Hosting

In short: Hosting means making a website or application available on a server that is permanently connected to the internet.

In more detail: The domain is the address, hosting is the “plot of land” the site stands on. The two are often booked separately.

In Depth

Types

• Shared hosting: many websites share one server. Cheap, but little control.
• VPS: a virtual server with its own resources (virtualisation).
• Dedicated server: a whole machine for one customer only.
• Cloud hosting: flexible resources paid by usage (cloud).
• Managed/PaaS: the provider takes care of operation and updates, you only supply the code.
• Static hosting: only finished files, very fast and cheap (e.g. a wiki).

What to look for

Performance and availability, server location (privacy, GDPR), HTTPS certificate (certificates), backups, support, price and options for scaling.

See also: web server, data centre, host