Webhosting
What is webhosting? What do you get when you buy webhosting?
Web pages basically consist of text and images in individual files. The information contained in these files is called content. The look of your web page is called design. In order to be accessible to online users, the files for your website must be stored on a web server. You can think of web servers as computers storing the files of tens or hundreds of web sites. The webservers are connected to the Internet through high-speed connections. When you access a web page, your browser connects to the web server that stores the specific page and downloads it to your computer.
A web server is a must when you plan to establish your own web site. Picking the right webhosting provider - i.e. a company that sells space on their webserver for you to host your web pages - can be quite a challenge.
Finding the Hosting company that fits your needs
Finding the right hosting solution is a process that needs to be approached systematically. Following these simple steps will make the decision easier. To start with you need to determine what your hosting needs really are.
Shared Hosting
If you will host just one or two domains with limited content and simple web site architecture, this is the most economical solution. (Besides Free hosting, which for any website that is more than a few personal notes that are not critical, is not really recommended). You share the web server with up to 150 - 200+ users. Prices are reasonable and performance for small sites usually quite OK.
(Managed) Virtual Private Server Hosting
This is for users who need to have better server performance, are hosting many domains or critical applications. You share a physical web server with a few (usually 5 to 20) users, but every user has a 'cage' that is not in any way linked to the osther users. This si like having a very small dedicated server. Good price vs quality ratio, but has limitations in comparison to a dedicated server. If you wish you can manage the partition (cage) you have all by your own, this is cheaper, but you need to know what you are doing. Otherwise a managed VPS (Virtual Private Server) is a good solution and you don'0t have to worry about updates etc.
(Managed) Dedicated Server Hosting
If you host a large and very busy website, many domains, or mission critical applications, then this is the solution for you. A dedicated Server gives you the maximal performance, security and peace of mind. You are the only customer on this physical server. Managed dedicated server hosting means that you don't have to take care of security and updates. The hosting company technical staff will take care of this for you. If you have specific needs, want to experiment and have the necessary technical know-how, then just renting a dedicated server without the services is more economical.
Your next steps:
Use the links on this page to review offers and read the reviews from other users. We update these links frequently. As the hosting needs for everybody are different, we can not point you to any specific company.
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