What is hosting, what is it for and what types are there?

What is hosting? - This is a common question among internet users. If it is among your plans to become familiar with the creation of websites, whether it is to have a blog or develop your own page, you must fully understand what hosting is, since it will be essential in your decision-making.

There are some important things to keep in mind before deciding what type of web storage to use.

In this article we will cover some points that we are sure will be very useful to you, such as how hosting works, its differentiation with other key concepts, such as domain or IP address, and types of hosting.

What is a hosting?

In simple words, hosting, which is also known as web storage, is the physical space that you rent on a server where you can store all the information on your web page and that allows your site to be visible among internet users.

The hosting providers are the ones that offer you the storage service.

How does hosting work?

Hosting works like a USB stick. In it you simply save your documents and it is used for nothing more than to contain the information you want. When you want to use the files stored in it, you simply connect it to the computer and open the folder of your interest. That is, it stores, just like hosting.

In simple words, hosting is limited to saving the information on your site and when a user wants to see it, the internet searches for that information on the server that stores it.

In the diagram that we present below you can see the way in which access to the information stored in the hosting operates.

The process is fairly simple. The first step is to click on the page of your interest or type in the search engine the page you want to access. Once you do, the internet searches for information on the server. Finally, once the internet finds all the content on the page, it downloads it to your computer so that you can access it.

While it may sound complicated, this whole process takes a matter of seconds.

What is the difference between hosting and domain?

When we talk about hosting we refer to the space where you store all the information on your site, while the domain is the name that you assign to your page on the internet so that users can easily find you and access your content.

The function of the domain is to give an identity, as it happens with the domain  google.com .

What is the difference between hosting and IP address?

In hosting we store information, while the IP address is a unique and unrepeatable set of numbers that serves to identify a computer connected to the network that carries information packets, so that there is no doubt about the origin and destination of the data transmission . An IP address looks like this:  200.36.127.40 .

Let us give you a clearer example. Hosting is like the house you are renting. In it are all your things: living room, dining room, television, photo albums, clothes, shoes, etc. (which are the files and information stored).

The domain would be the home address, which helps to easily identify where it is located: Calle Margaritas No.4218, Colonia los Volcanes. And finally, the IP address would be the coordinates with which you can locate the house on the GPS.

What types of hosting are there?

Although the market offers several types of hosting that cover different needs, we present the 6 most common:

Shared Hosting

Dedicated server

VPS (Virtual Private Server)

Cloud Hosting

Hosting Reseller

Mail Hosting

Each of them with different benefits and specially created for the specific needs of each client.

What is shared hosting?

Shared hosting is a type of hosting where the provider rents small spaces to various websites within the same server. Thus, all clients host their content and at the same time share the resources of the server, among other CPUs, processor, RAM, bandwidth, IP address or monthly data transfer.

It works like an apartment building. The building (server) has certain divisions that form small houses inside. Each department (shared hosting account) is rented by different people and among all they share services such as the elevator, surveillance, maintenance, electricity, or water (resources).

If the elevator breaks down and one of the tenants has not paid their maintenance fee, then it will not be repaired until it repays its debt.

What is a dedicated server?

A dedicated server is one whose exclusive use is by a single client. That is, it does not share resources with other people or companies, since it uses an entire server, so performance is not affected by traffic, as can happen with shared hosting, in addition to having a higher level of security. .

If shared hosting could be compared to renting an apartment, the dedicated server would be like renting your own house, since you would be renting the entire property.

You don't share services with anyone - if you forget to pay the electricity, the only one affected is you.

What is a VPS (Virtual Private Server)?

A VPS (Private or Virtual Server or Virtual Private Server in English), is a web storage service characterized by a physical server divided into independent virtual partitions capable of working with its own operating system and without sharing resources with other VPS. The provision is similar to shared hosting, but with the benefits of a dedicated server.

VPS is usually compared to shared hosting because the same server is virtually split and rented by different clients. However, in this case the performance of web pages is not affected because resources such as RAM, processor, bandwidth or data transfer capacity are not shared among multiple users, therefore its benefits are compared to the dedicated server.

A VPS is like a fractionation. The land (server) is divided into a number of individual lots in which houses with their own services are built (virtual servers). Each house is rented by different tenants.

The only thing they share between them is the cost of lighting the streets inside the neighborhood and the guard who opens and closes the gate.

What is cloud hosting or "cloud" server?

Surely cloud is a term with which you are already familiar. Today technological advances have led us to use "the cloud" to store documents, photos, and music. Web storage works similarly; All the resources that are used to collect the information from your website are executed from a cloud.

The main advantage of cloud hosting is that you pay only for what you use, unlike other services that already have pre-established packages.

What is reseller hosting or reseller hosting?

The  reseller hosting  is basically reselling web storage service. That is to say, you acquire the hosting service with a provider and at the same time you have clients who pay you for a hosting within the same plan that you hired.

