A lot of web designers and developers especially beginners find it difficult understanding and choosing the right hosting for their websites. Let’s find out the detailed information every beginner needs to know before choosing a hosting solution for their websites. The difference between shared hosting vs cloud, vps and dedicated hosting.
What is a Server?
A server is basically a computer(hardware) that stores your website files on the internet. It comprises of storage drives(HDD, SSD etc), RAMs (memory), Processors(CPUs) etc. So basically your regular computer at home can also be turned into a server provided you install the right operating system(OS), web server software and above all have constant high speeed internet data conected to it. This is not advisable as your regular computer’s hardware has lower capacity to handle such work, that is server hardware components are built differently as compared to your usual Pc at home.
A server however can be partitioned from dedicated to VPS and shared. A dedicated server can be partitioned into multiple VPSs. A VPS can however be sub-partitioned into reseller accounts which therefore habours shared hosting.
So now we ask the question, where does cloud hosting fall?
What is a Web Server?
A webserver is sometimes interchanged with a server but that is ok in some instances. A web server is a software installed on a server that serves the web pages of your website from the server to the general public on the internet. For instance, when a person visits www.mydomain.com, it is the web server that serves the website files beautifully to your browser using the http protocol. The website content on the server are just files and folders just like you have on your Pc at home.
For example, below is an image of how website content look like on the server ():
Now that we have seen how website contents look like on a server, i believe we do understand why we say the server is just like your regular computer at home…. files and folders.
Now below is what the webserver software processes it into:
Over here, we can see and understand the job of the websrver. Now that we understand the difference between a server and a webserver, we can continue.
Examples of Web servers :
- Apache webserver (Most widely used) – Free webserver
- Litespeed webserver (This is what we use at kingscel) – The best of all
- Nginx webserver
- Microsoft IIS webserver
You can google litespesd vs Apache webserver to find out which is more secured and offers high perfeormance. We use the litespeed webserver at kingscel.
Shared hosting simply means a server mostly a VPS sharing space and resources with multiple websites. That is multiple websites hosted on one VPS. Now since all the websites are sharing the same resources(RAM, CPU, Bandwidth), the cost for shared hosting is always cheap but the down side about shared hosting is if one website let’s say is some sort of online shop with huge traffic (lots of visits to the website) and you have your website on that VPS as well, you can imagine your website having performance issues and the like. There are probably hundreds of websites on that VPS and you have no idea what others are up to. There could be a security or vulnerability breach from one website and that can affect the entire websites on that VPS server. Shared hosting is recommended if you working on a small project or even websites with small number of visits(traffic). Other limitations include you not having full control of technical tweaks. It is ok to be on shared hosting if you have a low budget.
What is VPS Hosting?
A VPS stands for Virtual Private server which is more like an elevated version of shared hosting. A VPS offers more resources dedicated to your wbsite alone. A VPS also offers more admin access for technical tweaking. In short a VPS functions like a dedicated server. You can buy a VPS server if you are a web design agency or have clients and would like to put all your clients in one basket. That is with a VPS only you and your clients will be on that server with dedicated resouces. You simply do not share resources with others. Take it as a disk partition on your hard drive of your regular computer at home. For instance, lets say you want to run double Operating system on your Pc. You create a partition and install the another OS on the second partition right. YEAH! with a VPS you install your prefered server OS, web server etc. You basically own a partition on the server.
What is Dedicated hosting?
Dedicated hosting on the other hand is simply having an entire server and its resources dedicated to just you. You can decide to have your websites directly on there or even partition into multiple VPSs for use. Dedicated hosting however doesnt come cheap but expensive so if you just having a simple website with low traffic then it just makes sense to go in for shared hosting.
You will need to have server administration experience to run a dedicated server.
What is Cloud hosting?
Now cloud hosting simply put is multiple servers put/linked together. Meaning, they are interconnected and therefore share resources together. So for instance when you have your website hosted on cloud hosting, it means your website is not just loading from one server and resouces are being pulled from multiple servers at the same time just to load your website. There is basically no downside to the cloud hosting. Cloud hosting allows scalability so you can switch from high resouces to low resources and vice versa anytime you want. Your website will be served much more faster without delays.
Most wordpress hosting are powered by cloud servers. Fortunately for us, all our servers and hosting plans run on our cloud servers.
Now that we have explained all the types of servers, we hope you have a clear idea of what type of hosting will best suit your website. We have also prepared an article to help you with how to make a purcahse and enjoy our 20% discount + A FREE Domain Forever!!.
Checkout what we use as server security too.