LEVELS OF WEB HOSTING SERVICE - OVERVIEW

As already noted, web hosting services come in all sizes and shapes (and costs, of course). In order to understand the most fundamental differences in pricing and functionality, it is useful to break down all services into several "classes". Each "class" addresses the needs (and budgets) of a particular type of customer.

1 - SHARED (A.K.A. VIRTUAL) HOSTING

This is the most basic of all services. The hosting service providers places several (sometimes quite a few) web sites on a single powerful machine. Read more about Shared Web Hosting...

2 - VIRTUAL DEDICATED HOSTING

This is a fairly new offering, which seems to be bridging "shared" and "dedicated" hosting. Several web sites are still physically placed on a single computer server, but the number of such sites is lower and each one is given a dedicated "copy" of the operating system (e.g. Linux), along with a guaranteed portion of computer resources (disk, memory, etc), a separate copy of web server software (e.g. Apache), in addition to direct "root-level" access to the server itself. Read more about Virtual Dedicated Web Hosting...

3 - DEDICATED HOSTING

Dedicated level of service means that the computer which is used to serve your web site(s) is yours and yours only (you are effectively leasing it from your web host). Read more about Dedicated Web Hosting...

4 - COLOCATED HOSTING (COLOCATION)

The ultimate degree of flexibility is attained with colocation. This solution involves buying and installing your own server on the web hosting provider's premises. Read more about Colocation Web Hosting...