When choosing a hosting plan, there are many things to consider. Especially for newer webmasters, the wide array of choices can be a bit overwhelming. First you have to choose a hosting provider. Then you have to decide what type of hosting you need, be it shared, dedicated, virtual or cloud based. You also have to decide how much you want to spend each month for hosting services. Sometimes you must take specific technical issues into consideration before selecting what type of web server to use. To top it all off, web hosting, like any other industry, has its own language of jargon that sounds like gibberish to the uninitiated.
There's no need to become an expert on web hosting technology to pick the perfect plan. Just learning some of the basic principles can go along way. After all, despite the jargon and alphabet soup of abbreviations and acronyms, web hosting is a pretty simple proposition. Ultimately you have a web hosting company on one end, and a webmaster on the other end. The webmaster pays the hosting provider a fee each month to store a website on their server and provide access to it. One way to get an idea of what type of hosting plan might be right for you is to look at what the majority of other webmasters choose. Many of them, as it turns out, pick virtual hosting on Windows servers. Below we'll take a look at what makes these plans so popular.
Virtual hosting, often referred to by the term virtual private server (VPS) has truly revolutionized the web hosting world. This method of allocating the resources of a web server allows for shockingly low prices and all the features a webmaster could want. How does virtual hosting accomplish all this? A virtual server is a part of an actual server that is configured with software to function as an independent "virtual machine." This allows each virtual server to have its own operating system, software applications, privacy settings, etc, much like a dedicated physical server. But since many of these virtual private servers "live" on the same physical web server, the cost is shared among many customers. Virtual hosting has become the most popular type of hosting service for precisely that reason.
As mentioned above, each virtual server has its own operating system. There are several operating systems in wide use for web servers, Linux Red Hat, Free BSD, and Windows are three of the most common. Windows in particular has a long track record of successful use in web hosting applications. Many webmasters prefer Windows simply because they are more familiar with it. Linux is slightly more popular among hosting providers, but Windows Server is a close second. It's critical to understand, though, that many webmasters will not see a difference between one OS and another on their web server. Unless your site has specific technical concerns, especially particular design and coding protocols, the OS on your web server is really a non issue.
The reasons for choosing virtual hosting are pretty clear. VPS delivers all the features a highly technical webmaster could ever want, without breaking the bank. But VPS plans can also be preconfigured for newbie webmasters as well. The reasons for choosing Windows over another operating system are more technical. If your website was designed with Microsoft FrontPage, or coded using .NET or Visual Basic, you'll want a Windows Server. If your site runs a lot of active database content, Windows is probably your best bet. If none of that rings a bell, it probably doesn't matter. Either way, be sure to check out our virtual hosting Windows plans. You can customize the various options to create a plan that's perfect for you!