Many large companies who are not internet service providers, also need a computer permanently connected to the Internet to send e-mails, files, etc. to other sites. The Company may use the computer as a website host to provide details about their products and services and serve for online orders.
Free web hosting service: offered by different companies with limited services, sometimes supported by advertisements, and often limited when compared to paid hosting.
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Shared web hosting service: the website is on the same server as many other sites, ranging from tens to hundreds or thousands. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU. The features available with this type of service can be quite extensive. A shared network can be hosted by a re seller.
Re seller web hosting: allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Re sellers could function, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a re seller. Re seller accounts can vary greatly in size: they may have their own virtual dedicated server to a collocated server. Many re sellers provide a nearly identical service to their provider shared hosting plan and provide the technical support themselves.
Virtual Dedicated Server: also known as a virtual private server (VPS), divides server resources into virtual servers, where resources can be allocated in a way that does not directly reflect the underlying hardware. VPS will often be allocated resources based on a VPS server one to many relationship, but virtualization can be done for a number of reasons, including the ability to move a VPS container between servers. Users may have root access to their own virtual space. Customers are sometimes responsible for patching and maintaining the server.
Dedicated hosting service: the user gets his own Web server and gains full control over it (user has root access for Linux / administrator access for Windows), but the user is not generally own the server. Another type of Dedicated hosting is Self-Managed or not. This is usually the least expensive for Dedicated plans. The user has full administrative access to the server, which means that the customer is responsible for the security and maintenance of his own dedicated server.
Managed hosting service: the user gets its own Web server but is not allowed full control over it (user is denied root access for Linux / administrator access for Windows), but they are allowed to manage their data via FTP or other remote management tools. The user is not allowed full control so that the provider can guarantee quality of service by not allowing the user to modify the server or potentially create configuration problems. The user generally does not own the server. The server is leased to the client.
Colocation web hosting service: similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns the colo server, the hosting company provides physical space that the server takes up and takes care of the server. This is the type most powerful and expensive web hosting service. In most cases, the colocation provider may provide little or no direct support for their client's machine, providing only the electrical, Internet access, and storage facilities for the server. In most cases for colo, the client would have his own administrator visit the data center on site to make hardware upgrades or changes.
Cloud hosting: is a new type of hosting platform that allows customers powerful, scalable and reliable hosting based on clustered load-balanced servers and utility billing. A cloud hosted website may be more reliable than others from other computers in the cloud can compensate when a single piece of hardware fails. In addition, local electrical interference, or even natural disasters are less problematic for cloud hosted sites, as cloud hosting is decentralized. Cloud hosting also allows providers to charge users for resources consumed by the user, rather than a lump sum for the amount the user expects they use, or the initial fixed cost investment equipment. Otherwise, the lack of centralization may give users more control over their data where that could be a problem for users of data security or privacy issues.
Cluster hosting: having multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization. Clustered Servers are a perfect solution for high-availability dedicated hosting, or creating a scalable web hosting solution. A cluster may separate web servers hosting capacity of the database. (Usually Web hosts use Clustered Hosting for their Shared hosting plans, as there are many benefits to the mass managing of clients)
Grid hosting: this form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.
Home server: usually a single machine placed in a private residence can be used to host one or more web sites from a usually broadband consumer grade. These can be purpose-built machines or more commonly old PCs. Some ISPs actively attempt to block home servers by banning incoming requests on TCP port 80 connection from the user and by refusing to provide static IP addresses. A common way to obtain DNS host name is by creating a reliable account with a dynamic DNS service. A dynamic DNS service will automatically change the IP address that a URL points to when the IP address change.
Some specific types of hosting provided by Web service providers host:
File hosting service: hosts files, not web pages
Image hosting service
Video hosting service
Blog Hosting Service
Paste bin
Shopping cart software
E-mail hosting service