Which web hosting solution will be most optimal for me?

There are various kinds of web hosting accounts suitable for different websites in relation to the system resources or the web hosting environment they require. To pick the most appropriate hosting service for your online portal, you must judge what server-side software applications it demands, how many visits per day you expect at the beginning and in the future, as well as any other specific demands that may have to be met.

Shared Site Hosting - Privileges

The most adequate choice for small scale online portals with a few hundred or site hosting, each client pays only for their account, which lowers the overall cost per person noticeably. There are diverse web hosting accounts differing from one web hosting company to another, providing different quotas of server storage space and web traffic, different e-mail address account quotas and so on. The benefit is that you can obtain an account that will provide the resources your web portal indeed requires. You will not have to pay plenty of cash for a plan you will not make use of, or wind up with a small plan that cannot accommodate the web portal. At AfterHost, there is a huge variety of shared hosting accounts suitable for personal or small business web sites that even come with pre-installed script-driven platforms like Joomla, Mambo, Drupal or WordPress - to render things simpler. If you kick off with a cheaper package and you require more features, upgrading to a more advanced plan takes only a click.

Shared Site Hosting - Negative Sides

A negative aspect of the shared web site hosting platform is that the web servers have some software programs installed on them and you cannot install new software programs. Given sites, particularly web shops, need applications to be installed on the server for them to perform, and with a shared website hosting plan, you can install solely software that does not require root access.

Virtual Private Web Hosting Servers and Dedicated Hosting Servers

For web pages that require root-level access, or if your web page has many 1000's or even millions of daily viewers, what you require is a VPS or a dedicated server. A private virtual hosting server is a virtual imitation of a dedicated machine and it works in an absolutely identical way.

Virtual Servers

Both environments usually provide complete server root access and can be rebooted via a software platform by the customer, autonomously from the web hosting company. Just like the shared hosting plans, the VPS and the dedicated server hosting plans contain different characteristics depending on what the hosting vendor offers. A private virtual server web hosting account offers guaranteed server storage, random access memory and central processing unit usage quotas that can sometimes be expanded for brief spans of time in case there are unused system resources on the physical server. With a dedicated web hosting server, the only limitation is the hardware equipment it is utilizing, and it can be revved up by changing or appending components. A virtual private hosting server is easier to tackle as it offers a virtualization software platform, which can be utilized to reboot it, to install software applications, monitor statistics, etc. The administration of a dedicated hosting server is more elaborate, so such a plan would rather be used by skilled clients.

Dedicated Web Hosting Servers

Yet, certain web hosting providers offer managed dedicated web server hosting services where they perform server management operations instead of the client. This can be included in the plan or an extra service.

Prior To Choosing...

Choosing the top hosting plan is important as it can have an influence on the proper operation of a web portal. Before picking an account, compare the pros and cons, explore thoroughly all the prerequisites for the web page to operate properly, particularly if it is script-based, and, last but not least, if you have already picked a web hosting vendor, the best you could do would be to ask their customer support team for a recommendation as to which plan exactly would be best for the stable operation of your online portal.