Posted on October 28th, 2009While wading through the ever-expanding list of web hosting companies out there for those looking to place their business online, it can be rather overwhelming when faced with not only which company to choose but also which type of hosting would best fit the needs of one’s business. There are essentially seven types – which one works best depends on the needs of the business.
Free and paid shared hosting
Free and paid shared hosting accounts are the most common type. With free shared hosting one can expect to have advertising – often this can be a bit intrusive. If one is on a tight budget and doesn’t mind possible unrelated or competition advertising, free shared hosting may be the way to go. With both free and paid shared hosting, many different online businesses and entities share one server. The downside to this is the possibility of web sites not being available due to heavy load processes being utilized by one or more sites at the same time. This type of hosting is also known as virtual hosting as more than one domain is hosted on one server and occasionally even on the same ip address.
Dedicated hosting
Dedicated hosting is where a web hosting company allows a client to lease an entire server without needing to share with another client. The advantage to this as compared to shared hosting is having complete control over the server in question. This allows for a great deal of room in as far as what services can be run, software to be installed and also a lot more control over the type of hardware being used.
Co-location hosting
Co-location hosting is similar to dedicated hosting except businesses pay only for the space they require. A lot of the same services apply as in dedicated hosting but instead of being responsible for an entire server, an online business is only required to attend to that specific section where their site resides.
Virtual dedicated server and virtual private server hosting
The final two types of hosting are virtual dedicated and private server hosting. These two are the same thing with just two different names. Web hosting companies offering this service partition a server into multiple instances of servers – giving the appearance of a separate server instance for each client. VPS clients have the run of their own private “server” and can even reboot their virtual server much the same as physical server. VPS accounts run in the same way as a dedicated server account and clients can add in software as needed and control the “server” in the same manner as a dedicated client is able.
Conclusion
What is all comes down to is the needs of the business that is going to be hosted online. If a very small amount of space and not a lot of control is needed, free or paid shared hosting is the way to go. If the business in question is going to need a lot more control but maybe not as much as what is allowed with an entire server, VPS or VDS hosting may apply. Lastly, if the needs of the online business will require quite a lot of control, extreme flexibility and room to expand as needed, a dedicated hosting option should be considered.
nice article , it is helpful for layman .
I would choose cheap webhosting instead of free one.
they are cheap and with quality too. currently i am with shopaserver.com
they are really good people with excellent price and support