There are an infinite number of things to consider when choosing a web host, but let’s boil it down to the simple details: cost, speed, email. Whenever you choose a host, you have those three to consider.
1. Email
Do you need email service on the domain host? Really?
Are you comfortable with a low-perfomance plan that just receives email, or do you need an upgraded system like microsoft 365 or google workplace?
Either of those options being viable, and cost effective for you changes how you can approach a hosting platform. Options geared toward developers, designers, and freelancers are usually built around high-speed development platforms that offer a unified system for hosting, development, and CDN integration, but do not themselves offer email systems.
That being said, you may just want to have a simple system for a few users and not need to pay for additional email licenses on every email. Many consumer-targeted hosting platforms offer these, with upgraded offerings that include some of the more developer-oriented features.
2. Speed
To calculate speed options, you’ll need to dive into some of the things you need your site to do. Much of the speed questions are based on how you can cache pages, vs how much processor power you’ll need to deliver individual page calculations to your user. Think of it this way: does anything change when a different user hits your site? So if you’re not hosting a complicated commenting system with hundreds of different users commenting on native wordpress hosting, and you don’t have a paywall on your site, you may not need much of a processor available. If you have a large community commenting system, or a significant size e-commerce store that needs to track inventory in real time for a significant number of products, you’ll want a beefy processor in addition to the caching system.
If your service is mission critical, a slower site can shut down consumer acquisition, which costs untold amounts more than a faster hosting plan.
3. Cost
Literally what is it worth to you to have your site up every month. This may be a small calling card site with a few hits per month, or it may be a publication with hundreds of hits a minute. Do you need to store a couple of images, or the entirety of your photography portfolio? Diffeerent hosts charrge based on different criteria. Some will give you an unlimited traffic or unlimited data option, but may not give you the same options with your processor or priority on processor.
Shared hosting (hosting where you do not license a specific processor & ram quantity) really can save on your costs for data or transfer.
A dedicated host might be necessary when you really need things to churn out quickly for database calculated pages, and that same shared hosting won’t keep up.
You might not have the capacity, or expertise, to keep up with maintenance on a server in addition to maintenance on a site, and a managed server might be absolutely necessary for that dedicated server.
Summary
There are conditions that make several different types of servers a priority. The right answer is not the same for every site, client, or developer. Getting it right is important, but you need to know what your site and staffing needs are to make that choice. If you’re struggling to determine the options, get in touch.
