If you’ve ever gone on the search for a new web hosting plan you’ll know that choosing a package can be a difficult task. For the most part, all hosts offer the same sort of thing, you’ll always see the standard array of options.
The confusing part comes when actually trying to decide on a provider that suits your needs. So much competition in the industry as a whole can either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on which way you look at it.
Some would argue that the more choice the better which is somewhat understandable but also with so many hosting companies offering exactly the same service, deciding on one to go with can be an almost impossible task.
We’re not going to tell you who to use specifically in this article. Instead we’re going to run over some of the more common hosting plans you’ll see if you were to visit any of the major web hosting providers. So let’s get started.
WordPress Hosting
As WordPress as a platform becomes more complex, the need for a host specifically geared up for WordPress becomes more apparent. Sure, it’s built and designed to be able to run on pretty much any host with PHP installed but a WordPress install can be anything from a 1 page holding page to a 10,000 page million visit a day behemoth.
It’s completely scalable and the more resources your instance of it uses, the more optimisation you need to do (or have done). This is where WordPress hosting comes into it. It’s specifically optimised out of the box to allow you to get the most out of your hosting plan.
cPanel Hosting
cPanel hosting refers to the control panel cPanel that is used for managing a given hosting account. It’s become a popular package in its own right such is the popularity of cPanel and it’s counterpart WHM (web host manager).
It’s the panel of choice for most webmasters as it comes fully loaded with hundreds of account management features that allow you to manage virtually every aspect of your web hosting account. It’s tried and tested and is the worlds most popular control panel.
Prices for cPanel hosting seem to be on par with shared hosting and there are lots of UK based providers such as this one who are competitively priced.
Shared Hosting
This is the most common form of web hosting you’re going to find. It’s going to be offered by pretty much every hosting provider out there and it can be used to host pretty much anything.
Whether you’re setting up a small bedroom based hobby site or you’re looking to host your corporate website, shared hosting will probably do the job. It’s cheap and it’s to the point. It can be used for any site and you’re only going to need a better spec package if you have a large volume of traffic.
Don’t be confused by the shared terminology, you’re not sharing your account with anyone else. It just means the physical resources of the server are shared such as the RAM and disk space.
Ecommerce Hosting
This hosting type tends to be reserved, well, geared up for applications such as Magento or Woocommerce. Online shops take a lot of resources, particularly if you have a large product catalog combined with a ton of daily visitors. You need a server which is going to be able to handle the load both in terms of bandwidth and resources.
Given the complexity of the applications powering the most popular of the shopping carts these days you really need a server that is both optimised at a hardware and software level. Ecommerce hosting tends to account for this and most of the plans you see have been specifically optimised for that sort of usage.
These are obviously just a few of the packages available. If you were to visit the likes of GoDaddy or HostGator you’d see all sorts of app specific hosting plans like Magento hosting for example or language specific like PHP hosting – there are literally hundreds and obviously too many to cover in a single article.
Hopefully the above has helped you and you now understand the options on the table outside of the traditional shared hosting. Choosing web hosting is all about finding a provider that suits your needs. Someone who is able to offer you a solution that meets the needs of your website. As to which company it is, it doesn’t really matter a great deal.