Introduction to web hosting.

In theory, web hosting can be referred to as the process of purchasing or renting a space to hold and house a website in the world wide web, or the Internet. Hence, When a hosting provider allocates space on a web server for a company or individual to store its files, it is known as hosting. These files can comprise of code, text, images, videos or anything that is housed in a server and available for viewing online. Web hosting is available in Sri Lanka as well as in the international spectrum.

Moving on, web hosting providers have servers. As mentioned above they allow content to be housed online for viewing. A server is single or a group of computers that facilitates the connection or link between similar servers anywhere in the world. Along with servers, web hosting companies cover a wider array of hosting needs, ranging from connectivity to associated services. All these services are offered under a variety of hosting plans that are determined from 4 main types of hosting which are, Shared hosting, Dedicated Hosting, VPS and Reseller.

If your company is planning on creating a website, choosing between the above 4 types of hosting is key. Don’t rush! The main important types from which you need to choose between would be from dedicated hosting services and shared hosting services. These two types are the common variants available in Sri Lanka and the international hosting market. Let’s compare the two services in order to better understand their offerings.

	Shared Hosting	Dedicated Hosting
Server type	Shared with other clients	Dedicated only to you
Number of Websites	1000+ websites in the same server	Only your websites
CPU Performance	High CPU usage/can get slow for high traffic websites	High speeds and dedicated CPU, no lags and no interference.
Memory Capacity	Low memory capacity options	High memory capacity options
Disk Space	Lower disk space offered	Higher disk space offered
Price	Starting from low as 0.8 USD	Starting from approximately 70 USD

The above table will give you a better understanding about the direct offerings of the two types of hosting services on paper, however, let’s also look at a few advantages and disadvantages to understand the practicality of shared and dedicated hosting services in order to decide what is good for your company’s website.

Advantages of shared hosting

Other than being quite common, shared hosting is rather affordable. Apart from this, shared hosting also gives you unlimited disk space, hence in case your website starts to grow you won’t face any limitations in the long run. A well known advantage of shared hosting is that it is very convenient to set up. Setting up is super fast and you can have your website running without a huge hassle.  If your website idea is such that the traffic is minimal and you do not expect it to grow out of proportion, shared hosting services can be a good option for you. Generally, shared hosting services come with a simple dashboard with the options of configuring domain settings and also adding content management systems. Another good benefit is that shared hosting does not require your attention in updating hardware or conducting maintenance on the servers. Since there are multiple websites hosted on the server, the hosting company will conduct all necessary services and maintenance.

Advantages of Dedicated hosting

Dedicated hosting provides its own set of advantages. One big benefit is that this service provides lighting fast loading speeds even during average to really heavy traffic. In other words, Your website gets the full 100% of processing cpu power and speed. You can expect a good performance from a dedicated hosting server. Secondly, most dedicated servers are Ddos secure, meaning in layman’s terms your website is secure from distributed network attacks that can slow your website functionality. So you do not have to worry about that. Thirdly, Dedicated hosting providers give you root access to your dedicated server. This means you have full control over your server. Full control and flexibility will allow you to keep your server secure, get real time data and make sure everything is running smoothly.

Disadvantages of Shared Hosting

A big disadvantage to date is that shared hosting servers have poor loading speeds. Since thousands of websites operate on one server, your website does not get much room to breath. If you get a huge amount of traffic, you can expect your website to be slower or even go down. Another disadvantage is the security of your website. Most shared hosting services do give you the assurance of security, however it is a risk and running an important website with a ton of data may be a concern if you are concerned about website security.

Disadvantages of Dedicated hosting

A common disadvantage is that generally you would need a bit of knowledge about server administration. If you are not familiarized with things like shell access and the command line you may be unable to maintain the server security and integrity. Not forgetting that you will also have to manage any upgrades to the hardware or software alongside server maintenance. Lastly, due to the advantage of having a dedicated server with super fast speeds, the pricing structure will be quite high in comparison to shared servers.

What’s good for your website? If your website is not complicated, if it is a simple layout, there is no big data driven through it and you are not particular about its security. For example, a landing page, a blog site, a photography page, an online portfolio or even a small ecommerce site without online payments. You can opt to choose a shared hosting server. The shared server is easy to set up, cheaper in comparison and everything is done for you. So if you are just starting off with a simple concept, there is no better choice.

