Free hosting is the most basic type of web hosting. Free hosting is generally supported by advertisements, and only offers limited features. This is the best type of hosting for those that are starting out and only need hosting for a small personal site that will require little bandwidth.
Free web hosts will normally give you a directory for use (www.xyz.com/~yoursite) or a subdomain (yoursite.xyz.com). They only provide a small amount of space and bandwidth, and also tend to not offer any support for server side scripting such as PHP, or MySQL databases. Generally free web hosting is limited when it comes to email services as as site statistics.
Shared hosting is the most popular type of hosting. In almost all cases small businesses, with small to large web sites find that shared hosting fits their requirements perfectly. Small businesses generally don't need all the resources that a dedicated server can provide, not to mention the costs associated with purchasing a dedicated server
Shared hosting as the name suggests allows web hosting providers to have more than a single account on a server. Shared hosting providers also provide close system administration which is excellent for users that don't have the time to deal with the hassles of running a server along with a number of other users.
While it depends on the specifics of the hosting plan chosen, most server features will be avaialable to the user such as PHP, MySQL, ASP, multiple email addresses, multiple domains or sub domains, and more storage and bandwidth than a free host will provide.
Unmanaged dedicated hosting is a good option for those that are looking for more bandwidth, storage or other features that shared hosting doesn't provide. Having dedicated hosting means that you have access to virtually unlimited databases and email addresses that the user can create, as well as access to larger bandwidth capacity. Also with dedicated hosting, you can normally purchase upgrades for your server, such as a new hard drive to gain extra storage, or more system memory to improve server performance.
There is one drawback to unmanaged dedicated hosting, you must be your own server administrator. If you do not have the skills to manage your won server, you have two options, learn how to manage a dedicated server, or go with Managed Dedicated Hosting.
If you require the vast resources of a dedicated server but do not want to deal with the day to day operation of an unmanaged dedicated server, then a Managed Dedicated Server should fit your requirements. Going with a managed dedicated server means you will have the avaialability of technical support to help you set up your server, and you will also have ongoing technical support assistance if a problem with the server should ever arise.
Pricing of managed dedicated servers vary according to how much support you will require, and also how much reliability you require.
Article Written By David J. Smith, owner and operator of Webhost-Advisor.com