Choosing a web host can be a little challenging especially if you're new to creating your first website.
Various blogs and thought leaders have their own opinion on what the best web hosting is — making it even harder to choose the best one for your website.
In this article, you are going to understand the various types of web hosting and what plan you should buy based on your business needs.
Let's get started.
What are the different types of web hosting? The truth is — not everyone needs expensive web hosting .
For each type of hosting, there are specific companies that do a better job than the others. Darrel made a web comparison test for about a year. You can check out the results to help you pick a web host that fits your needs.
First, you will learn about shared hosting and its pros and cons. Then, let's tackle cloud hosting, which is basically an upgrade from shared hosting that comes in the form of faster speeds.
After that, you will read about VPS hosting, what it is, and who might need it. Lastly, you will learn about dedicated hosting, which is the highest performance hosting you can buy — though it comes with its own pros and cons.
With that, let's get started.
1. Shared Hosting Shared hosting is called “shared” because there are multiple websites hosted on one server. Basically, you share resources with many other websites on one server — like you're renting space on a server.
Because of that, the cost of getting one isn't too high, which makes it ideal for first-timers and low-traffic websites.
What are the pros and cons of shared hosting? The ultimate advantage of shared hosting is its price . Unfortunately, that comes with a few exchanges.
Since there are websites using the same server, you could face performance issues . This is especially true when there are websites on the server that receives a massive amount of traffic and use a lot of resources.
The other reason is the lack of admin access . Some WordPress themes require specific server settings like specific memory limit or execution time (as in the case of making a real estate website
With shared hosting, you will be limited on the admin settings you can change to make some WordPress themes work.
What are the best shared hosting companies you can use? Shared hosting isn't the best type of web hosting out there. However, if you are new to web hosting, have a low-traffic website, or are on a budget, then it's the best that you got.
If you're planning on using shared hosting, the best ones out there are GreenGeeks, KnownHost, and Hostinger.
Here is the result of the speed test with GreenGreeks
As you can see, the average low time was around 1.8 seconds for a large page size. That's a good load time.
Another contender is KnownHost
If you want to use KnownHost, use code DARREL to get a 10% off.
Hostinger
On average, the loading time was around one second although the page size was around 1.37MB, a bit smaller than the ones returned by GreenGeeks and KnownHost.
For Hostinger, you can also use code DARREL to get a 10% discount.
Of the three, if you're going to go with shared hosting, try GreenGeeks first, then KnowHost, and Hostinger. On the other hand, you can't really go wrong with any of these companies for shared hosting.
2. Cloud Hosting Cloud hosting is becoming more mainstream. Unlike shared hosting where you share one server with multiple websites, cloud hosting will host your data on multiple cloud servers.
Meaning, whenever one server fails, another one immediately steps in to keep your website up and running.
Cloud hosting is ideal for medium-traffic websites — though this can vary depending on how much bandwidth your hosting plan comes with.
What are the pros and cons of cloud hosting? In general, the pros of cloud hosting outweighs all the possible cons.
First, you will have higher uptime compared to shared hosting.
Second, cloud hosting can deliver much better performance including increased page speeds and faster time-to-first-byte because it involves the use of multiple cloud servers working together to provide the resources needed by a website.
Third, cloud hosting is easily flexible and scalable . You can easily upgrade or downgrade your hosting plan depending on your needs, which makes it really convenient for website owners.
Lastly, cloud hosting offers automatic backups . Backups are passively created. If your site gets destroyed by accident or gets corrupted, a backup is usually always available.
As for the cons, there is really no conceivable one, aside from the fact that it's a little more pricey than shared hosting plans.
Security has been argued to be a possible disadvantage because your data will be on a cloud server. However, as long as you're hosting with a reputable company, this shouldn't be a problem at all.
What are the best cloud hosting companies? The best cloud hosting company in the industry is Name Hero
With Name Hero, you get up to four CPUs and 4GB of RAM. The new NVMe storage leads to a blazing fast website for less than $9 a month. which makes it incredibly hard to beat that price.
It's also worth mentioning that Name Hero recently introduced its new HTTP 3 feature that can lead to an 89% increase in speeds.
Hosting plans on Name Hero are very fast compared to many other hosts in the industry. They also have a large international presence, which makes their service ideal if you're outside the United States.