On the other hand if your website is quite complex and you are expecting huge amounts of traffic, online payments, card and user details and huge amounts of data, a dedicated server may be the way to go. It is secure, super fast and quite controllable. You only need to learn a bit about managing the server, which is not hard in this day and age.

International Hosting services

Moving on, here are some of the highly ranked international hosting services, Divided by sharing hosting services and dedicated hosting services, let’s look at them based on Price, No of Websites, Bandwidth, Disk space, Domain requirements, Support and Guarantee.

Sharing Hosting Services

Name	Price Monthly	No of Websites	Bandwidth	Disk Space	Domain Requirement	Support	Guarantee
Bluehost	2.75 USD	01	Unlimited	50GB SSD	Free 1 Year	24*7	30 day MB
Hostqator	2.64 USD	01	Unlimited	Unlimited	Free 1 Year	24*7	45 day MB
Hostinger	1.39 USD	01	Limited	30GB SSD	Buy Domain	24*7	30 day MB
Inmotion	2.49 USD	01	Unlimited	10GB SSD	Buy Domain	24*7	90 day MB
Dreamhost	2.59 USD	01	Unlimited	25GB SSD	Free 1 Year	24*7	90 day MB
Green Geeks	2.49 USD	01	Unlimited	50GB SSD	Free 1 Year	24*7	30 day MB
Domain.co	3.75 USD	01	Limited	Unlimited	Buy Domain	24*7	30 day MB
namecheap	1.58 USD	01	Unlimited	20GB SSD	Free 1 Year	24*7	30 day MB
AWS (Amazon)	3.00 USD	01	Unlimited	Unlimited	Buy Domain	24*7	None
Godaddy	4.51 USD	01	Unlimited	100GB SSD	Free 1 Year	24*7	30 day MB

Dedicated Hosting Services

Name	Price Monthly	Bandwidth	Disk Space	Domain Requirement	Support	Guarantee
Bluehost	73.99 USD	5TB	500GB SSD	Free 1 Year	24*7	30 day MB
Hostgator	89.98 USD	Unlimited	1TB HDD	Buy Domain	24*7	45 day MB
Inmotion	77.50 USD	15TB	1TB HDD	Buy Domain	24*7	90 day MB
Dreamhost	149 USD	15TB	1TB HDD	Buy Domain	24*7	90 day MB
namecheap	47.88 USD	100TB	240GB SSD	Buy Domain	24*7	30 day MB
Godaddy	176.99 USD	Unlimited	4TB HDD	Free 1 Year	24*7	30 day MB

As you can see, these international websites have a lot to offer in terms of service. However, as a Sri Lankan company if you are planning to start a website, apart from the international hosting services you can identify Sri Lankan based companies as well. Let’s look at a few Sri Lankan based hosting services. Let’s start off with some popular telcos in Sri Lanka.

Dialog Axiata PLC

Dialog’s web hosting service is known as “Dialog Internet Data Center Services” also commonly referred to as “Dialog IDC” The IDC offers five main hosting services, such as Dialog BizMail, Server Co-Location, Mail,Web application hosting, Dedicated hosting and Shared Hosting.

Dialog BizMail

Dialog BizMail is a managed hosted email solution, this service will enable companies to have a complete suite of managed email services inclusive of Email Hosting and Email Security. Dialog also promises a first class security protection and scanning system to protect your website from viruses, spam and other threats.

Server Co Location

This service allows you to place your servers at the IDC with the only responsibility being administration of the servers. Dialog will provide the space, bandwidth, routing, rack space and the security solutions. Dialog will maintain an uninterrupted service with uninterrupted connectivity and control. This is a similar service to dedicated servers but with the key difference of the servers being at the IDC. You will have your own set of servers but they will be from the servers of the IDC.

Mail/Web/Application hosting

This service allows you to operate your mail servers and applications on Dialog IDC owned servers, Similar to Server Co Location but with the simple difference of you not having to run any administrative responsibilities on your applications and servers. You only must install them on your own, after which Dialog IDC will provide you with hardware uptime by conducting the required hardware backups, parts replacements, upgrades and repairs.

Dedicated Server hosting

This service will give you a standalone dedicated server. You will be managing the administration part of the servers while Dialog will manage the hardware uptime. Moreover this service gives you higher speeds in connectivity, Higher processing power and Bandwidth along with a higher level of security.

