Categories of hosting solutions

A hosting solution appertains to storing and/or sharing specific content on a hosting server handled by a website hosting supplier. There are various classes of hosting services utilized for different ends, so let's survey these. Thus, you can choose what you need, based on whether you'd like to create a site, mail addresses, or to share files with friends and partners.

- File hosting: a solution made available by particular vendors, which permits you to share bulky files. These could be disk images, motion pictures, audio files, archived files, etc. This service is also known as file storage, and its sole goal is to share files, since it does not offer website uploading. As soon as the files are uploaded, you will either get a randomly created download link for each of them, or you will be able to examine a table of all the files in a directory, but you will be unable to see .html or .php web site files in your browser. Free-of-charge file storage plans are often supported by displaying adverts by the download links, while a timer obliges you to await a given amount of time to view them. A single file can be downloaded with limited speed. If you purchase a paid file hosting account, there are no limits as to how many files you can upload/download straight away, and also there is no limitation when it comes to the download speed or the file size.

Now, with the help of the cPanel hosting merchandisers, "file hosting" is being renamed to the more modern "cloud hosting". This is a totally inapt interpretation of the actual meaning of "cloud hosting". A real cloud website hosting system would allot the load between autonomous groups of servers in a cluster, which are committed to attending various web space hosting services (email, disk space, stats, DNS, databases, site hosting Control Panel, and so on.) So, the file hosting solution is only a brand of a data storage hosting solution, not a cloud hosting one. It's not even near.

- Image hosting: comparable with file hosting; some firms provide a hosting solution for images only. This hosting type is appropriate if you would like to share an enormous number of pictures with pals or partners since the solution is usually free. You will receive a randomly generated link for every picture or album and you can then share this link. As with the file hosting service, .html and .php files are not supported, so the solution cannot be used for websites.

- E-mail hosting: a service devoted to taking care of your mails. Some corporations provide webspace hosting services for websites, but do not provide an e-mail service. If you wish to possess an e-mail address with your domain name but do not want to keep a website, then the email hosting solution is what you require. You can set up e-mailbox accounts and manage them, but there will be no hosting service for the domains. The email hosting solution includes incoming POP/IMAP and outgoing SMTP mail servers.

- Video hosting: this service allows you to upload and share video files. You can either share a link to a certain video clip, or you can embed the video clip in your website that is hosted elsewhere. The advantage of availing of this approach in lieu of uploading the video clip in a web hosting account is that the video file generates a specific amount of CPU load, so with a bunch of video files and several hundred web page viewers, you may have a hard time with your web hosting quotas. Embedding the video will allow you to operate as many video files as you desire without worrying about system supplies.

- Web hosting: this is the service that you require if you want to have a web site. To a certain degree, it embodies all of the abovementioned hosting forms since, along with your websites, you can also host images and files, you can create databases and mailbox accounts, upload video clips, and so on. At Club Pyme, for example, you can have a peek at web hosting and dedicated server hosting plans that permit you to have all of the abovementioned services in a single place. There may be restrictions depending on the kind of hosting solution that you've selected - a free hosting plan, a paid shared hosting account, a VPS or a dedicated server. Based on that, your web site hosting plan may be better or worse compared with the conventional email/file/video/image hosting accounts that are intended for specific web content only.