In this day and age, most people turn to the internet for all kinds of information, including bits about the latest products and services. The internet’s absolute power makes it the ideal platform for any individual or organization to make their presence known.
Most business entities already perceive having an online presence as an absolute necessity, a crucial factor for growth and survival. And for that, they turn to web hosting services to help them build their brand. In this article, we’ll walk you through some of the best web hosting services offering all the tools you may need to build your dream website.
What Are Web Hosting Services?
Web hosting services are pre-packaged services that offer everything an individual or company needs to present information through a dedicated website on the internet. As is the case with most creative or technical projects, creating a website requires a lot of expertise and procedures. The whole process makes use of separate software to get the job done. And with a web hosting service, you won’t need to be a computer geek or a programmer to be able to build your own site.
What Can You Get From a Web Hosting Service?
Web hosting services prioritize providing a safe space for your data on the server. But they can do so much more than just babysitting your data. Web hosting services are supposed to handle all processes related to website management. That includes everything from creating a domain to migrating your data. Most are also highly integrated with third-party tools that you might need along the way. This integration usually encompasses domain-based email hubs, and content management and design tools. It also includes tools to configure interactive functions within the website. There’s just an endless number of features to work with. Let’s take a look at some of those features in more detail.
Email Accounts
The majority of web hosting providers require individuals or organizations to have their own domain names. A domain name is a unique name to your website and email affiliates. It helps internet users to distinguish your website from the rest of the websites on the internet. This can also be the basis for creating your own domain-based email account.
This is normally done either through the help of a built-in or external mail hosting service. Most web hosting services can help you create a unique domain name by automatically cross-referencing your choices of an existing database of domain names. Select web hosting services also carry native support for email hosting. This essentially provides a space for you to create, receive and manage emails with the chosen domain tail (e.g., email@yourwebsite.com)
FTP
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a program that handles the transfer of files from one computer to another. An FTP allows users to upload documents from any local computer onto the internet server. The upload process allows your content to have its own space online and makes it visible over the internet. In order to connect to an FTP server, you’ll need a username and password to be provided by the web hosting service. The FTP server will also require you to select a mode of transfer for each file.
There are two modes of FTP transfer: plain text (ASCII) and binary. Binary files like images, programs, and music files require a binary mode of transfer. Meanwhile, standard text files require an ASCII mode of transfer. Most FTP servers are sensitive about data type settings. This means users must exercise extra vigilance when it comes to filling in the appropriate mode of transfer for files.
Website Building Tools
Most web hosting services offer managed integration with WordPress. WordPress is an open-sourced content management software used to publish all types of content on the internet. Millions of users around the world rely on WordPress to weave all types of online content for their individual blogs or company websites. WordPress runs over 25% of websites on the internet. Its widespread popularity is due in part to the fact that users don’t need special knowledge on web-based editing to run it. It also offers an excellent set of tools for editing and managing content.
Databases
One of the core functions of a web hosting service is to provide a safe space to store your data while it’s online. In exchange for a monthly fee, web hosting services provide you with a safe space to store your data. That storage space may cover everything from content that you’ve already posted online to data that you’re saving for some other purpose. The web hosting service also helps you monitor data traffic. Data traffic lets you know how many people have visited your website within any given period. They also employ security protocols. These are designed to help your website dodge potential attempts at hacking or other forms of cyber-attacks.
Best Web Hosting Providers to Help You Create Stunning Websites
Web hosting services are becoming increasingly popular over time, and there is currently a wide selection of services available to meet all of your web hosting needs. All provide different levels of features, performance, ease of use, and price ranges. But how do you determine what’s right for you? In this review, we’ll examine some of the most popular and reputable web hosting services available, so you can invest in the right web hosting package.
1. DreamHost
DreamHost may not be as prominent as GoDaddy or Bluehost, but it is nevertheless a trusted brand in the web publishing community. The web hosting service has been active for more than 25 years, and it has hosted approximately 1.5 million websites during that period. Like with other web hosting services, you can create your own domain names with the help of the program. DreamHost also offers exceptional speed and availability, the two key measures for performance in web hosting services.
DreamHost excels at cloud hosting, a hosting service where the system resources (e.g., RAM and CPU) come from multiple servers. This acts as a buffer for the website to help ensure it keeps running regardless of external factors that may affect the servers. DreamHost also offers unique WordPress packages designed especially for their shared or VPS hosting packages. If you want to make the most out of WordPress, the Managed WordPress account comes highly recommended. This includes everything you need to work with WordPress, not to mention automatic updates to ensure your software is up to date. There’s also a built-in content management software for those who don’t want the paid WordPress package.
