Web hosting explained: shared, VPS and cloud
What the main hosting types mean, what they cost to run, and how to pick the right one for your website.
EvoAstra team14 Nov 2026 · 3 min read- Shared hosting suits small, low-traffic sites
- A VPS gives more control and steady performance
- Cloud hosting scales for apps and busy stores
Hosting is the computer that serves your website to visitors. The type you choose affects speed, reliability, security and running costs. The jargon can be confusing, so here is the plain version.
Shared hosting
Your site shares a server with many others. It is inexpensive and easy to manage through a control panel. The downside is that a busy neighbour can slow your site, and you have limited control.
VPS hosting
A virtual private server gives you a guaranteed slice of a server with your own resources. Performance is more predictable and you can install what you need, but someone has to manage it: updates, security and backups.
Cloud hosting
Providers such as AWS, Google Cloud and Azure let you scale resources up and down. It suits apps, busy online stores and anything with unpredictable traffic, but costs and complexity are higher.
Static hosting
Static sites, made of plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript, can be served from very cheap hosting or a CDN and are extremely fast and secure. Many business websites can be static.
- Lowest cost
- Managed for you
- Can slow at peak times
- Steady performance
- Full control
- Needs management
What actually matters
- Location of the servers: closer to your visitors is faster
- Automatic backups you can restore
- Free SSL certificates
- Support that responds when something breaks
- 1Estimate traffic
- 2List features needed
- 3Decide who manages it
- 4Compare yearly cost
- 5Move with backups
Our usual advice
Start simple. Most small business sites run well on good shared or managed hosting. Move to a VPS or cloud when traffic, features or security needs demand it, not before.
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