What are Shared, Dedicated and Virtual Hosting?

There are many types of hosting accounts, so you need to put the research in to find the most suitable for your needs. You may need business web hosting or simply planning on getting a small hobby site up and running for something to concentrate on in your spare time, either way you can be sure to find the perfect package that will meet your requirements.

The main decision you will have to make is if you want shared hosting or dedicated hosting, many people will begin on shared hosting until they find their feet and their website becomes more popular. The main reason for this is the cost, shared hosting costs far less that a dedicated server which appeals to everyone. Especially if you are just starting out and haven’t seen the potential your website has to offer. The major downside to shared hosting is that you have less control over the server so you may not be able to perform tasks you need to. Shared hosting is where the server is split up into different partitions and then they are each sold on, this means that you will share a server with other people and will often share the same IP address. This could cause a problem with the speed of the website because the more information and data on the server the longer it will take to process actions.

Dedicated hosting is where you actually hire out your own server within a company, this means that your websites will be the only ones uploaded onto that specific server. The main benefit will be to do with your privacy and security as your details are not on the same server as anyone else’s. Often the upload and traffic limits are much higher because you are the only person the server has to deal with. Along with the advantages dedicated hosting does have its downsides, the cost will deter many people as it will cost a considerably higher price each month you have dedicated hosting.

In conclusion, starting out you will definitely want to choose from the different shared web hosting providers and as your traffic increases switch to virtual or dedicated hosting.

Source: EzineArticles