every website lives on a computer somewhere. that computer (called a server) is always on, always connected to the internet, and ready to hand your site to anyone who visits. web hosting is the service of renting space on that server.
when someone types your address into a browser, the request travels across the internet to that server, which sends back your website. it happens in under a second and it happens every single time someone visits.
the three main types – and the house metaphor
shared hosting : the apartment building
your website lives on a server alongside hundreds or thousands of other websites. you share the same resources – processing power, memory, bandwidth – with all your neighbors.
it’s the most affordable option, and for small or new sites it’s usually fine. the risk is that a badly-behaved neighbor (a site getting hammered with traffic, or running bloated code) can slow everyone else down. you don’t control the building – the hosting company does.
good for: new sites, small budgets, low-traffic situations.
common shared hosts: DreamHost, Bluehost, SiteGround, HostGator
VPS (virtual private server) – your own house on your own lot
a VPS gives you a dedicated slice of a server that behaves like your own machine. your resources are yours. what your neighbors do doesn’t affect you. you have more control over configuration.
the tradeoff: more responsibility. if something breaks at the infrastructure level, it’s yours to fix (or hire someone to fix). there’s no building super.
good for: growing sites, more traffic, clients who need more control or custom server configuration.
common VPS providers: DigitalOcean, DreamHost, Hertzner, Vultr
managed WordPress hosting – the house with a property management company
this is the increasingly popular middle ground. you get your own environment (like a VPS), but the hosting company handles the technical maintenance – updates, security monitoring, backups, performance optimization. you just run your website.
it costs more than shared hosting, but for high traffic WordPress sites it can be worth it. someone else is watching the building.
good for: high volume client sites, big business sites, anyone with a budget who doesn’t want to think about servers.
common managed WP hosts: Kinsta, WP Engine, Flywheel, Pressable
what to look for in a host
- uptime reliability – how often is the server actually up? look for 99.9% or better
- backups – does the host take daily backups, and can you restore from them easily?
- support – when something goes wrong at 11pm, can you reach someone?
- PHP version control – can you choose which PHP version your site runs on?
- staging environments – can you test changes before pushing them live?
your domain and your hosting are separate things, even if you bought them from the same company. you can move your site to a different host without changing your domain name – you will have to update the nameservers to properly point to the new location.
my advice: start small and you can always upgrade if you need to. DreamHost is my preferred host, but am happy to work with most hosts.
want to understand how your domain name connects to your host? the DNS & nameservers post explains the forwarding system that makes it all work.
