Confused by Web Hosting?

If you’re confused by the terminology in web hosting seems a little overwhelming, you’re not alone.  One of the most common questions we get in our sales inbox (after “why are your services so fast?” and “how is your support so awesome?”) is “I need to host a website, but I don’t know which package to choose”.  We’ve all been there.  Even those of us who went on to start our own web hosting company were once puzzled with questions like “how do I know how much bandwidth my site uses” and “what’s this whole cPanel thing”.  So today, we’re going to toss out a primer on the different types of web hosting technologies, and which one is best for you.  Our next blog post will deal with questions on bandwidth and disk space, and we’ll wrap up this series with a look at words like “control panel” and “server management”.  So grind some of your favorite beans, toss ’em in the ol’ French press, and take a gander while we make simplicity out of the madness.

Let’s start with a look at the four major types of web hosting:

• Shared hosting is what most people mean when they say “web hosting”.  It’s the simplest and most economical way to get your site online.  Put simply, your website shared space on a powerful server with many other websites.  We manage most of the behind-the-scenes aspects, such as OS updates and server security.  Price range:  $5 – $15 / month.
• A Dedicated Server is pretty much the opposite of shared hosting.  You get an entire server all to yourself.  It’s perfect for websites or applications that require a lot of power, storage, and bandwidth.  You’re completely responsible for things like OS updates and server security — but if you prefer, we can handle all this for you.  Price range:  $70 – $460 / month.
• Virtual Private Servers (VPS) are the best of both worlds.  You share a dedicated server with a small number of other users.  VPSes are isolated from each other, so that another user can’t use your memory or disk space.  You still have almost total control over the server, but because you’re sharing resources, your cost is a lot lower.  Think of a VPS as carpooling.  Price range:  $10 – $70 / month.
• Cloud Hosting is an up-and-coming technology that will someday replace both VPSes and shared hosting.  Cloud hosting theoretically offers a higher level of reliability.  Unfortunately, since the technology is still new and vendors are still fighting for market share, this doesn’t always happen.  In fact, the industry still hasn’t even agreed on what, exactly, constitutes cloud hosting.

So which one is best for you?  That depends on your needs.  Ten years ago, you’d start with shared hosting, and as your traffic grew, you’d expand to a VPS and eventually a dedicated server.  But thanks to the advent of services like CDNs and applications like Varnish (both of which are included on our shared hosting plans), high-end shared hosting can be more powerful than a VPS.  It’s not that VPSes have gotten weaker; rather, shared hosting has become much, much stronger.

These days, the main reason for upgrading to a VPS is to gain better control over your environment without investing in a dedicated server.  VPSes are also great for non-web tasks such as mailservers and backup solutions.  In fact, we have one client using a VPS to stream his own private “indie radio” to his retail stores.

Of course, a dedicated server remains the best option when you need maximum performance and control.  All of our dedicated servers can be customized to your exact needs.  Go on — try out our custom server builder!

Whether you’re putting up your first photo gallery or deploying a high-availability cluster, we can put together a custom package to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.  Drop us a line and let us know how we can help!

UPDATE:  As of 2014, we’ve upgraded all of our shared hosting servers to use LiteSpeed instead of Apache + Varnish.