The words on a hosting page

Every term here appears somewhere on this site, in a review or in a plan's feature line. Each entry says what the thing is and why it changes a decision. Where a word is commonly used to mean two different things, both are given.

Shared hosting

Many websites on one server, each in its own account, all drawing on the same processor, memory and disk. It is the cheapest arrangement and the one most sites start on. What you are buying is a share, and the size of that share is what the limits further down this page describe.

Managed WordPress hosting

Shared or cloud hosting with WordPress-specific work included: updates applied for you, caching configured for WordPress rather than in general, and support who know the software. It costs more than plain shared hosting, and what the extra buys is time rather than capacity.

VPS

A virtual private server. One physical machine divided into several independent servers, each with its own operating system and a guaranteed slice of processor and memory. Unlike shared hosting, another site's busy afternoon does not take your resources. You are responsible for what runs on it unless you buy a managed tier.

Dedicated server

One physical machine, yours alone. No neighbours, and every limit is the hardware's rather than a company's policy. It is the most expensive arrangement and the one that stops making sense unless something is genuinely large.

Cloud hosting

A server built from pooled resources rather than one machine, which can usually be resized without moving anything. Companies use the word loosely: some mean a real virtual machine you control, some mean shared hosting on cloud infrastructure. The plan page is where the difference shows.

Reseller hosting

One account configured to hold many client sites, each with its own control panel login, sold on under your name. Priced by the number of client accounts it allows rather than by the number of sites you personally run.

Control panel

The interface used to manage a hosting account: domains, email, files, databases, certificates. Which one a company uses matters less day to day than it does the day you leave, because moving between panels is a re-platforming rather than a settings change.

cPanel

The most widely used hosting control panel, and the one most clients have seen before. Licensed by its maker, which is part of why plans that include it are priced the way they are.

WHM

WebHost Manager, the administrator's half of cPanel. Where a reseller creates client accounts, sets what each may use, and suspends one that has not paid. A reseller plan without WHM is not really a reseller plan.

DirectAdmin

A control panel that does the same job as cPanel, from a different maker. Functional and usually cheaper for the company to license. A client used to cPanel is looking at an unfamiliar interface, and moving a client base between the two is a migration rather than a setting.

Plesk

Another control panel, more common on Windows servers and in Europe than cPanel is.

CloudLinux

Software installed on a shared server that puts each account in its own container, so one site cannot consume everything the others need. Where a company names it, the account limits described below are being enforced rather than merely stated.

Inodes

A count of files. One inode is one file or one folder, whatever its size, so a small site with thousands of cached thumbnails can reach an inode limit while using very little disk. The limit is rarely on the pricing page and is worth asking for.

PHP workers

How many PHP requests the account can process at the same time. WordPress runs on PHP, so this is closer to "how many visitors at once" than any bandwidth figure. Two plans with the same storage and different worker counts are different products.

Entry processes

How many processes the account may run simultaneously. Reached, further visitors wait or receive an error. Another limit that decides how a site behaves under load and is rarely published.

I/O

How fast the account may read from and write to disk, usually in megabytes per second. A site that reaches its I/O limit slows down without any obvious cause.

Bandwidth

How much data may be transferred in a month. Most shared plans now say "unmetered", which means there is no counter rather than that there is no limit — the practical ceiling is set by the processor and I/O limits above.

SSD and NVMe

Types of storage. SSD is solid-state rather than a spinning disk. NVMe is a faster way of connecting solid-state storage. Both matter more for a database-driven site than for a mostly static one.

CDN

A content delivery network: copies of a site's images, stylesheets and scripts held in many places around the world so a visitor is served from somewhere near them. It reduces the distance rather than the work, so it helps most on sites with a lot to download and an audience far from the server.

SSL and TLS

The encryption behind the padlock and the s in https. TLS is the current protocol; SSL is the older name still used for the certificate. Nearly every company now includes a basic certificate at no charge.

Nameservers and DNS

DNS is the system that turns a domain name into a server address. Nameservers are the machines that answer that question for your domain. Private nameservers let a reseller point a client's domain at something like ns1.yourdomain.com rather than at the hosting company's own.

Dedicated IP

A network address used by your site alone rather than shared with other accounts on the same server. Usually priced separately.

Staging

A copy of a live site, on the same hosting, where a change can be made and looked at before it reaches visitors. Included on higher tiers at most companies.

Backups

Copies of the site taken on a schedule. Two questions decide whether a backup is useful and most pricing pages answer neither: how far back the copies go, and whether you can restore one yourself or have to ask.

Migration

Moving an existing site from one company to another. Some include it, some charge for it, and some include a fixed number of sites. Worth settling before buying rather than after.

Uptime and SLA

Uptime is the proportion of time a service is reachable. An SLA is a contract that states a figure and says what happens if it is missed. A number with no SLA behind it is a marketing claim; a number with one is a commitment. This site publishes neither unless a company publishes it first.

Introductory rate and renewal rate

The rate for the opening contract, and the rate from the day that contract ends. The gap between them is the single largest variable in what hosting costs, and it is the reason this site adds up thirty-six months rather than quoting a monthly figure.

Term

The length of the opening contract, commonly twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six or forty-eight months. The advertised monthly figure usually assumes the longest term, paid in advance.