Types of hosting services

A hosting solution refers to saving and/or sharing certain content on a hosting server handled by a website hosting vendor. There are different kinds of hosting services utilized for different aims, so let's take a look at them. In that way, you can conclude what you need, on the basis of whether you wish to build a web portal, mail addresses, or to share files with friends and partners.

- File hosting: a solution supplied by various web hosts, which enables you to share huge files. These could be disk images, films, audio files, archives, and so on. This service is also known as file storage, and its sole purpose is to share files, since it does not offer web page uploading. Once the files are uploaded, you will either get a randomly created download link for each of them, or you will be able to explore a table of all the files in a directory, but you will not be able to open .html or .php website files in your web browser. Free-of-cost file hosting services are often supported by exhibiting adverts by the download links, while a timer forces you to wait for a particular stretch of time to see them. A given file can be downloaded with restricted speed. If you buy a paid file storage plan, there are no limitations as to how many files you can upload/download right away, and also there is no limitation with regard to the download speed or the file size.

At present, with the assistance of the cPanel hosting merchants, "file hosting" is being renamed to the more modish "cloud hosting". This is a thoroughly awry explanation of the actual denotation of "cloud hosting". An actual cloud website hosting environment would assign the load between independent stacks of web hosting servers in a cluster, which are dedicated to attending various website hosting services (mail, disk storage, stats, DNS, databases, CP, etc.) So, the file hosting solution is merely a brand of a disk space hosting solution, not a cloud hosting one. It's not even close.

- Image hosting: similar to file hosting; certain distributors provide a hosting service for images only. This hosting variant is good if you wish to share a big number of pictures with comrades or associates since the solution is typically free of charge. You will receive a randomly generated link for every pic or album and you can subsequently share this link. As with the file storage service, .html and .php files are not compatible, so the solution cannot be utilized for web pages.

- Email hosting: a service dedicated to managing your e-mail addresses. Some vendors provide website hosting services for sites, but do not offer an email hosting solution. If you would like to own a mail address with your domain name but do not want to own a website, then the e-mail hosting solution is what you want. You can open e-mail address accounts and manage them, but there will be no web service for the domains. The e-mail hosting service includes incoming POP/IMAP and outgoing SMTP servers.

- Video hosting: this service allows you to upload and share videos. You can either share a link to a certain video file, or you can embed the video in your website that is hosted somewhere else. The advantage of availing of this method instead of uploading the video clip in a web hosting account is that the video produces a specific amount of CPU load, so with a handful of video clips and several hundred visitors, you may have difficulty with your webspace hosting resources. Embedding the video clip will enable you to administer as many video files as you want without bothering about system reserves.

- Web page hosting: this is the service that you require if you would like to own a web site. To a certain extent, it comprises all of the abovementioned hosting categories since, along with your websites, you can also host pictures and files, you can set up databases and email address accounts, upload video files, etc. At JoomlaToys, for example, you can have a gaze at web hosting and dedicated server hosting accounts that allow you to have all of the abovementioned services in a single place. There may be limits depending on the type of hosting service that you've selected - a free hosting package, a paid shared hosting package, a VPS or a dedicated server. Depending on that, your web site hosting account may be better or worse juxtaposed to the usual email/file/video/image hosting accounts that are meant for particular content solely.