As a reseller you can include external domains or create subdomains, in addition to creating the hosting plans you want.

Advantages of reseller hosting:

- You don't need technical knowledge to operate it.  The most common control panel to manage the service is known as CPanel, which in addition to facilitating certain tasks and reducing your implementation times, gives your clients independence so that they manage their web storage service themselves.

- You can create your own hosting plans.  Reseller hosting works the same as when contracting any other type of web hosting: different plans are put together depending on the needs of the users and each plan is assigned a price or monthly fee depending on the benefits they offer. In this case, the only difference is that whoever is subletting the service will be the one who receives the monthly rent payments.

- Technical support is provided by the provider.  Most of the providers that allow you to be a reseller of the storage service take care of the technical support. They carry out all maintenance work so that there is no fault or to solve some type of existing problem.

What is Mail Hosting?

Currently there are companies that offer the possibility of having a personal email account for free; some of the best known brands are  Hotmail ,  Gmail  and  Yahoo . However, the mail hosting service allows you to register your own domain name and have a professional mail service.

For example, if your company is called “Fulanitos Tres”, by having mail hosting all emails will have the domain:  @ fulanitostres.com .

This is highly recommended when looking to generate a serious and trustworthy image at the business level. The advantages offered by this type of storage are very similar to those of the free options, with the difference that the email address will be personalized, you will have more storage space and you will have greater security.

Does free hosting work?

Free hosting is useful for learning and experimenting with real web hosting, but it is not recommended for a serious and professional project because it has limited functionality.

It is also usually financed by advertising that detracts from the quality image we want to offer our customers.

How does the free hosting service work?

Most hosting provider companies that offer free services actually provide a very basic service hoping that the user's needs will prompt them to contract a more complete package.

In many cases, the only real advantage they offer you is the space to upload your website, since the inconveniences are usually greater.

What are the limitations of free hosting?

The service providers offer you a space to host your website, but among other disadvantages are:

1. Disk space limit.
2. Bandwidth limit, which results in slowness.
3. Advertising and lack of backup copies.
4. Limit on visitor traffic and technical support.
5. Subdomain type  http://mipagina.proveedor.com/.

When is free hosting interesting?

A free hosting is usually a lure to attract the most reluctant customers to the payment options, but it may be interesting to use WordPress.org  for example  to learn how to create a web page, to experiment with real hosting or, finally, for small websites like forums or blogs without much traffic.

How to choose the best hosting option?

Choosing the best hosting option is not an easy task, since today there are a wide variety of companies that offer different web storage services. The diversity of packages and benefits is very wide and it is normal that we feel slightly confused because we are not experts in computer matters.

Determining which type of hosting is the most suitable for our needs or finding a trusted provider are basic aspects that we must take into account when choosing a good hosting.

Likewise, we should not leave out the most important technical aspects to be considered when choosing a web hosting, issues that we will develop in depth throughout this article.

What type of hosting is best for me?

If your website is a SME (small and medium business) or a WordPress blog, usually a shared hosting or specialized hosting in the CMS you are going to use is enough. If instead you anticipate many thousands of daily visits, a site with many pages or you are going to use a very complex web application, better opt for another hosting.

To define the type of hosting you need, first think about how big you want your web project to be and what your technical knowledge is to deal with issues such as managing a website. Depending on these two aspects, you can choose the most suitable hosting for your needs and your financial budget.

Let's see below a list of basic aspects to consider:

- Shared hosting and specialized hosting.  In many cases, good shared hosting or specialized hosting, such as WordPress, is more than enough. Both types of web hosting are especially suitable for projects that have relatively few users and whose owners do not have advanced technical knowledge. Anyway, let's keep in mind that a good shared hosting can support 20,000 users or more per month.

- Dedicated hosting or VPS.  For larger projects, such as an online store, the dedicated server or VPS ( Virtual Private Server or  Virtual Private Server  in English) is recommended. Dedicated hosting is at the service of a single client, which has access to all server resources, while in a VPS the space is shared in the server hardware, but the client has its own resources.

- Hosting in "the cloud".  Cloud hosting is the web hosting indicated for those more advanced users on the technical level. It is also for those looking for a good value for money thanks to the scalability of services, that is, the possibility of increasing or decreasing them according to needs. It is not recommended for beginners because administration can be difficult.

- Mail hosting. Mail hosting is recommended for those users who do not want to create a website and what they are looking for is a corporate email type  @yourcompany .

What is managed hosting?

It is a service offered by web hosting companies very suitable for users without technical knowledge. Also called “managed hosting”, the provider is the owner and is in charge of maintaining and updating all the technological infrastructure, including administration of the hosting.

Its main benefit is that the user does not have to worry about anything and can only dedicate himself to the content, but in exchange the price is very high.

It is commonly applied on dedicated servers or VPS, but the latest trends also include this service in cloud hosting.