Here is the result of the speed test with Name Hero:
As you can see, the load time is under a second with a page size of 1.84MB. You can see that over the two weeks of this test, Name Hero provides good speeds.
Another company you can go with is SiteGround
You can see that there is a low time of 1.65 seconds, with an average page size of 1.58MB over the course of two weeks.
Another good cloud hosting company is WPX
The average load time is around a second with a page size of about 1MB over the last two weeks.
Lastly, there is Hostinger
The average load time is around 1.42 seconds with a page size being around 1.73MB.
Note that during the test, Darrel used the recommended or the most popular cloud packages that these hosting companies recommended. Whatever you choose, your website is in good hands.
What is self-managed cloud hosting? You might come across companies that call themselves self-managed cloud hosting.
Self-managed hosting companies manage a majority of the server configuration so you will have an optimal website with the best settings.
Liquid Web seems to be the most popular out there. Others like Cloudways and Kinsta can be very confusing since they don't sell domains (you must purchase your domain name elsewhere and point the name servers to the host).
If you're a beginner, it's best if you stay away from these web hosts. You need some experience with web hosting and configuration for hosting settings.
But if you want to try, here are a few companies I recommend for managed hosting:
The first one is WP Engine
Next up is Kinsta
10Web
Another self-managed cloud hosting is Cloudways.
Its Vultr Hosting
Digital Ocean
3. VPS Hosting VPS stands for “Virtual Private Server”. Basically, VPS hosting offers shared dedicated hosting on a virtual machine.
To illustrate:
With shared hosting, you share resources with all the websites on the server. However, with VPS hosting, each website gets a dedicated amount of resources within the server.
What are the pros and cons of VPS hosting? VPS hosting is a good type of hosting. However, you may find more cons than pros while using it.
In terms of advantages, VPS hosting can handle large amounts of traffic (though it's highly dependent on the specifications of the plan). It's a good alternative to a dedicated server if you don't have the budget for one.
As for the cons, you should know that VPS hosting is expensive (it's the closest thing to a dedicated server you can get).
In addition, you do need to configure your own hosting options . This might be problematic if you're inexperienced with web hosting.
Lastly, like with shared hosting, you don't have 100% control over your server (like in a dedicated server).
What are the best VPS hosting companies? The best VPS hosting you can get is Hosti n ger
Another good VPS is Liquid Web
They offer the same plans with Hostinger — but with more space and RAM. Naturally, they are a little bit more expensive.
Feel free to use code darrel35 for a 35% discount.
On the upside, Hostinger has more plans to choose from. This is perfect if you're looking for flexibility in terms of pricing and specs in VPS hosting.
4. Dedicated Hosting Dedicated hosting is the most superior hosting because an entire server is dedicated to your website. It's perfect for websites with large traffic since you don't have to share any resources with other websites.
By the numbers, you can host more than 1 million visitors per month with dedicated hosting depending on how much bandwidth is included in your hosting plan.
What are the pros and cons of dedicated hosting? Clearly, there are a lot of pros when it comes to dedicated hosting. On the other hand, there are some cons that you need to know.
As for the pros, the number one advantage of dedicated hosting is its reliability as far as performance goes.
Second, unlike any other type of hosting, you have total control over the configuration options in your server.
Third, you can expect more security since you're not sharing your website with any other websites.
As for the cons, the number one reason why only a few get dedicated hosting is the price . Dedicated hosting plans cost anywhere from $100 to $500 per month, depending on the specifications of the server.
The other disadvantage is that you need to have server knowledge and experience to run a dedicated hosting plan. Since you have total control over the server, you must know how to configure it correctly.
What are the best dedicated hosting companies? The best deal you can get for dedicated servers is Liquid Web
You can also try Name Hero's cloud dedicated servers
But whether you get Liquid Web or Name Hero, you would still get the best hosting plan you can possibly get. Both offer great dedicated servers and only vary in specifications and price.
Get the Web Hosting Type You Need Now you know the types of web hosting and how each one can help you. In addition, you now know the pros and cons associated with each type so you can make an educated decision on which one is best for your needs.
If you're a beginner, you may automatically go with shared hosting. However, you should still check cloud hosting plans since they're affordable and you get a massive performance upgrade compared to shared hosting.
Whether you want to build a website from scratch or optimize your current site for better performance, there are options out there to suit any need.
