Classes of hosting solutions

A hosting solution includes storing and/or sharing particular content on a web server run by a web hosting company. There are different types of hosting services used for various ends, so let's take a peek at these. Doing so, you can determine what you need, based on whether you'd like to create a web site, e-mail aliases, or to share files with mates and partners.

- File hosting: a solution delivered by some file storage providers, which enables you to share big files. These could be disk images, movies, audio files, archived files, and so on. This solution is also known as file storage, and its sole designation is to share files, since it does not support site uploading. As soon as the files are uploaded, you will either get a randomly generated download link for each of them, or you will be able to view a table of all the files in a directory, but you will be unable to view .html or .php web files in your web browser. Free-of-cost file storage accounts frequently include advertisements next to the download links, while a timer compels you to wait for a certain interval of time to observe them. A given file can be downloaded with limited speed. If you have a paid file hosting account, there are no limitations as to how many files you can upload/download immediately, and also there is no limit in regard to the download speed or the file size.

Now, with the help of the cPanel hosting merchants, "file hosting" is being renamed to the more faddish "cloud hosting". This is a thoroughly improper explanation of the literal definition of "cloud hosting". A real cloud website hosting platform would distribute the load between separate stacks of hosting servers in a cluster, which are committed to serving various web page hosting services (mail, data storage, stats, DNS, databases, CP, etc.) So, the file hosting solution is merely a kind of a disk storage hosting solution, not a cloud hosting one. It's not even near.

- Image hosting: akin to file hosting; some distributors offer a hosting solution for images solely. This hosting brand is suitable if you desire to share a great quantity of pictures with pals or colleagues since the service is commonly free of charge. You will get a random link for each image or album and you can then share this link. As with the file hosting solution, .html and .php files are not supported, so the service cannot be utilized for web sites.

- Email hosting: a solution dedicated to taking care of your mailbox accounts. Some companies offer web site hosting services for web pages, but do not provide an email hosting solution. If you wish to keep an e-mail address with your domain name but do not want to possess a website, then the email hosting solution is what you require. You can create mailbox accounts and administer them, but there will be no web solution for the domains. The email hosting solution involves incoming POP/IMAP and outgoing SMTP servers.

- Video hosting: this service enables you to upload and share video clips. You can either share a link to a given video clip, or you can embed the video in your website that is hosted somewhere else. The advantage of using this approach in lieu of uploading the video clip in a hosting account is that the video produces a specific amount of central processing unit load, so with a handful of videos and several hundred visitors, you may have trouble with your hosting quotas. Embedding the video will allow you to possess as many video clips as you would like without worrying about system reserves.

- Web site hosting: this is the service that you need if you desire to keep a website. To some extent, it involves all of the aforesaid hosting sorts since, along with your web pages, you can also host pics and files, you can run databases and mail addresses, upload video clips, and so on. At Free Hostia, for instance, you can observe web hosting and dedicated hosting plans that enable you to get all of the aforesaid services in a single location. There may be limitations based on the kind of hosting solution that you've opted for - a free hosting plan, a paid shared hosting package, a VPS or a dedicated server. Based on that, your web site hosting plan may be better or worse compared with the typical email/file/video/image hosting accounts that are intended for particular content exclusively.