Not sure what type of hosting is best for your project? Send us a message and we will help you personally!

How to choose the best hosting provider?

To choose the best hosting provider you must take into account your needs and analyze what web hosting companies offer. Remember that on many occasions "cheap is expensive", so the best option will be to make a comparison of what companies offer for the same service. Check our comparisons and you will leave doubts.

Some of the variables that you should take into account are the following:

- Positive comments. The positive opinions of the clients of a hosting service are the ones that provide greater credibility and it is a reliable way of verifying if the provider fulfills its promises or not. In this sense, we advise you to consult  our hosting comparisons  to find out what customers think about a certain provider.

- Customer service in Your Country. Customer service must be “24/7”, that is, twenty-four hours, seven days a week. Try to find a provider that attends you in Spanish and that offers chat and telephone attention for urgent questions.

- Payment methods.  Take a good look at the available payment methods and check that they fit your geographical location. Remember that in some Latin American countries sometimes there are problems with credit cards as payment gateways, but you can pay by card from any country in the world through the PayPal® system  , which also has a security protocol, as well as  Skrill® . Another possibility is  PayU Latam,  a good company for users in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Panama and Colombia.

- Prices.  Prices are very important and it is essential that you choose a provider that offers good value for money, but also keep in mind that quality has its price.

- National or international provider? In general, a user can contract their hosting with any international provider. You just have to make sure that the company has a data center near your country or the main region of your audience. You also have to keep in mind that international suppliers often only have technical service in English. If you don't know the language, look for a provider that offers support in Spanish.

- Uptime  or performance.  As you know, uptime tells you how long your website is available so that anyone browsing the internet can see it. Verify that the hosting service offers you at least a 99% uptime. On the Internet there are many tools to verify uptime and it is one of the aspects that must be verified when opting for hosting.

If you have any doubts or questions, send us a message and we will help you!

What technical characteristics should I consider in a hosting?

A good web hosting must have a series of technical characteristics essential for effective operation, but sometimes hosting companies try to attract customers with misleading advertising, so you must be aware of what you really need for your online project to be a lasting success over time.

Here is a list of important variables in the technical aspect:

- Does it include domain?  It is not an essential requirement because you always have the option of hiring your domain apart from hosting and then connecting it to your web hosting account.

- How much disk space is there?  In general, it is not a very important factor when you do not want to store extreme amounts of data. Many webhosts or hosting companies use it for their advertising, but the truth is that 90% of users (with a blog or corporate website) do not care if they have 1 GB, 5 GB or 10 GB of storage space.

- Monthly data transfer. There should be no limits so you don't have a bad surprise at the end of the month. Currently, the standard package includes a monthly "unlimited" transfer, so you won't have to worry about this aspect.

- SSD vs. HDD.  The SSD disk is superior, but more expensive too, plus not all hosting services offer it. We can define SSD hosting as a new type of storage on the market. Its benefits include its higher speed (up to 300 times faster than a mechanical disk) and its high reliability, since it heats less, makes less noise and consumes less energy. In return, its biggest disadvantage is a significantly higher cost.

- Mail accounts.  If we want our online presence to be truly professional, we need a hosting that enables us to open email accounts type  mail@mypage.com . Normally, hosting includes this service, although some consider it an additional extra for which you have to pay. We must therefore take our needs into account and act accordingly.

- Backup or backup copies.  It may happen that the electricity goes out and we are left without the work done on a document, for example. The same thing happens with hosting: we have edited our website and suddenly the server goes down and it is impossible to recover it. Most hosting providers add this feature to their list of services, but this is not always the case, so it is necessary to check if the plan that interests us includes backup copies.

- Security.  Security refers not only to no hacker entering our system, but also to whether the provider's infrastructure ensures that only authorized users access it, that our files cannot be altered, erased, damaged or destroyed, or that they are eliminate the possibility of identity theft, among other things. In this section it is also necessary to see if the provider offers us antivirus or spam control, among others, in addition to automatic updates.

- Minimum requirements of your CMS or web application.  If you are going to install any CMS, make sure that the hosting plan has minimum characteristics for the web editor. It is important, for example, that the plan includes at least a MySQL database and a recent version of PHP, although these requirements may vary depending on the CMS or the web application you choose.

- Specialized hosting for CMS. If you use any CMS such as WordPress, it is interesting that you consider using specialized hosting, whether for WordPress, Joomla or Magento. These web hosts are usually shared hosting with especially high performance since the provider optimizes them for the respective CMS. In general, due to their higher performance, VPS or dedicated servers are still superior to specialized hosting for WordPress, Joomla, Magento or another CMS.

- Scalability.  Lastly, don't worry if you choose a modest plan at first because most providers allow you to  upgrade  (switch to a higher plan) without any problem. If scalability is really important to you (in the case, for example, that you have an application or website that is growing rapidly), you should opt for cloud hosting or a virtual server, since these options offer you the best scalability.