The web hosting service offers two shared plans: a Shared Starter and a Shared Unlimited plan. Shared plans insert your website data into a server containing other website data in order to share system resources with them. It’s a lot like a room-sharing agreement between a bunch of people who don’t know each other. The Starter plan is intended for a single website and comes with a total of six databases and 50 GB of storage. The Unlimited plan, on the other hand, offers the complete package with email accounts, unlimited storage, and unlimited databases. Both packages include eight backups and 24-hour chat and email support.
2. Liquid Web
Organizations need durable web hosting services to preserve their online presence, and LiquidWeb is one that many brand names count on. The company offers enterprise-class servers for larger-scale businesses. One of the service’s key features and its major selling point has to do with managed hosting.
With managed hosting, the organization doesn’t host its servers onsite; they are instead kept at the web hosting service’s data center. That may sound like something that every web server does, but Liquid Web goes further than simply providing remote storage for company servers. The service handles all of the website’s administrative tasks regardless of how complex or mundane those tasks might be. And as you can probably guess, this type of solution is designed mainly with big businesses in mind.
Liquid Web does not offer shared hosting, but it does offer a wide variety of other hosting types. That includes a virtual private server (VPN), dedicated, reseller, cloud, and WordPress server packages. If you want a server with significant power at an affordable price, you can look into VPS hosting. VPS hosting a form of shared hosting that makes use of more powerful system resources.
However, if you’re aiming to build a crash-proof website, then a dedicated web server package comes recommended. With dedicated hosting, your website will receive the full support and resources of a server that is dedicated solely to the website. Another option would be the WordPress managed web hosting service, which is integrated with the Nexcess brand. This service offers one-click installs, automated updates, and WordPress plugins. Another option would be cloud hosting, which taps into multiple servers’ resources as a safety net in case anything happens.
3. AccuWeb Hosting
AccuWeb is another one of the standouts among the web hosting community. It offers many robust pricing plans that offer plenty of flexibility. Unlike Liquid Web that specializes in dedicated servers, AccuWeb offers shared hosting services with a wide variety of shared Linux and Windows hosting plans. Sharing system resources with other websites on the same server helps to lower overall costs resulting in cheaper web hosting plans.
There are 12 different hosting plans to choose from, six each for Linux and Windows options. You can go for the lower-end Linux solid-state web servers or the higher-end Windows-based Enterprise package. One downside to this program is that it doesn’t offer single-month shared options, which are favored by people who have really short-term projects or limited budgets for data storage.
The web hosting service also offers virtual private server (VPS) hosting, which uses dedicated system resources to handle an upsurge in data traffic. Much like the shared server option, you will also be renting a portion of a server, except that your website will be extra isolated from other server companions.
There’s a variety of VPS server plans available, but the most popular ones are Linux VPS Mercury and Windows VPS Emerald. However, if you want a very serious and professional option, you can go for dedicated hosting servers. There are two plans available for dedicated servers: a basic plan and an advanced plan. Naturally, the basic plan offers less storage than the advanced plan, but both plans let you create unlimited email accounts. They also offer special plans for websites with extra needs in the form of archiving and production.
4. HostWinds
HostWinds is a powerful and flexible web hosting service offering a generous array of web hosting options. The program offers every type of server that you can think of, from the low-cost shared servers to more expensive dedicated servers and reseller hosting packages. If you’re running a simple website that doesn’t gobble up system resources, you can try the lower-cost shared server package.
When it comes to shared servers, HostWinds has three offerings: Basic, Advanced, and Ultimate. The basic package can run a single domain and arrives with unlimited monthly data transfers and unlimited storage. Meanwhile, the advanced and ultimate options can run six domains and an unlimited number of domains, respectively. Unfortunately, HostWinds lacks Windows-based plans, but they nevertheless have so much to offer for Linux-based plans.
If you’re running a website with a steady stream of large traffic, a dedicated server might be the appropriate solution. You can choose between the prefabricated and customized shared server hosting plans. The base price for both services is USD 75, but this can go much higher depending on the extent of customization. The dedicated servers are configurable, which means you can have the hard drive storage, SSD storage, and RAM upgraded as you see fit.
HostWinds servers are also able to support WordPress content management, should that be your preferred content manager. There’s also a cloud hosting option for conservative website owners. The cloud hosting option disperses system resources across multiple servers. This should help keep it running even when the main server goes down. Finally, there’s a reseller hosting option that allows you to lease the existing server space to another individual or company.
5. HostGator
HostGator is another web…