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Choosing a hosting provider is one of the most important initial steps when creating a website. The wrong choice leads to slow loading times, frequent downtime, security issues, and additional migration costs. In this detailed 2025 guide, we'll explore the different types of hosting, the criteria for evaluating a provider and plan, how to avoid common mistakes, and what to choose for different tasks: a blog, an online store, a corporate website, or a SaaS project.

1. Hosting Types: What's Trending Now

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the most affordable option, allowing multiple websites to be hosted on a single server and share resources. Suitable for small personal projects, business cards, and blogs with low traffic.

• Pros: Low cost, easy management (control panel), ready-made settings.
• Cons: Resource limitations, possible "noise" from neighboring sites, low flexibility.

VPS / VDS

VPS (Virtual Private Server) / VDS — a virtual machine with dedicated resources (CPU, RAM, disk). Well suited for growing projects, online stores, CRM systems, and small applications.

• Pros: Full OS access (root), guaranteed resources, flexible configurations.
• Cons: Requires administration (or a managed panel), more expensive than shared hosting.

Dedicated Server

A physical server dedicated to your project. Optimal for projects with very high loads, requiring custom hardware, or enhanced security.

Cloud Hosting

The cloud offers flexible scalability: you pay for the resources you use and easily increase capacity during peak traffic. Ideal for services with variable loads and startups planning rapid growth.

Platform solutions (PaaS) and managed services

Managed VPS, managed cloud, and PaaS offload some administration from the owner—automated backups, patches, and monitoring. Convenient for teams without in-house system administrators.

2. Comparison Table: When to Choose What

3. Key selection criteria - checklist

Before purchasing, use this checklist:

• Uptime and SLA: minimum 99.9% - the higher, the better. Find out what's included in downtime compensation.
• Data center location: Proximity to the target audience affects latency (ping) and speed.
• Drive type: SSD/NVMe is significantly faster than HDD.
• Backup policy: Backup frequency, storage locations, recovery tests.
• Security: WAF, antivirus, DDoS protection, two-factor authentication.
• Support: 24/7, response SLA, channels (chat, tickets, phone).
• Scalability: Ability to quickly add resources without migration.
• Real cost: price per day/month + hidden options (traffic, licenses).
• Reviews and Case Studies: Look for reviews from real clients and project examples.
• Migration Terms: Assistance with migration, trial period.

4. Technical Parameters: What to Look for in a Plan

• CPU and Cores: Important for high computing loads (page generation, complex scripts).
• RAM: Critical for databases and caches (Redis, Memcached).
• Disk subsystem: NVMe - SSD - HDD. IOPS (input/output operations per second) is also important.
• Network: Bandwidth and channel quality, provider's DDoS protection.
• Redundancy and RAID: Disk mirroring for fault tolerance.

5. Security, Backups, and Compliance

The provider should offer automatic backups, test restores, and security tools. For online stores and services that process personal data, additional compliance and data encryption are important (e.g., GDPR requirements/local regulations).

6. Common Mistakes When Choosing a Hosting Plan (and How to Avoid Them)

1. Choosing Based on Price Only: A cheap plan often lacks support, backups, and a proper network.
2. Ignoring Backups: Check not only their availability, but also the recovery procedure.
3. Underestimating Traffic Growth: Plan resources 2-3 months in advance and account for seasonal peaks.
4. Neglecting Latency: For a local audience, the geography of the data center is important.
5. Lack of Testing: Always use a trial period and load tests when necessary.

7. Recommendations for choosing based on the task

Blog or landing page

Shared hosting or lightweight VPS. Page loading speed and image optimization are more important.

E-commerce store (up to ~500 orders/day)

VPS with dedicated resources, SSD/NVMe, regular backups, and SSL are recommended. For large stores, choose cloud or dedicated server.

Application/SaaS

Cloud (PaaS) – scalability, automatic load balancing, and simplified management.

Corporate Website

VPS or dedicated server with managed security, redundancy, and SLA – depending on the importance of availability.

8. Step-by-step plan for checking a provider (before purchasing)

1. Ask for an SLA and read the downtime compensation terms.
2. Ask for test access or a trial period.
3. Check the speed and ping to the data center (using tools: ping, traceroute, webpagetest).
4. Learn about the backup and recovery policy (ask for a demo).
5. Evaluate technical support: ask a question via ticket/chat and time the response.
6. Check for DDoS protection and WAF.
7. Evaluate pricing transparency (additional fees for traffic, IP, licenses).

9. Additionally: How to Prepare for Scaling

• Use a separate architecture: frontend, backend, and database on separate instances.
• Use caching (Redis, Varnish) and a CDN for static content.
• Set up monitoring and alerts (CPU, RAM, disk, API responses).
• Plan migration procedures and test them in advance.

10. Conclusion and Practical Checklist

The right hosting is a combination of technical specifications, quality support, and transparent terms. For a small project, Shared is sufficient; for serious commercial sites, VPS/Cloud with automatic backups and DDoS protection is better. The main thing is to test and not skimp on critical things like security and data backup.

A short checklist before payment

• Is there 24/7 support and an SLA?
• Where are the servers physically located (close to your audience)?
• What is the disk subsystem and its IOPS?
• Are there automatic backups and a recovery test?
• What is the DDoS and WAF policy?
• Is it possible to quickly increase resources without migration?

Ready-made solutions and resources

• Hosting plans — compare available packages and Options.
• VDS / VPS Plans — Flexible configurations and SSD/NVMe.
• Domain Registration — Domain verification and protection.
• AIRNET Blog — Useful instructions and case studies.

Author of the article:

Editor-in-Chief

Danaev Almaz