Web hosting is one of the most popular solutions because it offers plenty of flexibility, can scale to your business’s needs, and is reliable. It works by sharing space with others on multiple servers.
With Web hosting, you can upload a website you created somewhere else or that someone created for you. It offers more flexibility than site builders, but requires more experience.
Most hosting companies offer two different Web hosting “platforms:”
- Linux uses the PHP programming language with MySQL databases.
- Windows uses the ASP programming language with SQL Server databases.
Because these are not related to your computer, you don’t need to choose Windows if you use a Windows PC. If you’re not sure which one to choose, it’s OK; we’ll help you decide. For more information
If you’ve already decided you need a hosting account, you might get slipped up when you get asked, “Linux or Windows?” Fortunately, there isn’t a big difference between them and either type of account works for most customers.
To make sure you do get the right type of account, though, you should choose the type of hosting account you want based on how you’re building your site.
Development Tool | Linux | Windows |
---|---|---|
WordPress® or other Web apps | ✓ | – |
Dreamweaver or other WYSIWYG apps | ✓ | – |
PHP, MySQL, CGI, Python, or Perl | ✓ | – |
ASP, ASP.NET, MS SQL | – | ✓ |
I have no idea what any of this means | ✓ | – |
It’s important to note that these are just our recommendations. Windows accounts will actually support most of these development tools, but we prefer Linux accounts.