Types of hosting solutions

A hosting service applies to depositing and/or sharing given web content on a hosting server handled by a web hosting supplier. There are different categories of hosting services utilized for various aims, so let's review these. In that way, you can determine what you want, on the basis of whether you desire to create a web site, e-mails, or to share files with mates and colleagues.

- File hosting: a solution provided by various vendors, which permits you to share enormous files. These could be disk images, motion pictures, audio files, archived files, and so on. This service is also known as file storage, and its single purpose is to share files, since it does not offer web site uploading. The moment the files are uploaded, you will either receive a randomly generated download link for each of them, or you will be able to view an inventory of all the files in a directory, but you will be unable to open .html or .php website files in your web browser. Free-of-charge file storage solutions are often supported by exhibiting adverts next to the download links, while a timer compels you to await a given interval of time to view them. A given file can be downloaded with limited speed. If you buy a paid file hosting package, there are no limits as to how many files you can upload/download right away, and also there is no limit as far as the download speed and the file size are concerned.

Now, with the help of the cPanel hosting suppliers, "file hosting" is being renamed to the more modish "cloud hosting". This is a totally twisted interpretation of the actual meaning of "cloud hosting". A real cloud website hosting system would divide the workload between independent groups of servers in a cluster, which are committed to serving various hosting services (electronic mail, disk storage, stats, DNS, databases, web hosting CP, and so on.) So, the file hosting solution is only a brand of a disk storage hosting service, not a cloud hosting one. It's not even close.

- Image hosting: akin to file hosting; specific providers provide a hosting service for images exclusively. This hosting brand is appropriate if you wish to share a large quantity of pictures with mates or associates since the service is mostly free of charge. You will get a randomly generated link for each pic or album and you can then share this link. As with the file hosting service, .html and .php files are not supported, so the service cannot be utilized for web sites.

- E-mail hosting: a solution committed to handling your mail aliases. Some firms offer webspace hosting services for web pages, but do not supply an email solution. If you would like to get an email address with your domain name but do not wish to run a website, then the email hosting service is what you need. You can create email accounts and manage them, but there will be no web solution for the domains. The email hosting service includes incoming POP/IMAP and outgoing SMTP mail servers.

- Video hosting: this service allows you to upload and share video clips. You can either share a link to a certain video clip, or you can embed the video file in your web page that is hosted somewhere else. The advantage of availing of this method instead of uploading the video clip in a hosting account is that the video generates a certain amount of CPU load, so with a couple of video clips and several hundred web page viewers, you may have difficulty with your website hosting supplies. Embedding the video file will permit you to run as many video files as you desire without worrying about system resources.

- Web page hosting: this is the solution that you need if you desire to have a web site. To a certain extent, it embodies all of the abovementioned hosting types since, along with your websites, you can also host pictures and files, you can set up databases and mail addresses, upload video files, etc. At A259, for instance, you can take a look at web hosting and dedicated hosting plans that allow you to have all of the aforesaid solutions in one single place. There may be limitations based on the kind of hosting service that you've selected - a free hosting plan, a paid shared hosting plan, a VPS or a dedicated server. Based on that, your web page hosting account may be better or worse compared to the common e-mail/file/video/image hosting packages that are planned for specific web content only.