With so many different hosting options today, it can be confusing and time-consuming finding the right one. Mainly because it's going to cost you money, and how just how much money is dependent on many different factors. At least nowadays, it isn't as expensive as it was 10 years ago, but it can be. You can get a hosting account for 4$ a month, or you can get one for 200$ a month. The choice really is up to you. For a small scale site, there is no benefit in going past 10$ a month, however. So before you make that leap, read on to see which hosting setup is right for yours.
Shared Hosting
When to buy: Small, New, Hobby
I feel that every new website should begin on a shared hosting server, regardless of how amazing you think your idea may be, for various reasons, but it's mainly the cost.You can get a decent shared hosting account for 10$ a month. And since you theoretically have no traffic just yet, you don't have to worry about your amazing website getting taken offline. Also, if your website does go down due to traffic, that's not a bad problem to have. You can always upgrade your server and copy over a database relatively quickly.
You also have plenty of options to choose from. If you're looking for a Linux setup, you can take Digital Ocean for a spin. If you're on Windows, then GoDaddy would be a fast and cheap route to take.
Cons: With shared hosting, you do lose the ability to customize your server, however, and more than likely you won't be able to install any needed software yourself. You'are also sharing resources with hundreds of other websites, some which could very well be resource intensive and affect your own websites. At the average price point, however, you, in fact, do get what you pay for. Great for testing the internet waters and great for small up and coming websites.
Cloud Hosting
When to buy: Large, dynamic sites
Cloud seems to be the big buzzword nowadays. It's got many benefits for sure. And one solid con that keeps me from getting it. Cloud hosting gets its lure from the fact that it isn't a single physical machine. But rather, it's more of a service being offered through the internet. So it's can't really "go down" in the traditional sense. And if you're ever low on resources, you don't have to shut down a physical server in order to upgrade. You can also target various regions around the world for improved performance, unlike traditional servers which are located in 1 location somewhere and thus give latency issues. It is, however, one of the more expensive options that you will find. And as I have come to figure out, it doesn't make much sense if you're running a small site that doesn't generate revenue.
Cloud hosting accounts normally charge you for what you are using, as far as resources are concerned. Which is both a pro and a con. A pro because if you don't get much traffic, you won't spend much, and a con, because if you do get good traffic, you'll end up paying more than with any of the other options on this list. This would be highly suited for a website with strong seasonal traffic I would say. If for example, every 3 months a website sees a surge of traffic but the rest of the year it remains relatively dormant, then this would be the most cost-effective way to go.
If your target audience is spread across the globe, then Cloud would also be a good choice. Latency is a real issue that many companies deal with, and if your server is in New York, but your audience is in Australia, then they won't be your core audience for very long.
Dedicated Hosting
Large, Complex, Specific Features
This is the most expensive choice on the list, but for good reason. You get the most power for your buck with this option. You don't get many of the benefits of cloud hosting, but you do get a substantial amount of RAM, Storage, and customization. Matching a dedicated accounts specs with cloud will be much cheaper, and you always have the option to increase RAM and storage as you wish on your machine. Customization is key here.
This is definitely suited for websites with consistent traffic in the millions.
Choosing Carefully
As I mentioned, you can always just upgrade servers if the one you are on isn't cutting it anymore. Most hosting companies, however, lock you into a set period of time per account. So you might purchase a yearly shared account and 3 months later find that you need more power. So it's important to gauge your requirements from day 1 and choose accordingly. If you're building an expensive website with multiple people required to work on it, then starting off with Cloud Hosting might be the way to go. If you're looking to run resource-heavy processes on your website, but don't want to incur the charge of usage on cloud hosting, then a dedicated approach would be better. If you're building a blog, however, or an informational site with images and text, then shared will always make the most sense.
I've known many developers who have launched websites on the most state of the art servers they could find, with fingerprint scanners and flood-proof buildings, just in case. And these sites never broke the 100 users per day mark. A year later, those sites didn't exist anymore. And it became a very expensive lesson to learn for these people, so always choose wisely from the beginning.
Walter Guevara is a software engineer, startup founder and currently teaches programming for a coding bootcamp. He is currently building things that don't yet exist.
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