Shared Web Hosting

Dialog IDC will allow you to host your website/s in the Dialog IDC servers alongside all other clients who have opted for the shared hosting server route.

The Dialog Shared web services range from LKR 900 to LKR 2000 + depending on the Disk space, Bandwidth you require,

Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel

SLTMobitel only offers shared hosting services at the moment. Much like Dialog, they offer servers they own in their data centers alongside other clients who use the server. SLT ensures to provide popular CMS support like WordPress or Joomla alongside a website management console which will help you maintain your website. SLT will manage the backend, the security, the bandwidth and speeds depending on your desired package. They offer three distinctive packages namely, the Web Active package which provides you with a disk space of 300MB  starting off at LKR 300 for Linux and LKR 400 for Windows monthly. They also charge a startup fee of LKR 150 for this package.

The Web Live package offers 750MB disk space and starts off at LKR 600 for Linux and LKR 700 for Windows monthly, with a startup fee of 500 LKR and the Web Ultima offers 1000MB and can be purchased for LKR 750 for Linux and LKR 900 for Windows monthly, and entails a startup fee of LKR 500. Moreover, apart from the main telcos in Sri Lanka, There a few companies that provide hosting services. namely,

Name	Price Monthly	No of Websites	Bandwidth	Disk Space	Domain Requirement	Support	Location
TecRoket	200 LKR	01	100GB	2GB SSD	Buy Domain	24*7	Dehiwela
Lankahost	2000 LKR	01	100GB	1GB SSD	Buy Domain	24*7	Colombo
Orixweb	500 LKR	01	10GB	1GB SSD	Buy Domain	24*7	Gampaha
Server Lanka	1900 LKR	01	Unlimited	2GB SSD	Buy Domain	24*7	Chilaw
Hosting Master	850 LKR	01	50GB	250MB	Buy Domain	24*7	Maharagama
Sri Lanka Hosting	2000 LKR	01	Unlimited	50GB SSD	Buy Domain	24*7	Monaragala
V2K IT	750 LKR	01	Unlimited	Unlimited	Buy Domain	24*7	Colombo
Lankawebspace	1800 LKR	01	50GB	10GB SSD	Buy Domain	24*7	Colombo
Register.lk	1700 LKR	01	50GB	10GB SSD	Buy Domain	N/A	Colombo
Webhost	2950 LKR	02	30GB	1GB SSD	Buy Domain	24*7	Kandy

As such, there are many options you can choose from when it comes to web hosting. Both from the international market and the local market. However choosing your desired hosting service provider can be a task.

Analysing the international hosting providers. Mostly, companies like Amazon AWS, Godaddy, Bluehost and Hostgator are much known for the large number of websites hosted. This ensures that these services are reliable and accountable and will not become redundant at any time period. Moreover, popular international hosting providers have been operating for much longer periods of time. This shows the experience and the management expertise they bring to the table.

Common factors between both local and international services would be space, speed and security. Since security is a drastic measure, any hosting service provider will have installed all relevant security measures. Moreover, space and speed is also essential for the given price point. Comparing the tables between local and international providers given above, apart from the telcos, It is clear that Sri Lanka is not far behind in terms of speed and space offered but most companies in Sri Lanka use international web hosting servers to relay the clients, which enables them to maintain the security and speed standards. Hence, signing up with international service providers can help you cut off the red tape and the agents in the middle.

On the other hand, choosing a local provider will give you the ability to visit them. Depending on your location, you can choose a company that is closest to you. This may be much more convenient for your company. However, would your company choose convenience over price?

International hosting providers give unimaginable price points in comparison to Sri Lankan providers and also provides a wide array of additional services like free CMS (wordpress, weebly, wix) support, 24/7 monitoring and client servicing, After sales services and upgradable packages. Putting all these into a conclusion opting for an international hosting provider might be beneficial in the long run. However, we cannot disregard our local companies as you will not go wrong with them if you choose one.

Reading this article will give you the idea and the basics on web hosting and most of the available options locally as well as internationally. Decide if you need a shared or dedicated hosting service and choose a reliable website hosting provider that fits your company budget. You can also speak to customer service agents online and get your recommendations and advice. Either way web hosting in Sri Lanka is nothing to be feared and definitely is possible.