Web Hosting Description
Web hosting is a service that web hosting suppliers offer so that you can upload your site to the Internet.
How can people spot your web site?
When you create a site and you want other people to see it, you will have to copy (or upload) it to a web hosting server. If you attempt to make the website reachable on the web by web hosting it on your own computer, there is no way for you to keep it always online, which is why web hosting services exist.
How does web hosting work?
Web hosting firms provide you with hard disk storage space for your site on their powerful computers (web servers) and guarantee uninterrupted website availability. When someone types your website address (e.g. www.my-best-domain.com) in their web browser's URL bar, they will be connected to the server where they can take a glance at the content of your site.
Web hosting types
With the development of web technologies, different types of web hosting services have come into being to match the various expectations of website possessors, including shared website hosting services, virtual server web hosting services and dedicated web hosting services.
Shared website hosting
Shared website hosting is the most commonly used type of hosting, and is also the easiest to begin with. It is a service where one single hosting server is divided among a lot of shared web hosting account owners who are limited by the CPU, web traffic and server storage space quotas that they have been apportioned. This type of website hosting is usually less expensive - you don't need to buy the entire hosting server upfront, since it is shared between plenty of hosting account holders, and the web hosting distributor can afford to provide much lower prices. It is also easier to use - the server is pre-configured with all the required software and the hosting provider handles all server maintenance tasks and software updates on your behalf.
The drawback of the shared hosting solution is that you share the server's resources with other individuals and if a given site becomes very popular it may influence (and slow down) all the other sites on that web hosting server, but most hosting service providers, including us at Octacore Networks, have security platforms in place that hinder that from occurring.
A definition of a web hosting service
Since shared hosting is the most widely used type of web hosting, most web hosting providers and web hosting customers simply call it hosting or website hosting. As there is a large competition on the website hosting marketplace, the majority of hosting distributors strive to provide reasonable prices and bonuses with their services. We, for example, offer different website hosting packages and two invoicing options - monthly and yearly, depending on your budget. If you pick the annual billing cycle, you will receive a present - one free-of-charge domain registration.
VPS web hosting
VPS is an abbreviation of Virtual Private Server. The VPS web hosting solution is basically the middle ground between the shared hosting solution and the dedicated server hosting solution. If your web site grows beyond the resources offered by your shared website hosting account, a virtual server is a possible choice. VPS server web hosting clients still share the hardware resources of the physical server with other VPS web server hosting account owners, but the disk drive space is split up using special virtualization software so that each partition has its own dedicated system resources and can be configured almost like an actual dedicated hosting server. The upside is that the CPU and the memory on a private virtual web hosting server are not shared. Moreover, the virtualization technology offers you much more autonomy to configure your private virtual hosting server, but it also calls for a more advanced degree of technical competence.
Dedicated Web Hosting
With the Dedicated Web Hosting solution, the user gets an entire dedicated web server and can utilize all its resources. The dedicated web hosting solution is the most robust of all website hosting solutions and offers plenty of configuration possibilities - the dedicated server hosting clients can select the hardware and software specs that will meet their demands. Dedicated system resources and no-holds-barred performance are among the reasons why a dedicated server hosting plan is a perfect option for a heavy resource-demanding corporate web site, for example - you will not share the dedicated hosting web server's system resources with anyone else and will acquire root privileges. You will exercise complete control over the web hosting server, which will permit you to make any server configuration changes that you might require. The setback of the dedicated web hosting solution is that a higher level of technical expertise is needed - unless you hire an Information Technology specialist, it will be your duty to administer and configure the dedicated web server. The dedicated web hosting solution is also far more costly, since the cost of the server isn't shared between any other clients.
A hosting recommendation for beginners
If you are just beginning to create your site and need a website hosting solution to start with, the shared hosting solution remains the most intelligent option. If your website grows beyond your website hosting account's resources, you can usually upgrade. With us, for example, this is very easy and requires no migration of your web site files, because only the features of your website hosting account change. You can also upgrade your website hosting package to a more powerful one at any particular time without worrying about the number of days left before expiration. In addition, if you finally reach the most powerful shared website hosting package and still need more resources (which is great sometimes - it indicates that your website's popularity has risen!), there always is the possibility to migrate to a VPS server hosting platform or a dedicated hosting platform without needing to swap hosting service providers.
| Pro | Pro Plus | Expert | Starter |
| Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage |
| Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth |
| 5 websites hosted | Unlimited websites hosted | Unlimited websites hosted | 1 website hosted |
| 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial |
| $3.92 / month | $8.67 / month | $12.50 / month | $3.00 / month |