated one.
Managed hosting
Let’s say you want a holiday house for yourself but you don’t have enough knowledge of the surroundings: you should then go for a “managed hosting” service and the hosting provider will offer a day-to-day maintenance and support. It’s like having a camp counselor, if you need suggestions or run into trouble, you will ask his help and advice.
He might also lease you a Content Management System (CMS) like, for example, WordPress: this is one of the most common website platforms and it will help you out with an easy interface, detailed statistics and flexible templates ready to use
