What type of hosting?

Virtual hosting

I get the occasional question about what type of server someone should choose for his project or website. The answer is simple for 99% of the people who ask me this. Virtual hosting, this is just the basic web hosting. You share a server, but you will have your own domain name. If you choose a good hosting partner you will not experience slow downs 99% of the time. You can get good virtual hosting for a small website or project up to 100MB to 250MB for less than $40 including the domain name. This saves a lot of money compared to the other types of hosting such as dedicated hosting.

Virtual private hosting (VPS)

 This is most comparable to a virtual host, but on a virtual host you can only run web applications. With a VPS package you can install software, but you still share the server. This is a good choice if you are on a low budget and want to run non web software on the server.

Dedicated hosting

With dedicated hosting you have a server for your own. So this is only useful when you want to host very big websites with a lot of traffic (millions a day). This option is also viable to run powerful applications or game servers. With dedicated servers you have options to choose from un-managed to managed servers. Un-managed is basically your own computer at your disposal, you have to set everything up and gives you great control over everything. Prices go up from $40 where more expensive just means a more powerful computer at your disposal. Managed, or anything in between means your hosting partner takes care of the software, updates, cleanup, backups, etc. It is just a service where you pay $50 to $200 a month for.

Co-location hosting

Finally we have a co-location server, which is basically just a dedicated server. You buy, own and maintain all the hardware. You set it up at the service provider and hook it up to the powerful network. Since you are reading this, you will not qualify for a co-location server since you really need to know what you are doing since you do everything yourself. However, this is a very powerful way of hosting and since you own the hardware and do all maintenance it cuts heavy on the price.

Some good host providers:
ServerPronto.com : Reliable dedicated hosting for less then $40.
Interserver : solid VPS hosting from $6.
IX Webhosting : 25% off all Hosting Packages of 1 year or More with PROMO CODE: CHiLL