Which website hosting service will suit me best?

There are various kinds of web hosting plans appropriate for different sites in regard to the system resources or the hosting environment they require. To choose the best hosting service for your web page, you have to reckon what server-side software it demands, how many daily hits you expect at the beginning and in the long run, as well as any other special needs that may have to be covered.

Shared Web Site Hosting - Good Points

The most appropriate choice for small scale online portals with a few hundred or a few, each user pays only for their plan, which diminishes the total cost per user substantially. There are different web hosting packages differing from one web hosting vendor to another, delivering different quotas of storage space and web traffic, different email address account quotas and so on. The positive point is that you can order a package that will have the specifications your web site indeed demands. You will not have to pay lots of cash for a plan you will not use, or wind up with a small sized plan that cannot shelter the web page. At Hosting Pro, there is a huge choice of shared hosting accounts appropriate for private or small business web pages that even offer pre-installed script-driven platforms such as Joomla, Mambo, Drupal or WordPress - to make things easier. If you start with a low-price plan and you require more system resources, moving to a high-end plan demands just a click of the mouse.

Shared Webspace Hosting - Downsides

A downside of the shared web site hosting platform is that the hosting servers have some software applications installed on them and you are unable to install new software. Some web pages, especially web stores, request applications to be available on the web hosting server for them to perform, and with a shared site hosting solution, you can install only software platforms that do not need full server root access.

VPS Web Hosting Servers and Dedicated Servers

For web pages that need root access, or if your portal has many thousands or even 1 000 000's of daily hits, what you require is a VPS or a dedicated server. A private virtual server is a virtual imitation of a dedicated web server and it functions in an exactly identical manner.

Private Virtual Web Hosting Servers

Both services usually come with full server root privileges and can be restarted through a software interface by the customer, autonomously from the hosting company. Akin to the shared hosting accounts, the private virtual server and the dedicated server packages come with different features based on what the web hosting provider has to offer. A private virtual server web hosting account has guaranteed server space, RAM and CPU usage quotas that can sometimes be extended for short spans of time provided that there are unused system resources on the physical machine. With a dedicated server, the only limitation is the hardware equipment it is making use of, and it can be configured by altering or adding components. A VPS web server is easier to administer as it offers a virtualization console, which can be utilized to restart it, to install software applications, monitor stats, etc. The administration of a dedicated hosting server is more intricate, so such an account would rather be used by experienced users.

Dedicated Web Hosting Servers

Nevertheless, certain hosting corporations offer managed dedicated hosting services where they execute dedicated hosting server administration assignments on behalf of the customer. This can be a part of package or an extra service.

Prior To Choosing...

Opting for the top hosting package is essential as it can have an effect on the stable functioning of a web portal. Prior to choosing an account, weigh the pros and cons, inspect carefully all the prerequisites for the web site to operate properly, especially if it is script-powered, and, last but not least, if you have already selected a hosting provider, the best you could do would be to ask their customer support team for an opinion as to which particular plan would be best for the proper operation of your website.