When it comes to choosing the right hosting plan it's important to understand what options are available and what type of hosting is best suited for your needs. Here we compare and explain the major differences between the three most common types of hosting services in the marketplace today.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is an economical choice for individuals and small businesses to establish an online presence. Shared hosting significantly reduces the cost of getting started on the web by allowing multiple web sites to reside on a single server that is connected to a high-speed Internet backbone in a professionally managed data center.

• The most cost effective solution
• The server is completely managed by the service provider

• No guarantee of system resources (CPU, memory, & bandwidth)
• Limited control of your server (software installed by the service provider)
• Security concerns inherent with a shared environment
• Shared IP address (has negative security implications. A dedicated IP can be provided for a fee of $3/month)

Typical Clients Include

• 1 page "Business Card" site (less than 500 viewers per month)
• 2-5 page small static website (less than 500 viewers per month)

Dedicated Hosting

Your site resides on its own server, thereby decreasing the risk of server-related issues. The increased power and autonomy of your own dedicated server provides greater computing capacity as well as enhanced storage resources. Dedicated servers are ideal for customers with sites that experience high traffic volumes and have complex requirements such as ASP, Cold Fusion, MS Access, high volume shopping carts systems, or for those seeking to install custom applications.

• Increased security as it is not a shared environment in any way
• You can have multiple dedicated IP's
• Guaranteed system resources (CPU, memory, & bandwidth)
• Full control of your server to install any software you wish to install or configure such as Apache, MySQL and PHP
• It is possible to build a custom operating system kernel

• Most expensive hosting solution
• Administration of the server and applications can also become expensive

Typical Clients Include

• Publicly traded company websites (more than 10,000 viewers per month)
• Resource intensive web based (database driven) applications such as a portal
• Specialty applications like CMS, CRM, Project Management, & web mail systems (for more than 100 accounts)
• Data mining and Business Intelligence (BI) applications / databases

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

A virtual private server (VPS) is essentially a hybrid of shared & dedicated hosting. In effect, it's the natural evolution that blends most of the benefits of a dedicated solution with the cost effectiveness of a shared solution. It works like a truly dedicated server in that you have your own root access and you can use it to install and run any application you may require without impacting (or being impacted by) other users of the system. VPS can be used to host one ore more small business websites and is most effective for more complex, database driven applications such as larger online stores or even small corporate intranets. Virtual private servers also makes an excellent development platform or dedicated mail server.

• Much less expensive than a dedicated solution with most of the benefits
• Increased security as it is not a shared environment
• Guaranteed system resources (CPU, memory, & bandwidth)
• Dedicated IP (has positive security implications)
• Full control of your server to install any software you need or configure such as Apache, MySQL and PHP
• Server administration is divided by the service provider and the client and is managed though an easy to use web based interface

• More expensive than shared hosting

Typical Clients Include

• Small business company websites & email (between 500 and 10,000 viewers per month)
• Minor database driven applications like e-commerce shopping cart systems
• Specialty applications like CMS, CRM, Project Management, & web mail systems (between 10 and 100 user accounts)