Groups of hosting services

A hosting service pertains to saving and/or sharing given content on a web server administered by a hosting provider. There are various classes of hosting services used for different purposes, so let's take a glance at them. In this way, you can decide what you need, based on whether you wish to establish a web portal, e-mails, or to share files with mates and acquaintances.

- File hosting: a solution distributed by some firms, which permits you to share bulky files. These could be disk images, films, audio files, archived documents, etc. This service is also known as file storage, and its only purpose is to share files, since it does not support web page uploading. The moment the files are uploaded, you will either get a randomly created download link for each of them, or you will be able to view a record of all the files in a directory, but you will not be able to view .html or .php web site files in your web browser. Free file storage packages are frequently supported by exhibiting ads beside the download links, while a timer compels you to await a specific interval of time to see them. A single file can be downloaded with restricted speed. If you purchase a paid file hosting account, there are no restrictions as to how many files you can upload/download at once, and also there is no restriction in regard to the download speed or the file size.

At present, with the help of the cPanel hosting wholesalers, "file hosting" is being renamed to the more fashionable "cloud hosting". This is a thoroughly amiss interpretation of the actual definition of "cloud hosting". A real cloud website hosting platform would assign the load between individual sets of servers in a cluster, which are devoted to serving different hosting services (mail, data storage, statistics, DNS, databases, CP, and so on.) So, the file hosting service is just a brand of a disk space hosting service, not a cloud hosting one. It's not even near.

- Image hosting: close to file hosting; specific firms offer a hosting solution for pictures exclusively. This hosting brand is appropriate if you desire to share a vast quantity of pictures with buddies or acquaintances since the service is mostly free of charge. You will receive a randomly generated link for each and every 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 solution cannot be used for web pages.

- E-mail hosting: a service dedicated to tackling your mail accounts. Some firms provide webspace hosting services for web sites, but do not offer an e-mail solution. If you desire to get a mail address with your domain name but do not desire to run a website, then the e-mail hosting solution is what you require. You can open mailbox accounts and manage them, but there will be no web solution for the domains. The email hosting service involves incoming POP/IMAP and outgoing SMTP e-mail servers.

- Video hosting: this solution allows you to upload and share videos. You can either share a link to a specific video file, or you can embed the video clip in your website that is hosted elsewhere. The advantage of using this method in lieu of uploading the video file in a hosting account is that the video clip brings about a certain amount of CPU load, so with a couple of video files and several hundred web site viewers, you may have a hard time with your web hosting reserves. Embedding the video will allow you to manage as many video files as you want to without worrying about system resources.

- Web site hosting: this is the solution that you need if you desire to keep a web site. To some degree, it embodies all of the abovementioned hosting varieties since, along with your web sites, you can also host pictures and files, you can set up databases and email aliases, upload video files, and so on. At Elite Hosting, for example, you can see web hosting and dedicated server hosting accounts that allow you to have all of the abovementioned services in one place. There may be limits based on the kind of hosting service that you've settled on - a free hosting account, a paid shared hosting account, a VPS or a dedicated server. Based on that, your web site hosting package may be better or worse juxtaposed to the routine e-mail/file/video/image hosting packages that are conceived for particular content only.