Types of web hosting

Every website is going to have different needs from their hosting provider, and the choices can be a little overwhelming for those who have less experience publishing online. In fact, you've probably still got some questions after reading the last post introducing the concept!

With that in mind, we've prepared a second primer that digs a little deeper in to the specific types of hosting that are available. Read on to learn more!

If it's available, free will always be the cheapest option! The good news is that in this case, free hosting is available for those who are willing to put up with some of the downsides.

One form of free hosting is this website - hosted on a free Strikingly blog! Other free blogging platforms are available too: Blogspot and Wordpress are just a few of the choices that are available for those who want to put up a website without having to put up any money first.

There are some limitations with free hosting. You'll either have to use the software that the provider offers (you can't run a Wordpress blog out of Blogspot after all!) and you'll probably face some restrictions on what type of content is appropriate.

If you have to run your own custom installed software or a made from scratch website, there are also free hosts that give you FTP and SSH access. These usually stay in business by adding advertisements to your pages, though, so if you have a lot of traffic you might make even more money by paying for your host and putting your own ads up instead!

If free hosting is just too restrictive, but you still don't want to spend a lot of money, shared hosting is probably the next step up. While you'll have more control over what you publish and how web pages are created, you'll also face limitations in performance and loading speed. Shared hosting keeps costs low by putting many customers on to the same server, so performance and security are recurring concerns.

The upside is that you can get fully functional hosting for just a few dollars a month - even less than $3/mo in many cases!

And if you're not one to share, you can also get your own (virtually) private server in the range of $10-$20 each month. While a VPS still puts multiple users on to the same server to save money, it also demarcates the machine in to virtually independent ones. So you'll save money compared to having a dedicated server, but you won't be as directly impacted by traffic spikes and security loopholes that the other users are creating.

To get full root SSH access and full control over the server, you'll probably need to be looking in to the VPS range. Be warned, however: Many VPS providers will give you a server - and that's it. You may have to set up the server with Apache, PHP, and MySQL - or whatever other HTTP, scripting, and database services you choose. So it can be a little intimidating, but also worthwhile as a great learning experience about how web servers actually work.

Still not enough? Get the whole server dedicated to your website. This is the fastest option by far and usually comes with additional technical support for customers. The only big downside to dedicated hosting is the cost often exceeds $100 a month.

Still, you'll get all the power and performance you could ever need, as well as full access to the root and a team of technicians ready to help solve problems and troubleshoot server errors. If your site is already making significant money and you really, really need it to stay online through heavy traffic - this can be a great choice.

Cloud hosting is a little bit like VPS hosting - just taken to the next logical extreme. You'll get a virtually private instance, but instead of being charged for a fixed set of resources, you'll be charged for exactly how much processing time and resources your website actually uses. This can be helpful if your traffic comes in bursts and you want to be prepared for heavy days without necessarily paying dedicated prices on the slower ones.

Another typical advantage of cloud hosting is colocation. The physical network distance between a user and a website can lead to major delays and slow loading times. A super-fast VPS in Florida won't necessarily load websites quickly in India. Cloud hosts and colocation servers fix this by placing multiple instances of the website in to different physical locations around the world. Then, when a user requests the URL, traffic is routed to the closest and fastest copy.

Cloud hosting can be relatively expensive when compared to non-dedicated hosting options, but perhaps the largest obstacle is the learning curve. Each cloud provider tends to have their own server and technical setups, and it can require a lot of knowledge about these to get a website working properly. On the other hand, the upside of that is that cloud experience is in high demand in the corporate world, so once you've learned you might be able to command a hefty salary!