More and more people want to be a small place on the internet, be it to mount a big deal or just to share his passions, it is not the opportunities that are missing. To be an ACE of programming or that we know nothing, considering a site that will generate thousands of connections per day or just to share information for a circle restricts people. Very many offers and very many services are there to meet each of their needs.
But above all else, one might ask what is a Web host beyond the service it offers. In general, these are racks of servers, in a large room kept protected from overheating with a constant temperature, preserved blackouts thanks to a backup generator and connected to the internet at very high speed, both in transmission and reception, often several hundred Mb/s in both directions. The aim is to guarantee a constant and efficient access to internet sites or other service that is accommodated at home. The machines themselves are powerful machines, on which are installed what it takes to run a website. It means an HTTP (most commonly Apache) server, a mail server, (most often mySQL) database.
Now that submissions are made, see more about what are the different types of accommodation proposed, and in which case choose, as well as a few important to select criteria.
Firstly, the operating system… Indeed, a server is a computer and needs an operating system to run. As for computers that can be purchased commercially, two worlds confronts Windows and Linux (Mac servers exist also but as for the Apple computer, it is necessary that the machine has it even Apple ;-)).
But unlike computers that are found in the trade, all on Windows virtually, Linux team an important part of the servers. So which one to choose?
Everything depends on the language or the software you want to use to build the website. Si les technologies ASP ou encore le .NET de Windows sont de la partie, un hébergement Windows Serveur sera la meilleur solution. If no Windows-specific technology is used or that you do not know because you use Wordpress or another and therefore you are coding anything, a linux like Windows Server meet your expectations without too many differences (except perhaps for the price).
I come now to the performance that you can buy.
There are several types of accommodation, the most common because the more economical (to paid solutions) is shared or shared hosting. In this case, these are large machines, each hosting several websites, and therefore the costs are shared between different webmasters who rent a location on one of these machines. Its main advantage remains price for capabilities that are sufficient for most Web sites, the disadvantage is that you are not the administrator of the machine, you have access to your folder that contains your server via an FTP connection, you can create databases and edit more or less parameters depending on the offer you choose. This can pose some problems if you need a particular technology, for example if you want to use a database like MongoDB NoSQL for example, it will be more complicated and will have to negotiate with the host if yes or no, it can install the service or if it is necessary to purchase another more suitable offer. In some cases, so that the client has more autonomy, the server remains shared but they are virtual servers running. So although we share the same machine performance, each has its small server running. It is a compromise between dedicated and shared hosting. But a classic shared hosting offer is adapted in most cases (especially if it is optimized for the Pandoon site ;-)).
There are other offers, more expensive, which are dedicated servers. In this case you rent not only the service but you rent the machine also, which remains the property of the host but that you have to your website only. In this case, most of the time, the client can administer the server by installing the technologies it needs. But as disadvantages, we can cite the higher price (so choose only if one has a very important that site requires a lot of resources which are greater than the hostings high-end which are between 100 and €200 per year)
The second drawback, that isn't for everyone, it is that we must have good knowledge of server administration. Know immerse hands in the dirty grease :-).
There is still a type of accommodation, these are dedicated accommodation manager. It means that you have a server dedicated as explained in the previous paragraph, the only difference was that there is a technician of the accommodation which takes care of the technical part of the server. This type of accommodation is trying to adapt to the needs, therefore, you can ask to install such or such technology on the server.
Another type, rarer still for individuals. It is the roommate, in this case, the customer buys a server and installs it in a host. Thus, he took advantage of the installation of the places (very high speed, safety for electric current, air-conditioned room) he simply just install the server in the racks provided for this purpose.
After all (all paid) offerings is an offer, that it is free. It's like a flanged shared server. More often, it is an offer to make discover the platform, giving access only to very small resources (some GB drive and a single MySQL database. This type of offer (which is free) are convenient if you want to try to make your first website. They are often sufficient to install Wordpress into a blog. However if your site starts to take a bit of scale, it will be quickly needed to migrate to a shared offer. All depends on your needs. Services such as Wordpress is also proposing to host your blog, but in this case no FTP access to the server, all administration will be via HTTP. It should also be noted that whatever the free offer you can not choose your domain, your site will be a subdomain. For example: .
After the description of all its type of accommodation, you should know that in 99% of cases, a shared hosting will suffice you. Other accommodation are rather aimed at businesses and stores of substantial size.
To choose your accommodation, look at the various offers, compare prices, to see which is cheaper to meet your performance expectations. The reliability of service, that the site will be always available or that there is no technical problem to repeat. For that, specialized forums and accommodations online are important sources of information and comparisons.
We must also see the quality of customer service, if there is a problem, or that one of the manipulations such as the establishment of database for example asks you problem. Seniority also plays, it reassures the reliability that your accommodation will not close from one day to the next.
For hosters, you have the website of 1and1 or here is a list of the major hosts (far from complete):
- DRI
- Easy-accommodation, tested by Bryce
- Futie
- Hexadom
- Hoster
- Infomaniak, that of Pandoon currently
- Marven Hosting
- OVH
And among hosters who have free formulas without ads it is a:
- 000Webhost, tested by Pandoon
- (If client) free
- Freeweb7