Shared Hosting is often referred to as simply, “Web Hosting.” This is your standard hosting package and type and does the job for 90+% of websites out there. You will receive a control panel to manage your website, space allocation and bandwidth allocation on the server. The server, as the name implies is shared amongst numerous other sites.

The advantage is that this is a low cost and very simply solution for getting yourself a website. The downside can come into play when you factor in the other sites on the same server, be it performance related issues (certain sites or your own site needing more than their share of the server resources) or issues relating to hacking/attacks, although these are rare occurrences.

Dedicated Hosting solves many of the problems relating to shared hosting. The entire server is your own. You're not sharing it with anyone else. This allows for full use of all of the server's resources and performance, yet that does come at a cost. Dedicated Hosting is more expensive than standard shared hosting. This type of web hosting is perfect for larger sites or those sites that simply need the reliability and performance, 100% of the time.

Dedicated servers of course come in all different configurations, as well as managed servers vs unmanaged servers. With Managed servers, the hosting company will handle all server administration (at a larger cost), whereas with unmanaged servers you will need to be well versed in those tasks.

VPS Hosting is somewhat of a newer type of web hosting service, coming on strong in the last few years. VPS Hosting bridges the gap between shared hosting and dedicated servers. It partitions (virtualization is a common reference) the server into different “Virtual” servers, with each virtual server/account being independent of each other.

This solves the problem relating to performance or attack related issues of shared hosting, at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated server.

A VPS is perfect for a site needing dedicated server resources and performance, yet not quite yet needing the full server to themselves.

One thing to remember to look into is Managed VPS vs Unmanaged VPS. With Managed, the hosting company will handle all server related maintenance and upgrades/administration. Whereas unmanaged VPS you will need to be versed in handling those tasks.

Reseller Hosting allows you to start your own web hosting company and sell web hosting services. Reseller Hosting is very popular amongst web designers or entrepreneurs looking to add to their existing services.

Reseller Hosting will provide you with a master control panel capable of managing and divvying out accounts and access, as well as assigning specific resources to specific accounts in terms of domains hosted, bandwidth and disk space for their website. You are able to charge the users as you see fit and earn revenue – building your own web hosting company!