Web hosting is an essential need for every business (no matter eBusiness or any offline business). Websites and web applications are a part of modern life. Therefore, in order to have their own website or online shop people need reliable web hosting.

Types of Hosting

There are two types of hosting services, first one is dedicated hosting and another is shared hosting. In dedicated hosting, a website or web application has its own server where no one is sharing web space or other resources of server. While in shared hosting, a website or web application shares only the allocated space of web server. A shared server can have multiple websites hosted onto it.

Depending upon requirements people select any of these two options. Large enterprises or business houses need dedicated hosting setup to host their website or web applications in a more secure and customized way. However, individuals, small business owners, school, colleges, educational institutions, or low or medium sized online businesses go for shared hosting.

Windows Hosting vs. Linux Hosting

Depending upon the server’s operating system environment, web hosting services are categorized as windows hosting and Linux hosting. However, there are other operating system also, but these two are most popular.

Servers running a Windows operating system (Windows 2000/2003/2008 Server) are known as windows server. These are ideal for hosting normal websites made by using HTML as well as large-scale applications developed using Microsoft Technologies (ASP/ASP.Net/SQL Server).

However, a server running Linux operating system (Red Hat, Mandrake, or any other variants of Linux) is known as Linux server.Linux servers are ideal for static websites made of simple HTML and graphics as well as large-scale applications developed by using open source technologies (PHP, Perl, CGI) or Java.

Cost Factors in Web Hosting.

Linux hosting is comparatively cheaper than Windows hosting (credit goes to Linux as well as other applications running on server being open source). It also provides more security and scalability to its users. Linux servers are less prone to cyber attacks as well as viruses and worms, therefore most of the people prefer hiring a Linux server for hosting of their website.

Nowadays, web hosting has become cheaper than earlier days. One can easily find an affordable hosting service provider online. Most of them offer several additional value added services free with their hosting packages. So, if you have planned to start a website and looking for a cheap web hosting package , then go online and find a suitable hosting company.