4 Popular Types Of Website Hosting

Thinking about launching a website or upgrading your web hosting plan but don’t know what web hosting plan you should choose? Well, here are four web hosting plans you should consider.

Managed Hosting

One way to categorize the different types of web hosting is by focusing on who gets to manage it, is it the web hosting provider or the website owner? Your web hosting is managed when your web hosting provider provides all the tools and software needed to run your server, as well as maintenance and upgrades. You will be provided with the server OS, control panel, RAM, hard drive, CPU, CMS, etc. All you need to do is click and install some software that was not already installed, e.g. email module and hundreds of other modules required for your website.
The benefit of managed hosting is that you don’t have to monitor your server or your website. Your hosting provider will also carry out security sweeps regularly, and general maintenance of your server.
The opposite of managed hosting is unmanaged hosting; in this case, you get to do everything by yourself, the hosting provider will only provide you with the server.

Shared Hosting

This is the website hosting option most startup owners start with because it is the cheapest. Shared hosting is the provision of web hosting solution by using just one server for multiple websites (hundreds to thousands). You share the same web hosting resources with other multiple websites which can make it as cheap as $4 per month. It is a managed web hosting, the website owners don’t have to do anything but pay for monthly subscription.
The major downside of shared hosting is that if one website gets heavy traffic, it can affect all the other websites on the server. This can lead to ”error in loading”, slow loading and even downtime. Secondly, there’s no room for website owners to make individual decisions on shared hosting because whatever you ask for will affect other websites – you can’t ask to make an upgrade for your website.
In any case, it is still the best for new websites that don’t get heavy traffic.

Virtual Private Server (VPS)

This is like shared hosting but much better for websites with more traffic or/and more tasking needs. It is the provision of web hosting solution by using multiple virtual machines on a server. The hosting resources are shared equally for the websites which are usually within 10 – 20 in number. VPS is a managed web hosting because the web hosting provider maintains it.
VPS is more scalable and flexible because, although, all the websites are on the same server space, each website has its own allotted resources. That means it doesn’t have the ”bad neighbor” problem that comes with using shared hosting. If one website on a VPS is having technical issues or spiked traffic, only the specific website will be affected. VPS also allows website owners to upgrade their resources anytime they want to or install software on their allotted resources without affecting the other websites on the server.
The major disadvantage of VPS is the cost, which usually starts from $30 per month.

Dedicated Server Hosting

This is a web hosting plan that entails renting a whole server for your website, suitable for websites with high traffic. It allows for scalability and flexibility up to an impressive extent, in the sense that you have all the resources on the server to yourself. You also get the freedom to decide the kind of OS, as well as other resources such as the RAM capacity you want for the server. Dedicated server hosting is good for its high performance, speed and uptime which is usually in the range of 99.94%.
Hosting a website on a dedicated server is quite costly, starting from $100 per month, but it is worth the cost, given that this is a plan favored by businesses that make a lot of revenue. Another challenge that comes with hosting a website on a dedicated server is that it often falls in the category of unmanaged hosting. Web hosting providers usually leave the running and maintenance of dedicated servers to website owners, so you need to have some knowledge of how to run and manage a dedicated server. However, you can hire an expert in the field to do that for you, although this will increase the cost of using this web hosting.

In conclusion,
Before you choose a web hosting plan, ensure that you understand the expected needs of your website. You can consult us or any other web hosting provider to review your website plan to tell you which web hosting is best suited for your website.