Questions, answered

Shared hosting, also called virtual web hosting, is an environment where individual hosting accounts are stored on a single web server and share system resources such as disk space, data transfer and processing power. Because the server costs are spread across everyone on the machine, it is a very affordable way to get a website up and running, and it is one of the cheapest ways to start a website.

Shared hosting suits people with modest hosting needs, such as small businesses, blogs, hobby sites and forums. It is also a good learning environment for anyone new to web hosting, because the investment is small. It is a good starting point if you are launching a new site and are not yet sure how much space or traffic it will need, and you can move up to VPS or dedicated hosting as the site grows.

Speed, affordability and convenience. Because customers share server resources, they also share the cost of hardware, server maintenance and security updates, which is what makes these plans so affordable. Hostinium takes care of server maintenance and system administration, and the packages come with generous disk space, data transfer and email accounts, which suits personal and small business websites.

Shared hosting accounts do not have root access. If you need administrative-level control over the server, you should look at VPS hosting instead.

All Hostinium shared hosting accounts come with the cPanel control panel, which includes everything you need to manage the account, plus Softaculous for one-click installation of applications such as WordPress, Drupal and Joomla.

Reseller hosting lets you provide hosting to your own clients as if you were the hosting company yourself. It is typically used by entrepreneurs who want to start their own web hosting business, and by web developers and designers who want to add hosting to the services their brand already offers.

You buy a block of disk space and bandwidth and divide it into hosting packages of your own, at your own prices. Each client gets an independent control panel account, and you bill them under your own brand, so your clients do not see who runs the servers behind you. We look after the hardware, the network and the server updates.

You get to act as a hosting company and make money hosting and building websites. You design your own hosting plans and packages tailored to your business and your clients, host and bill your customers under your own brand, and give each client an independent cPanel control panel. Start-up costs are low and you can upgrade later as you grow.

Reseller plans are often the least expensive and easiest way to start a hosting business. From one control panel you set up, manage and operate the back end of websites, email and domain management for your own business and for your clients. Many customers do not have that expertise and depend on you for setup and changes, which is hands-on work you can charge more for. Because the hosting provider runs the servers, you can focus on selling and on managing your customers. As with any business you still need a business plan, a defined target audience and a marketing strategy.

Reseller packages commonly include disk space, bandwidth, domain hosting, the ability to brand your own hosting company with the upstream provider kept unknown to your clients (white label), the latest cPanel control panel, the ability to manage your own plans and configure accounts to your needs, features you can pass on to your clients such as email, control panel access, extra scripts and monitoring tools, and premium support from the hosting provider.

They will believe it is you. You can run your hosting business under your own banner and brand without your clients knowing who your upstream hosting provider is, so you keep total control of how the business is presented.

No. Your provider handles the back-end work, so you can concentrate on building your business. Server hardware, connectivity, network infrastructure, hardware setup and maintenance, and security and updates for the servers are all handled by the hosting provider. It is still worth checking these things while you do your research, so that you know the technical support will be there when an issue arises.

Yes. You can upgrade your reseller hosting account at any time to keep up with the demands of your business. Hosting services renew until you cancel, and a cancellation is a ticket to the billing department that has to reach us at least 15 business days before the next billing date. Web hosting plans carry a 30-day money-back guarantee from signup: it covers credit-card payments only and a list of exclusions applies, and the cancellation policy has the full list and the conditions.

A virtual private server is one large server that has been partitioned, but that behaves like a dedicated server. Each virtual server is independent of the physical hardware it runs on, and the other virtual servers on the same node cannot interfere with its processes or its file system, so you get a private hosting space.

A VPS gives you almost everything a dedicated server offers, at a lower price. You get complete control of the account, including full root access to install the applications you prefer, which is not possible on shared hosting. Because the environment is isolated you are free to run your own scripts, and you get your own mail server, so you can send a mailing list without worrying about a shared mail server IP being blacklisted.

If you have outgrown shared hosting, or you are looking for an alternative to a dedicated server, a VPS is usually the right platform. It is likely to match your website's requirements while remaining an affordable solution. When choosing a VPS provider, look at the provider's reputation, how long they have been in business, the infrastructure they run and the technology they offer.

A VPS is a flexible solution that sits between shared hosting and dedicated hosting in terms of resources, price and functionality. As on a dedicated server, a website hosted on a VPS has private space that is not disturbed by other websites.

A VPS hosting account is normally set up within 24 to 48 hours once the order has been verified. The order is verified by phone or by email using the contact details you provided.

Yes. Upgrades within VPS are applied right away with no downtime to your website; you pay the difference in price.

We provide WHM, cPanel and Plesk.

Website traffic grows with the business, and if the site is not properly supported its performance suffers. Any business owner planning to expand should consider a VPS, because it is an affordable and powerful solution. It also suits anyone who needs specific or customized applications installed on the server, and anyone who is considering a dedicated server but wants a cheaper alternative.

Yes. If you have a VPS hosting account with us you can move up to dedicated hosting at any time by ordering a new server. For fully managed customers we migrate your data from the current account to the new server. You can also add Premium DNS to either a VPS or a dedicated server to improve security and performance.

We host unlimited domain names at no extra charge, and provide a web-based control panel for adding and changing your DNS settings.

On a managed Linux dedicated server, yes: it comes with Web Host Manager (WHM), which gives you control over creating and customizing accounts and over managing the server. On an unmanaged server, and on Windows Server, tell us which control panel you want and we will confirm what we can provision for you.

Dedicated hosting puts no limit on the number of websites you can host. You can add as many as you need, as long as the server has the resources for them.

Your server is normally available for use within 24 to 48 hours, with no setup fees.

Every system is automatically configured with one dedicated IP address, and you can order up to 5 additional IPs.

Both platforms are reliable and widely used, and each has its own strengths. If your site is built with Microsoft technology such as ASP.NET, MS Access or SQL Server, Windows hosting is the right choice. If it is built with PHP and MySQL or PostgreSQL, for example WordPress, choose Linux hosting. A site made only of HTML pages will run on either. Most websites worldwide are hosted on the Linux platform.

Both Linux and Windows hosting support PHP, a scripting language you can use alongside HTML. With PHP you can track and authenticate users and serve XML, among other things.

Perl is supported on both the Linux and the Windows hosting platforms. Because most Perl scripts were written for Unix platforms, they usually run more smoothly on a Linux server.

Every account on Windows shared hosting has its own application pool, separate from other customers on the server. On a plan that hosts more than one website, those sites share a pool: they are grouped by the version of the .NET framework the application runs on, so an application on the older framework and one on the newer framework do not share a pool.

Support for DLLs, COM components and executables is not provided on shared hosting. It is only possible on a dedicated server.

Yes. Each VPS hosting account has its own isolated RAM, CPU and server resources, so your data and processes are more secure in their own virtual environment than they would be on shared hosting.

Dedicated hosting includes fully managed service as an add-on, so you have a dedicated support team ready to help 24/7/365.

Content marketing is the creation and publication of online material with the goal of increasing traffic to your website, and every business from a start-up to an established company benefits from having a strategy for it. With so many businesses competing, it is hard for a smaller one to build and keep brand awareness. Publishing creative, relevant and timely content as blog posts, infographics, podcasts or videos makes your brand stand out from competitors who are not willing to spend the time and energy on solving their audience's everyday problems.