Emir Taletovi!

" 1110073" International University of Sarajevo" March, 2014"

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Web Hosting Providers

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Comparison and review!

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Contents!

Introduction" 1. Shared hosting"

1.1 Dreamhost! 1.2 Hostgator! 1.3 Bluehost! 1.4 A Small Orange! 1.5 Conclusion!

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2. VPS Hosting"
2.1 Dreamhost! 2.2 Hostgator! 2.3 Bluehost! 2.4 A Small Orange! 2.5 Conclusion!

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3. Dedicated Server Hosting"

3.1 Dreamhost! 3.2 Hostgator! 3.3 Bluehost! 3.4 A Small Orange! 3.5 Conclusion!

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4. Cloud Hosting" 5. Alternative"

5.1 Home Computers and Servers!

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6. Summary"

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Introduction!

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Nowadays every single individual is surrounded with different web services and every single business, company, organisation, no matter how big it is needs some kind of a web service. Some of these services are different kinds of web hosting and almost every single person in the world is directly or indirectly using one of these no matter if you are using computer, renting a book, buying a transport ticket, etc. This text will cover different kinds of web hosting and it will examine what different hosting providers have to offer to their customers and users. Hosting providers compared in this text are Dreamhost, Hostgator, Bluehost and A Small Orange. All of these offer very similar service but at the same time they are very different from each other. This text compares these four providers in four different categories: shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated server hosting and cloud hosting."

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1. Shared hosting!

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"" There are a lot of different hosting providers offering shared plans. Some of them are better than others but when we wrap everything up they basically offer the same service. In the sea of shared hosting providers Dreamhost (http://dreamhost.com), Hostgator (http:// hostgator.com), Bluehost (http://bluehost.com) and A Small Orange (http://asmallorange.com) are maybe the most popular choices when it comes to Web hosting." 1.1 Dreamhost! " If you go to www.dreamhost.com website you can see that they offer a lot of features at a starting price of $8.95 per month. Disk storage, monthly bandwidth, maximum number of domains hosted, maximum number of users for ssh/ftp/sftp accounts, email accounts and number of MySQL databases is unlimited. On top of that the fact that server runs on Debian adds another dose of condent and security. Server supports PHP5, Python and Ruby on Rails programming and includes one click automatic software installers for Wordpress, Joomla, phpBB, etc. It is also worth mentioning that it adds free WHOIS domain privacy. There are also additional features like unique ip address, premium support, SSL Secure Certicate or VPS that you can pay for with reasonable prices." 1.2 Hostgator! " Hostgator offers three payed plans with Hatchling being the cheapest at the starting price of $3.96 per month, Baby plan at the starting price of $6.36 per month and Business plan at the starting price of $10.36 per month. The longer the period of your subscription is the lower the monthly price of any of these three is. All of them offer unlimited disk space and unlimited monthly bandwidth. They differ in the amount of domains they allow and whether they offer dedicated ip and private SSL certicate or not. They all include phpMyAdmin and support all major web programming languages."

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1.3 Bluehost! " Bluehost offers Basic ($4.95 per month) and Pro ( $19.99 per month )plan where Pro is the extension of the Basic. Both of them give unlimited domains, storage and bandwidth, automated backups and 24/7 support. The Pro plan gives you ve times faster server performance than Basic, domain privacy dedicated IP, etc."

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1.4 A Small Orange! " A Small Orange takes a little bit different approach when it comes to shared plans. They offer ve different plans with the cheapest one starting at $35 per year and the most expensive one starting at $30 per month. The cheaper you go the less disk storage and bandwidth you get, but everyone gets 24/7 support. A Small Orange is one of the few providers which uses SSDs instead of mechanical hard drives." 1.5 Conclusion! " Depending on the needs and type of the customer one provider can be better than other. If you are a serious business company that needs a lot of disk storage and bandwidth and on top of that high security then you may go with Hostgator or Dreamhost, but if you are a blogger and freelance journalist who needs only WordPress then A Small Orange will be the best choice with their Tiny plan with the price of $35 per year."

