Your business has just started, you have a new website to go with it, and now you are shopping for a web hosting service. It is crucial to know how much rent you will pay for your new website to be on a web hosting company’s server, especially when your business is about to begin. A web hosting company stores websites on its server, and a server is a computer.
Regardless of where you shop, you will discover that there is no set of standard prices for services such as shared web hosting or dedicated web hosting. Generally-speaking, web hosting companies charge whatever the client is happy to pay. Having said that, there is such a thing as competition, with constant pressure from the competitors to keep prices as low and yet attractive as possible. Bear in mind that the more resources and support your website requires from a host, the more you will obviously have to pay.
For example, Afrihost guarantees a 24/7, dedicated host support service, which includes:
When you move away from the normal, standard web hosting services supplied by the web host, and you go for the more specialised, and customised options required for your website, the price is going to go up.
To make hosting easier for the client, the web host may offer to manage a specialised, customized service on behalf of the client. This may involve basic performance monitoring, but may extend to helping the client with detailed application development. Whatever the degree of involvement of the host and the accompanying support offered, the client in the end must decide what is best for his or her website and business – is it worth paying the host extra for all the additional involvement, compared to the return on investment?
Linux is an open source operating system, which means web hosting companies do not have to pay licensing fees when Linux is used as their operating system. This understandably makes Linux web hosting attractive as it will enjoy low prices. Linux web hosting is considerably more popular than Windows web hosting, and is used for shared web hosting, which is when several or many websites are hosted on one server. The fact that the total cost of running a server is shared by many website owners, means the costs are lowered even more.
Afrihost offers its lowest and cheapest “Silver Home” Shared Linux Web Hosting package for R29 pm (VAT inclusive), which includes a free domain (for the first year), unlimited traffic, 1000MB of storage, and one MySQL data base, with the latest version of PHP scripting language. The top of the range, the “Platinum Home” option at R49 pm, provides everything the same as “Silver Home”, except that storage is 3000MB, and 5 MySQL data bases are made available.
This web hosting server’s operating system is Windows based, which can only work with Windows-related products such as ASP.NET, Microsoft Access, and Microsoft SQL server (MSSQL). ASP.NET is a Windows server-side script language for rendering website pages more dynamic, and Microsoft Access, MSSQL, and MySQL are data base management systems.
The scripting language PHP can still be used on Windows. The only disadvantage of the Windows operating system is that, unlike the Linux operating system, it is considerably more open to attack by computer viruses.
Afrihost’s cheapest Windows web hosting package is called “Bronze Home,” which costs R49 pm, and includes a free domain (for the first year), unlimited traffic, 1000MB of storage, one MySQL data base management system, and one Microsoft Access data base management system, and the scripting languages ASP.NET and PHP. The third-lowest option “Gold Home”, at R99 pm, offers the same as the “Bronze Home”, except for the extra one Microsoft SQL data base.
Do you still have questions about web hosting? Feel free to contact us or browse our web hosting FAQ section.
Sources:
https://www.afrihost.com/site/product/linux_hosting
https://www.afrihost.com/site/product/windows_hosting
http://www.thewhir.com/cost-factors-web-hosting-service-relationship
https://www.afrihost.com/site/faq/web_hosting