How to choose hosting
Start from what you are hosting and who will look after it, not from a specification. The specification is the last decision, not the first.
By situation
A brochure site, blog or portfolio with modest traffic
→ Static hosting, or shared hosting if you want a CMS admin
Nothing on the page needs to be computed per visitor. Static hosting removes the server entirely; shared hosting is the pragmatic choice if someone non-technical needs to log in and edit.
A WordPress site that earns money
The premium buys a tuned caching stack, tested updates, staging and restores you do not have to think about. Check the banned-plugin list first.
An application — anything with a runtime, a queue or a daemon
→ VPS
Shared hosting forbids long-running processes and arbitrary packages. A VPS is the cheapest tier where you can install what the application needs.
Many small sites on one bill
→ VPS
One instance can serve dozens of virtual hosts. The cost is that you are now the administrator for all of them at once.
Traffic that is spiky, seasonal or unknown
Metered, API-driven capacity is exactly the case elasticity was built for. Set a billing alert before you create anything.
Steady heavy load, or a database sensitive to I/O latency
No oversubscription and no noisy neighbours means tighter latency percentiles. For constant load it also undercuts metered cloud capacity substantially.
It must survive losing a datacentre
→ Two or more instances across failure domains
No single machine, however good, is highly available. Redundancy is a count of independent failure domains, not a quality of hardware.
You build sites for clients and want hosting in the bundle
→ Reseller hosting, or a VPS you manage
Reseller is less work and thinner margin; a VPS is more control and makes you the operations team. Either way the support queue becomes yours.
Nobody on the project wants to administer a server
→ Shared, managed or static — anything but unmanaged
An unpatched VPS is worse than shared hosting in every way that matters. Root is only an advantage if someone uses it.
The checklist
- Does any part of the page have to be computed per visitor?
If not, static hosting removes an entire category of problem. - Do you need to install software the host does not offer?
That answer alone moves you from shared hosting to a VPS. - Is the load steady or spiky?
Steady favours a VPS or dedicated machine. Spiky favours metered cloud capacity. - Who patches the operating system?
If the honest answer is nobody, choose a managed tier. - What happens when the machine is lost?
Write down the recovery steps. If you cannot, you do not have a backup yet. - How much data leaves the platform each month?
On metered platforms egress can exceed the cost of the compute serving it. - Can you leave?
Check export paths, contract length and setup fees before you need them, not after.
Two mistakes that cost the most
Buying control nobody will use. A VPS is only better than shared hosting if someone applies the updates, configures the firewall and tests the restores. Unadministered, it is the least safe option on the comparison table, not the most capable.
Buying for a peak that never arrives. Elastic platforms exist so you do not have to pay for your busiest hour around the clock. Equally, paying metered cloud rates for a workload that never varies is the same mistake inverted — a rented machine is usually several times cheaper for constant load.
Before you commit
- Check the contract length, the setup fee and the refund window — the headline rate is often a first-term promotion.
- Check the renewal rate, which is frequently several times the introductory one.
- Check how you leave: whether you can export the database and files yourself, and whether migration help is included.
- Check what the backups cover, how far back they go, and whether restoring one needs a support ticket.
- Check whether the uptime figure has a remedy attached. Without one it is a marketing claim.