The topic of hosting is often neglected due to the fact that a large majority of the public is generally not acquainted with the field and would rather delegate the task of choosing a server and a hosting provider to someone more competent. However, today we are going to shine some light on the subject so that you can understand the different terminology, concepts and overall server types, which will hopefully allow you to make an educated choice by yourself when it comes to choosing a hosting plan rather than asking someone else to do it for you.
What are the different hosting options?
Generally speaking, there are primarily 3 server types that you can select from. They are shared hosting, virtual private servers and its variations such as Bitcoin VPS, and dedicated instances. All 3 of them have their own advantages and setbacks and we are not going to go into more detail into each one.
What is shared hosting?
Shared hosting is the first type that we are going to be covering. Its most crucial benefit over the other 2 types is that it is the cheapest option that you can go for. But why is that? Well, judging by its name, it is not that difficult to understand. Shared hosting involves sharing resources with other websites and applications which are hosted on the same server as your own. The resources in question involve the server’s active memory, also known as RAM, its processing power – CPU, and the overall server storage, which is in most cases either a hard-disk drive (HDD) or a solid-state drive – SSD.
Now, let us introduce the disadvantages of shared hosting. As you can probably guess by yourself, sharing resources is something that is less than ideal. But why is that? Well, imagine one of the websites that are hosted on the same server suddenly getting a large influx of traffic. This would mean that it would consume a lot more of the server’s resources. This can potentially leave the other sites and apps hosted on it, including your website, deprived of those precious resources, which will ultimately result in your website becoming a lot slower and taking extra time to perform simple tasks such as navigation and image inspection.
Furthermore, given that these are all ranking factors that search engines take into consideration when evaluating and indexing your website and its content, it is unsurprising that your website’s search performance might subsequently drop.
You should go for shared hosting if you are running an information page, a portfolio or an online portal for a local shop and you are not expecting to have a lot of online visits or continuous traffic.
Dedicated servers – the big players
Dedicated servers, on the other hand, are quite the opposite to shared hosting. They have completely separate and unique resources which are all reserved for you and you only. This means that you will not be required to share them with anyone else. Because of this, it does not come as a surprise that this server type is the most expensive out of all of the 3. If you have the financial backing, you should always consider going for a dedicated instance due to the sheer performance benefit that they bring.
Online retailers, ecommerce businesses and service providers are also encouraged to go for dedicated hosting as they expect to constantly have many visitors.
Virtual private servers – the most optimal choice
Our final contender – the virtual private server, commonly referred to as a VPS, is probably the most optimal choice that you can go for, especially if you are new to the field of hosting. VPS servers have many benefits to them as they combine the best of shared hosting and dedicated servers. VPS servers use virtualization technology to create virtual machines, each having its own independent resources all while being hosted on the same server. This eliminates a large portion of the problems posed by shared hosting for example.
Furthemore, their best advantage is that they are capable of scaling up as well as downgrading. But what does this mean? Well, most hosting plans are fixed, meaning that if your website for example experiences more traffic, you will need to upgrade your plan as you cannot change a predefined server. However, with a VPS you can simply add the resources directly to the server and start paying for that customized server, allowing you to accommodate the changes in traffic to your site or application seamlessly.
Moreover, if you happen to see a decrease in visits, you can also remove resources so that you would not need to pay extra money for something that you are not using. Not only that but some providers also accept cryptocurrencies as an alternative payment method for their servers, allowing you to remain anonymous and preserve your identity and privacy in the process.
Finally, this server type also offers you complete root access through SSH, which is something that more experienced users will also find as a benefit, allowing them to install additional software that can help with server management.
VPS servers are a good choice for any website or project due to their scalability so if you are unsure about how much traffic your website or application is going to get, try going for them as they can be quite flexible.
