What is the Definition of Web Server?
Before we say what a web server is, know that it is a subset of the server and is considered a child of it. In a separate article, we have fully familiarized ourselves with the concept of a server.
In simple words, a web server is responsible for storing and sending the content of a website to the client that requested it. The requested content can be text, photo and video or even information of an application. The most common type of client is browsers.
When you load a site or click on a download link and download a file, the browser is actually sending your request to the web server of that website. Now that you are familiar with the concepts of what is a web server, we will examine how the web server works along the article.
What is Web Hosting?
Host is actually a computer that provides the necessary and appropriate space to store your website’s information, content and software. These computers are called “servers”. Access to the server is done remotely and this computer must always be turned on and connected to the Internet.
With so many different types of servers, processors, and storage drives, choosing the best server can be a difficult task. But by following the points below, you can easily decide which type of server or hosting service is the most suitable option for your website.
There are generally two ways to host a website:
Local hosting:
In this type of hosting, the website of each person or organization is hosted on the servers of that person or organization. Having a private server, especially for people who do not have enough specialized knowledge, is very expensive and has its own challenges. Therefore, it is usually not recommended to choose this solution.
External hosting:
In external hosting or web hosting, individuals or organizations entrust their website hosting to web hosting companies. These companies usually have servers, equipment and internet network with very good access to host a large number of websites and they provide hosting services to their customers by employing expert manpower and technical support.
What is the Difference between Web Server and Web Hosting? What is Web Hosting?
Servers enable the task of hosting content that is produced and distributed in various ways. Although the most common way of distributing content is web pages, today we see that the distribution of content provided on the platform of applications is increasing every day more than in the past. The difference between web server and web hosting is based on the available budget and the knowledge of managing the resources of a server efficiently. When you need to control access and manage server resources, you will need to get a service with more features, which includes spending a higher cost.
Accordingly, the appropriate question could be: “Why do you use web hosting services?” And based on that and your budget and systems management knowledge, you can choose to use web hosting or a web server.
Types of servers and web hosting
Web server and web hosting are different concepts that should not confuse you. On the one hand, vps are cloud and shared hosts to name the most well-known, but there are other services related to web servers that are not necessarily the end products that an end user would use.
Types of web servers
- Proxy servers
- Mail servers
- DHCP servers
- DNS servers
- Application servers
- Servers of communication in real time
- File servers
- Print servers
- Database servers or databases and Etc
Types of web hosting
- Free hosting (you are responsible for publishing it and your resources will be very limited)
- Shared hosting (the most common type of web hosting)
- Dedicated hosting
- Hosting Reseller (this type is not considered a VPS but uses its own configuration)
Note: VPS can be considered as a private virtual server but it is very important to know that eventually it can also be considered as multiple VPS hosts on a physical server partitioned. For this reason, it is often considered a type of hosting and not a server.
In the case of shared servers, many hosts share the same IP address as well as physical server resources.
Web server
In addition to other tasks, web servers can be responsible for providing web applications with responses to HTTPS requests that users typically make through web browsers.
The tendency of web servers to manage web applications enables you to host one or a few sites on a server that enjoys all of its CPU, memory, disk, and bandwidth resources, without using these resources. or share other hosting accounts.
As a general rule, their use is less expensive than conventional shared hosting, but the cost of implementation and security is much higher, and they also require a high level of knowledge in general systems management.
Read more: Germany dedicated server
Advantages
Full server management
Instant and real-time scalability on demand
Choice of hardware, machine and operating system
Cheaper and more competitive prices
Full access to the bandwidth allocated to the server
Full access to all server files
Complete control over the processes running on the machine.
It only provides you with a dedicated or fixed IP.
Disadvantages
- Knowledge of Systems Administration is required.
- As a rule, you do not have support focused on general management or administration.
- You need a high level of security knowledge regarding servers
- Support must be contracted separately.
- Requires purchase of software, licenses and updates.
- Security is a cost to the provider.
Web Hosting
For those people who want to focus on building a personal blog, online product store, a service page, etc., and do not have enough time or knowledge to set up and secure a web server, web hosting is the best solution.
In these cases, the web hosting that allows you to contract with a private hosting plan has, as a general rule, limitations on disk space, memory resources, processors, etc., but instead its security and performance are a It is an important feature for web hosting.
If your hosting provider uses, for example, the Linux cloud, you will be provided with resources that are limited in some way, but instead will be considered an obstacle for sites hosted on the same hosting that intend to compromise your website’s peace of mind. beat together
Advantages
- General manager delegated by the hosting provider
- 24/7 support in all matters related to hosting
- Many shared hosting providers offer CMS support.
Disadvantages
- higher price
- You are forced to use hardware and operating system.
- Bandwidth is set on the type of hosting mentioned in the contract.
- Limiting access to server files
- Limitation of processes that must be executed based on the hosting contract.
- Shared IP (usually has the ability to identify where it is used)
Conclusion
If you are not in charge of managing the entire servers and you are not comfortable with managing cPanel, plesk or any other hosting panel solutions, hosting is undoubtedly the right solution compared to dedicated web servers and required individual management.
It is true that there are mixed solutions for web servers through which you can get support for hours and you will be able to turn your doubts into certainty by the system hosting service managers you hire or some solutions like server security. implement, but this is considered an additional economic cost.
Both types of hosting (web hosting and web server) are rental services for which you pay a monthly, quarterly or yearly fee, and in most cases you do not own the hardware you use to host websites or web applications. Was.