Web hosting confused the hell out of me when I first started working on the web. What is hosting? What kinds of options did I have? What’s the deal with their advertised prices? What service does Thesis Tutor recommend? These are questions that I am going to stamp out once and for all. With this post, I bestow unto you the knowledge of website hosting.
What is Web Hosting?
Web hosting is a simple concept: it is a virtual storage unit. That’s it. No mystery, no surprises. It stores and holds your website content, pictures, videos, comments [ahem], etc on a server. The only difference between web hosting and real storage units is that much of the contents of your server are available for public viewing.
Now, when I first started, I wanted to know why I couldn’t just host a website at my home computer. I thought I had a good internet connection and enough storage. So why not?
The first problem is your ISP. They simply cannot allow residential customers to use the amount of bandwidth required by website hosting. More simply, it’s just too slow.
Second is security. Chances are, if you are reading this you don’t know jack about security. I bet simple PHP encoding would totally stump you. Don’t worry though, you are not alone.
Third is management. Servers require constant attention. There are always patches and upgrades and this-es and thats. You don’t have time to fool with that junk, trust me.
Head over to MidPhase and pick up hosting. Or, read on!
Hosting Options
There are essentially three primary hosting options:
Shared Hosting:
Shared hosting is exactly what it says: you share a server with multiple other users. This is the simplest form of hosting and is absolutely the cheapest route.
There are certainly some drawbacks, however. If one of the sites you share resources with suddenly gets a million visitors, your site will slow to a crawl. Also, advanced modifications to ports are hard/impossible to make. But, if you’re a newbie, you won’t be doing that anyway
VPS: Virtual Private Server
VPS is the obvious way of the future. Basically, VPS divides a server into distinct sections that act as their own server. It is many sub-servers within a server.
Lemme break it down for ya:
Imagine an apartment building where everyone shared the same air conditioning unit. This would be like shared hosting. One greedy neighbor decides to turn his house into an icebox and sets his thermostat to 33°F. Suddenly, everyone else in the building is having problems because greedy, creepy icebox guy is overloading the A/C. Such is the failure of shared hosting.
Now, imagine the same apartment building. Instead of one huge A/C unit, each apartment has it’s own. Suddenly, creepy ice man’s insane usage has little to no effect on your comfort. You win. heh.
The one drawback with VPS configurations is that they require a slightly higher level of technical knowledge. So, if you are completely ignorant, this may not be for you.
Dedicated and Managed Hosting
Quite simply, dedicated hosting is your own server that you manage yourself. Managed hosting is your own server that the hosting company manages for you. Both options are considerably more expensive that either shared or VPS and should only be used by people who have fairly hefty traffic and a relatively high level of expertise.
Pricing
What if I told you that you could have a brand new, 52 inch Samsung LCD Series 6 HDTV for only $55 per month?! Yeah, you totally can. Except for instead of $55 per month you pay me $2000 right now!
Wtf kind of logic is that?
This is exactly how hosting companies advertise.
I’m tired of that junk advertising method so I’m going to lay it out straight.
Here are the rates for MidPhase shared hosting and VPS.net vps services, the companies (both owned by UK2) I exclusively love. I’ll tell you more about why I have a monogamous hosting relationship after I tell you the prices.
For a full list of all the features for each class, click here.
Shared Hosting Prices
Basic Plan – for ONE website.
- 24 Months – $70.80
- 12 Months – $71.40
- 3 Months – $26.85 + $49.00 Set Up Fee
Unlimited Plan – Unlimited Sites and Databases
- 24 Months – $166.80
- 12 Months – $107.40
- 3 Months – $10.95 + $49.00 Set Up Fee
Business Plan – Dedicated Secure Certificate & Static Ip [among many]
- 24 Months – $214.80
- 12 Months – $143.40
- 3 Months – $38.85 + $49.00 Set Up Fee
Dude! Get over to MidPhase and pick up hosting. You’ll love it!
VPS Hosting Prices
VPS pricing is based on ‘nodes’ which are basically resource measures. The more resources you want, the more it costs. For small sites the nodes start at $20/month. For extremely large sites, prices will hit $234/month. And yes, they really charge by the month!
Most regular old sites will only need one or two nodes. But wait! What happens if you suddenly start getting massive traffic one day? Easy answer: pay for one day’s worth of extra space. Done.
Say what?
VPS allows for one day expansion nodes. You can add one node for $1/day or 18 for $18/day. Done, done and done.
Why I use MidPhase and am Switching to VPS.net
Right now, I run a shared server on the unlimited plan. Why? Honestly, I just haven’t gotten around to switching to VPS’ cloud hosted servers. I should, but I have sites to build and content to make 
By the end of the year I hope to have it all switched over, however.
But, why do I like MidPhase?
There are two reasons, really. The first is that they are just easy to use. When you sign up you get all the information within seconds and you can start adding domains and databases right away. I love that.
Second, they have great customer support. You can always chat with a live rep or call them if you are feeling particularly frisky. Every hosting problem I have had [even ones only kind of related to hosting like an .htaccess question I had] have been answered by their customer support. Once, in my early days, I was too stupid to go into my server and make a change in WordPress. The MidPhase customer support did it for me.
Am I saying MidPhase will totally hold you hand and wipe your tush? No. But they are friendly as hell and willing to help. What is that worth to you? To me it is worth infinity dollars. No, seriously!
I hope that this little article will help you find the right hosting to fit your needs. Good luck!