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2. VPS Hosting!
2.1 Dreamhost! Dreamhost offers VPS hosting plans from $15 per month up to $300 per month. All plans give unlimited storage and bandwidth, unlimited number of users, domains, email accounts, databases, etc. Server runs on Debian. The price varies depending on amount of RAM you want starting with 300MB and you can get up to 4000MB." 2.2 Hostgator! Hostgator offers ve plans starting with around $30 per month up to around $145 per month. Every plan gives same unlimited domains, email accounts, databases, etc. They differ in the number of CPU cores, amount of RAM, disk space and bandwidth. Hostgator offers up to 4 CPU cores, 8 GB of RAM, 240 GB disk space and 3 TB monthly bandwidth." 2.3 Bluehost! Bluehosts standard plan offers one CPU core, 2 GB of RAM, 30 GB disk storage, 1TB bandwidth and one IP starting with $14.99 per month. Ultimate plan offers four CPU cores, 8 GB of RAM, 240 GB disk space, 4 TB bandwidth and two IPs starting with $59.99 per month." 2.4 A Small Orange! A Small Orange offers up to 6 CPU cores of Intel Xeon 2.5 GHz or better, 6 GB of RAM, 150 GB disk space and 2.2 TB of bandwidth for the price of $180 per month. Starting price is $25 per month for only one CPU core Intel Xeon 2.5 GHz or better, 1 GB of RAM, 15 GB of disk space and 600 GB of monthly bandwidth."

2.5 Conclusion! " It is clear that all of mentioned providers offer more or less the same service with one being better than other and none of these being the best provider."

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3. Dedicated Server Hosting!

3.1 Dreamhost! When it comes to dedicated servers Dreamhost offers starting conguration with 500 GB disk space, unlimited monthly bandwidth, etc. Also, they offer six different dedicated server packages with different congurations at the moment. The starting conguration has desktop class CPU, 2 GB of RAM, 500 GB of disk space with no mirroring at the price of $109 per month. The strongest conguration contains server class CPU (probably Intel Xeon or better), 16 GB of RAM, 1 TB of disk space with 1 additional disk for RAID mirroring at the price of $249 per month." 3.2 Hostgator! At the very beginning Hostgator offers a choice between Linux and Windows dedicated server. After deciding upon the operating system customers have a choice between different packages according to CPU type, amount of RAM, etc. Basic dedicated servers starts with $174 per month and the most powerful servers are up to $374 per month." 3.3 Bluehost! " Bluehost offers three different plans for dedicated servers. The starting plan is $149.99 per month and their most powerful plan costs $249.99 per month. All plans include disk RAID mirroring." 3.4 A Small Orange! A Small Orange is only hosting provider among mentioned offering SSD drives and mirroring them in all of their plans. Starting plan is $175 per month and offers 4x3.1GHz Intel Xeon with Turbo mode up to 3.5GHz, 6 GB of RAM and 3.2 TB of bandwidth. The most powerful conguration offers dual 12 x 2.0GHz up to 2.5GHz in Turbo mode, 32 GB of RAM memory and 3.2 TB of monthly bandwidth for the price of $295 per month." 3.5 Conclusion! Hostgator and A Small Orange are denitely serious when it comes to dedicated server hosting.!

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4. Cloud Hosting!
When it comes to cloud hosting the only among these four providers being discussed here that offers cloud hosting packages is Dreamhost and A Small Orange at some point. Dreamhost offers two different public cloud packages as they call them. They are DreamObjects and DreamCompute. DreamObject is meant to be cloud storage for web apps and they give different amount of disk space and monthly bandwidth. DreamCompute is meant to be a cloud computing service and it was built to be a computing core of web apps and mobile applications. It is powered by OpenStack. For either one of these the customer must contact Dreamhost in order to set an agreement and buy the storage or processing power."

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Another provider worth mentioning is Rackspace ( http://rackspace.com ). They offer different performance packages and they utilise pay-as-you-go model. The bottom line is that they bill their customers per hour."

5. Alternative!
5.1 Home Computers and Servers! As an alternative for paid hosting services those in need can always setup their servers at their own home. For those feeling adventurous this may be one of those things they denitely need to try even if they dont plan to stick to it. It is possible to congure home computer to serve as one of those paid hosting services using many open-source and free software available on the Web. There are pros and cons of this approach and some of them are listed below."

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Pros:" - Being in full control of the server" - No need to pay for the service" - Freedom" Cons:" - Requires a little bit of setup" - Electricity consumption " - Internet bills" - Expensive power and backup solutions!

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6. Summary!

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After seeing all of these different types of web hosting it is possible to conclude that there are a lot of different types of users and every single one has different hosting needs and need different hosting solutions. Therefore, while providers on the rst look might be offering the same service and while it may look like the competition among them is huge it is not the case. The thing is, every single one of these providers targets one or two type of users and therefore one provider that may be the best for one type of users can at the same time be the worst possible for another type of users. What does all of this mean to an average consumer? Well, an average consumer who just needs a little bit of web space and a domain to host a WordPress or Joomla will denitely never want to purchase a subscription for a high end dedicated server and therefore, it is good that there are a lot of different offers when it comes to web hosting.

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