If you are thinking about starting a WordPress site, one of the questions that you"ll have to address is where to host your new website. This is a very complex question, as it involves a number of factors, including how much control you want over your hosting environment, what will your site"s requirements be, how much are you prepared to pay for your website, as well as how knowledgeable you are with different scripts. This is why we will describe some of the most common choices, so you can find the one that best suits your particular needs.
- Shared Hosting
This kind of hosting is ideal for beginners or people who want a quick and cheap solution and don"t need too much control over their hosting environment. Shared hosting means that you are sharing the resources of a server with a number of other websites. This means that the performance of your website might suffer if some of the other sites are using too much server resources, but this will depend on the allocation of the said resources. You are not given too much control over your environment, for instance, you can"t just decide to use a certain script, but have to check whether the script is allowed by the hosting providers. You also don"t have root level access and are not able to change server settings, such as maximum upload file size. Finally, there is the issue of security as it is enough for one of the sites on your server to get hacked into, and you might also be compromised.
- VPS - Virtual Private Server
This is basically an improved version of shared hosting. Technically, it is shared hosting, as you are also sharing the resources of one server with other sites, but there are important differences. You are given much more autonomy, as you are working in an isolated environment. This is to say that you are given fixed portion of server"s resources, and can"t be influenced by how much of them the other sites are using. As far as you are concerned, it is as if you were the only website on the server. The fact that as a rule, there are fewer sites on a VPS server than there are on a shared one also means that VPS hosting is more expensive. However, you also given more control over the environment. You can usually run the scripts you want, and you might be able to change the server settings and have root access, this will depend on the provider, and you can usually make a deal with them. Alternative to this might be using cloud hosting.
- Dedicated Hosting
By far the most expensive option, but also the one that gives you the most freedom. With dedicated servers, rented or owned, you are the only who is using its resources, which might be wasteful, but if you do have such requirements it will be worth your while. You have the option of running any script that you want, have root access and control over server settings, basically you have complete control over the environment. Apart from being the most expensive option, it is also one which requires the most expertise on your part, but if your site has a huge traffic or other serious requirements, this is the option for you.
About Author
E.Zeen is writer and blogger, loves to explore and write about various technology and internet trends. Lately writing about web hosting and exploring the best option for her site.