So you’ve decided that you want to put a web page online. It could be about yourself, your family, a hobby you like, or just an internet-brochure for a small business. Whatever the case, you’ve decided that the features and most importantly the cost of business web hosting is just too much and unnecessary in your case. Well, not to worry. Personal web hosting is the ideal solution.
Personal web hosting does not, in any way, imply that you get low-quality hosting. These days, with CPU and storage prices so low, you can probably serve the needs of a medium-sized business with a personal web hosting plans. In fact, you should not even compare business vs personal web hosting because, technically speaking, the definitions are meaningless. The only major differences in web hosting plans are between shared hosting, such as most personal hosting accounts and some business hosting accounts, and dedicated servers, in which case you rent your very own server (yes, an actual machine) on the data center of a major hosting company.
Now that we’ve got this out of the way, bear in mind that the biggest challenge for the beginner webmaster is that personal web hosting plans usually have less technical support than business plans. Of course, you can always use forums or just search engines to find the answers to your first problems or questions. And as a beginner webmaster, you’re unlikely to come across very sophisticated and challenging issues.
However, personal web hosting is not just about minor disadvantages to business web hosting. There is also a major advantage. Most personal hosting companies offer some type of website building interface as well as website templates, specifically designed and developed for small websites. Most of the time, you can change the complete look and feel of your site just by clicking a button on a web form. And it’s become almost standard that these templates offer some sort of content management, user navigation (menus on the left, right, or top) as well as libraries of pictures. So, for most people, this alone is enough to make them choose personal hosting plans rather than business plans, even if they’re at the same price. In computers, it’s not always less vs more, it’s feature A vs. feature B. Always make sure you understand what your needs are before proceeding.
As a final note, don’t forget to do your market research before you buy a personal web hosting plan. Especially if you choose to use an in-house website builder by the hosting company, it’ll be impossible to migrate your site to a different host, should you find the specific company unreliable or unsupportive.
