Web hosting packages can be confusing – especially if this is your first time looking for a web hosting plan. To help you out with all the lingo, here's a breakdown of the plans you're most likely to find.
Managed Hosting: when you sign up for managed hosting, the hosting company you're working with will dedicated one or two employees solely to make sure that your site runs right. When something goes wrong, your site will be fully managed. Managed hosting is available with both shared and dedicated plans too.
Shared Hosting: this type of plan is exactly how it sounds. You will be sharing a server with many other sites. Typically, those sites are smaller and don't take up much bandwidth. But, if one site starts to suck too much bandwidth, your site could slow down. That's why we recommend dedicated hosting for any site that requires full attention or for any site owner that wants to avoid potential slowdown.
Dedicated Hosting: once again, the name says it all. With dedicated hosting, you won't have to share a server. You will get your own server, and your site won't be slowed down thanks to another site on your server. If you combine dedicated hosting with managed hosting, you'll win the hosting battle.
Linus Hosting: if you're using a web development tool that was built for Linux, you'll want Linux hosting. Most development tools (like WordPress) are built for Linux, but don't worry – you don't have to know how to use Linus to set up this kind of plan!
Windows Hosting: using Microsoft tools to set up your site? If so, you'll want a Windows Hosting plan. These plans can be found if you look around, though they aren't quite as popular as Linux plans.
Colocation: if you really want control over your hosting, set up colocation. Or, in other words, a situation where you own all of your own software and hardware. In this instance, your hosting company will only ensure that your server is running, but you control all the rest from your end. This is only recommended if you know what you're doing, and colocation hardly ever pays off (it's really not cheaper when you compare!).
Need help picking a hosting plan? We're here to make sure that you choose the right one. But, I will say this: dedicated hosting is almost always the way you want to go when it comes to running a business website. Otherwise, you run into all kinds of risk – just take a look at the other posts on this site!