When it comes to choosing where to host your website there are many factors to consider.
Web servers can be complex and no two are alike, as there are 1,000 of different components and settings available to make up the overall configuration. It is important to understand the different options available in order for you to be able to make the right choice for your business.
There are basically 3 different types of hosting.
- Shared server. This is where you are on a server where there maybe hundreds and even thousands of other websites running at the same time and they all have to use the same resource such as the CPU, RAM and bandwidth etc.
- Virtual Private Server (VPS). This is a cross between a shared and a dedicated server in that it shares the underlying hardware with other VPS’es but it is on it’s own separate “partition” with it’s own operating system which can be configure completely separately from any others.
- Dedicated server. This where the entire physical server is under your control, none of it is shared and it can be configured exactly as you want it.
On top of these 3 options is how they are managed. For a shared server you have no access to how it is configured as this is managed entirely by the provider. You will have a few minor options available, such as potentially being able to choose which version of PHP to use, but overall these will be very limited.
For a VPS the underlying hardware and operating system will be managed by the provider but the part of the server allocated to you can either be managed entirely by yourself or by the provider.
For a dedicated server, like a VPS you can either mange this entirely by yourself or get the provider to manage this for you. Managing your own dedicated server is not for the fainthearted as it takes a considerable amount of specialised know how, as well as the time to initially set up and then maintain.
At Applejack we provide what we call “Dedicated Managed Hosting”. This provides you with most of the benefits of a dedicated server but without the hassle of running it yourself and at a far cheaper price. It is also has the advantages over a VPS in that you get far more RAM and a much faster CPU. We only host or own clients websites and so you are not sharing resources with 1,000 of other sites and we can even potentially install special system components on request if these might be required for some particular function of your site to work.
In part 2 of this article we will be covering what questions you should ask and other details which can be easily researched in order to help you choose a hosting provider.
In the meantime find out more about our hosting using the button below.