Choosing a hosting for the site: how to avoid mistakes and not lose money

Hosting for the site can be compared with the foundation for the house: while everything is in order with it, you do not notice it. But as soon as the site has a problem, hosting comes to the fore. Reliable and safe service will be provided only by a serious provider who is ready a any time to solve the client’s problem.

Bad hosting is untimely help, a headache for the site owner and a possible loss of money. Good

Bad hosting is untimely help, a headache for the site owner and a possible loss of money. Good hosting is more expensive, but if problems arise, the costs will pay off. In this article we will tell you how to choose a commercial web hosting and not get burned.

What is hosting?

We will deal with the terms. To begin with, each and every resource must physically be located somewhere. And this place is the server.

Server is a powerful computer system where all the site data is stored: code, databases, texts, images, software (“engine”), etc. Provider companies - hosters - give the site owner a place on the server and assign a dedicated IP address to the site.

For ease of understanding, imagine that the name of your site (domain) is the name of the street, and hosting is the city where this street passes.

Free hosting

Often, inexperienced site owners choose a free hosting. Unfortunately, there is only one plus for this type of hosting - it’s free. Cons are much more:

·         Resource limitation - Programming languages, disk space, databases;

·         Advertising banners - The hosters cover the costs of free services with advertising revenue, so PR blocks will definitely appear on your site. And well, if with decent content;

·         Third-level domain name - For a self-respecting company this is simply indecent, and such an address causes distrust of users;

·         Instability of the resource and the lack of technical support.

But there are times when the choice of free hosting is justified:

·         Training ground - for beginners in creating websites;

·         Testing platform - if you need to make changes to the project and check them on a third-party resource;

·         Simple and inexpensive base - for non-profit business card sites with a minimal budget. You can switch to a paid tariff at any time.

Types of Hosting

Those who are serious about their business and its online presence, it is better to choose a paid hosting - there are only 4 types:

·         Virtual;

·         Highlighted;

·         VPS

·         Cloudy.

The difference between the first 3 types is easy to imagine using an analogy:

Shared hosting

This is an apartment in an apartment building. It is hosted on the server of the hosting company along with the "neighbors" - hundreds, sometimes thousands of sites share server resources. This is the cheapest and most common hosting option.

Its advantages:

·         Low price;

·         Round-the-clock technical support;

·         More resources - compared to free hosting;

·         You do not need special technical knowledge - the hoster solves all problems. You can safely deal with your resource and not puzzle over possible errors.

There are, of course, disadvantages:

·         When the load jumps of your or “neighboring” resource, the site “falls” (it loads slowly or refuses to do this at all - you lose profit due to the fact that the client cannot get to the site);

·         it is impossible to configure or change the server software for you;

·         Hosting bandwidth is limited because it depends on the number of sites on the server.

·         Shared hosting is suitable for start-ups and small projects where millions of visits are not expected - a blog, a business card site, an online store with a small assortment.

Dedicated Hosting

This is a separate cottage. With a fountain or pool, terrace or balcony - any whim for your money. Dedicated - the most expensive type of hosting. The entire server is designed for one owner and configured to the needs of one resource.

The entire server is designed for one owner and configured to the needs of one resource

The most obvious plus of dedicated web hosting is the lack of restrictions on resources, bandwidth and server load. It all depends on the technical characteristics of the equipment.

Unbelievable, but dedicated hosting has its drawbacks, among which the main one is the highest price compared to others. In addition, special knowledge will be required to service the server - any technical issues will have to be solved independently. Another option is to hire an IT specialist in the state or turn to pay for additional services of providers

VPS hosting (Virtual Private Server - virtual personal server)

If we continue our analogy with housing, then VPS is a cross between an apartment and a cottage. Classic townhouse. Of the common property - the server - you are allocated a separate server with full access. Such "virtual" servers are independent of each other. Each of them has its own operating system and its resources - all this is for only one user. VPS is akin to shared hosting, but there are far fewer users.

This type of hosting has its advantages:

·         In comparison with the selected one - it is cheaper;

·         Compared to Virtual, VPS has more performance and resources. In addition, the ability to administer allows you to configure the necessary settings for your business.

True, this is also a minus - again, special knowledge will be required. Either we solve all technical issues ourselves, or we hire a specialist or we pay technical support to the hoster.

VPS is an ideal option in cases where the resources of virtual hosting are not enough, and using “dedicated” is too expensive and inexpedient. This scale is suitable for medium-sized online stores, entertainment and news portals, popular high-traffic blogs.

Cloud hosting

This type of hosting is only gaining momentum in Russia, and is likely to continue to grow. Cloud hosting uses the resources of several servers at once. The load between them is distributed dynamically, so traffic spikes - yours or "neighbors" - will not affect the speed of loading the site.

Cloud hosting uses resources of several servers at once

From the advantages of cloud hosting:

·         Flexible settings - you can select the appropriate configuration of.

·         Independence from server load;

·         The ability to pay only the necessary resources and pay for the rest;

·         Ease of scaling of the project - at any time the already mentioned volume can be increased or decreased.

The disadvantages include the impossibility of full access to the server and some security problems - when using public hosting, user data can be leaked to the public.

It turns out that hosting is not so scary. The main thing is to decide on the purpose of the site. And already from here logically follow the requirements for the functionality of the hosting and the provider company. The more requirements and wishes you have, the fewer options.