Web hosting is an essential service every website needs to get online. It doesn’t matter what type of website you are building, just like every soul needs a body to live, every website needs a host to live.

Top 8 best web hosting services in India

I’ll start these top 8 web hosting providers list from 8 – 1. This ranking will be updated every time I’ll test new web hosts and finds them the perfect match for all our above criteria.

8. iPage

7. GoDaddy

6. InMotion Hosting

5. Hostgator US

4. WPEngine

3. Resellerclub India

2. Arvixe

1. Siteground

But choosing the best web hosting service among the available hosting providers in the market can be a time consuming task. As a smart business person you would not like to waste your valuable time, money and energy to test several hosting companies and choose the right hosting provider from them.

As a freelance web designer and working with over 100 clients in the span of more than 4 years I’ve tested more than 15 different hosting providers. With some of them my experience was pretty good while others made me feel embarrassing in front of my clients (literally).

Here’s what you’ll learn in this guide:

1. What is a Web Hosting Service?
2. Different types of Web Hosts
3. Choosing the Right type of Web Host
4. Considerations: Before you buy your hosting package
5. How to host your website? Step by Step Guide

If you’ve been looking for the best web hosting services to buy web space in India, then you’re at the right place. Choosing a good web host can be a daunting task as hosting industry has become really competitive nowadays & each company is trying to sell their services to you with a lot of great offers.

What exactly is a Web Hosting Service?

According to Wikipedia, A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts (hosting providers) are the companies that provide space on a server owned or leased for use by clients, as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center.

In other words, if you consider your house (where you live) as a website, then the space (your house acquires or is built upon) can be called as a web hosting for your website. I hope that makes sense.

By the way, you can learn more about web hosting in this Web Hosting 101 course by Udemy [Note: The course is FREE]

Different types of Web Hosts

Now as you know what exactly is a web hosting service, let’s move on to what are the different type of web hosts and if those suits your hosting needs & budget.

Mainly, there are three types of web hosts viz. Shared, Virtual Private Server and Dedicated hosting. By the way if you’re curious about what are the other types of web hosts then don’t worry here’s the list of different types of web hosting.

Choosing the right type of web hosting services

So by now you must have understood the difference between various types of web hosting. And it’s time to choose the best web hosting type. Learn more about the criteria for choosing the best hosting company here

a. Shared Hosting

Your site is hosted along with others on a shared server. Shared hosting can be an affordable & easy to get online option for you. But your site can be vulnerable to slowdowns if one of the other sites on the server uses more than its share of the resources.

My Take: Consider buying a shared hosting if you’re on a budget or just starting to get your website online. Large web applications should not be hosted on a shared hosting.

b. Virtual Private Server

In a virtual private server hosting, multiple websites are hosted on the same server but separated by partitions. It is actually similar to shared hosting but VPS offers more separation from your “neighbors.” VPS hosting offers some of the benefits of a dedicated server, but at a lower cost.

My Take: If you want more separation from others and the basic benefits of dedicated hosting go for VPS. You can use VPS to host any kind of website on a VPS as far as it fits into your VPS criteria.

c. Dedicated Hosting

A dedicated server allows you to rent an entire server for your site. You don’t need to share resources, also this type of hosting offers a great amount of control than shared or VPS. However, dedicated hosting is more expensive and requires more technical knowledge from your end.

My Take: As you saw in the infographic above, dedicated hosting is not your apartment or townhome but your own house. There is nothing like shared resources like in shared hosting or perhaps VPS as well. If you are high on budget and knows some technical stuff related to host configuration you are good to buy dedicated hosting.

Now:

You know the difference between the main three types of hosting. But before you place an order for your new hosting package check out the following considerations to become the smart investor you are.

Considerations: Before you buy your hosting package

There are many considerations and factors that matters before you buy your hosting space. Let’s get into them one by one.

• Price – Is that web hosting package affordable for you?
• Location – Does that hosting provider have a data center nearby your location (or your visitors location)
• Up time & Reliability – Ask your host if their servers are reliable and have great up time.
• Security – How secure is your server? Your server must encrypt the sensitive information via SSL and secure your site from hackers & intruders.
• Customer Reviews -Check for the genuine customer reviews. While reading reviews you should try to find the best information. Look for reviews that compare web hosts not just based on the cost but across lot of different stuffs such as customer support, reliability, packages & offers.
• Customer Support – If you’re not a technical person, you’ll definitely need a technical support to get problems solved if you stuck into one. A good customer support don’t make you wait for a long period.
• Supported Scripts/Languages – If you’re a web developer and have some specific language requirements then you should consider asking your hosting provider for the support of that language.
• Space – This is important, yes because space is the only thing that can allow you to host your website. A simple WordPress website won’t consume the disk space of more than 1 GB.
• Additional Offers (if any) – You should not fall into grabbers from hosting companies as they make you focus on freebies rather than the features. But if you think the web host is providing great number of features along with some offers then only you should consider buying a hosting package from them.
• Top 20 Questions to ask your web host –These are a few questions you can ask your web hosting provider before you sign up with them.

You’ve read more than 1000 words, take a break by watching…

Ha ha. 🙂

By the way here’s the list of other best web hosting services that needs honorable mentions.

Other Honorable Mentions

• Bluehost
• Bigrock
• Dreamhost
• 1 and 1
• Justhost

Featured Image Source: Joaquim Massapina