Choosing the right type of hosting for your BigCommerce store can be a tough task to accomplish. In case you don’t want to bother, you can always choose built-in BigCommerce hosting solutions and start selling your products online right away. All you have to do here is to sign up for one of BigCommerce's hosting plans. And in case you’re looking for a more personalised solution, there are plenty of options to choose from.
Before you begin
Knowing all the hosting peculiarities that may come up on your way may not be your strong suit, but there are some things you need to know before you begin:
- Before choosing a hosting provider, double check whether there’s one-click install of your favorite ecommerce app is available.
- Make sure your hosting provider guarantees you an SSL certificate which is extremely important for ecommerce sites.
- See if there’s PCI compliance. The first step in meeting this standard is getting the SSL certificate.
And of course, always choose the hosting provider that guarantees 24/7 support and regular updates. And in case something goes wrong, all the backups should be performed as well for you to save your data.
What is DNS hosting
BigCommerce website DNS hosting stands for a utility running Domain Name System servers. Frequently, domain name registrars provide DNS utility with registration, but charge-free DNS services remain as well - they are sometimes sponsored by some big providers and telecommunication services. In addition, lots of third-party DNS hosts provide Dynamic DNS.
Picking this exact type of web hosting utility is the best option in the event that the provider has many servers situated in separate areas around the world giving sturdiness and minimizing latency for people. Through locating DNS hosts near end users, DNS queries need to transmit a significantly shorter distance, leading to faster web address resolution.
What is VPS web hosting
A VPS is a virtual private server. It can be called a virtual operating system, making it simple to locate in a parent server and apply virtualization technology to provide dedicated supplies to some other virtual servers.
The individual, emulated VPS hosting network is created on some device - host (PC or any other tool connected to others and building some kind of network), parent server or even a cluster of servers.
And though VPS models lots of the functional traits of a “real” server, it’s so far a piece of program, operating with similar operations and functionality. Routinely, VPS grants users with the following options:
- Getting access to their VPS environments from anywhere.
- Acquiring allocated bandwidth for every instance. This helps to make sure that the performance won’t be affected by third-party businesses that are also on the server.
- Obtaining more processing power and storage.
VPS generally adopts a parent server to host multiple virtual servers which are disconnected from one another. And through the use of a software - a hypervisor, a provider can embed a virtual layer on the top of the OS to divide the servers. The separation allows users to employ their personal OS and software, which leads to forming their own really private server.
VPS is good for:
- Hosting servers
- Hosting 1-10 sites - BigCommerce-based or any other
- Creating and granting cloud-based services
- Forming and providing virtual workspots for remote employees
- Accumulating files to provide an access to them from any place in the world
- Databases
With you know what VPS is and how it works, you surely can make an informed decision if it’s a sort of web hosting that meets your BigCommerce website requirements.
What is Shared hosting
Shared web hosting is a form of hosting allowing you to host your BigCommerce website on an individual physical server that is also hosting some other websites. There are some additional tools and options available within the host server that are there to make getting access to your BigCommerce site much easier.
There are hundreds and even thousands of users that have a possibility to be hosted on one server. And they have a chance to make the best out of it as it means that they share the payments also. This “corporate” usage makes this type of web hosting one of the most reasonable ones and actually useful for small BigCommerce site owners. Lots of bloggers, small businesses and other website owners select to start with this sort of hosting.
Shared servers are semblable to PCs because they have hard drive space, a central processing unit - CPU, and RAM. All of these resources are also shared with all the users that are also hosted by this particular server. This provides secured storing of all the hosted files, data, and info possible.
When a user tries to get access to your site from their PC, the information stored on the server is delivered to every user by the host. Shared web hosting gains advantages of the best server utility as each separate BigCommerce site provokes a different amount of traffic at a various window of time.
Below you’ll see a list of benefits a user of a shared web hosting wins:
- Minimum prices. As we’ve mentioned above, the prices of this type of service are apt to be low due to other users contributing to its costs.
- Adaptability. There are lots of plans for a user to choose from. And they all point at meeting the demands of large numbers of sites placed within one server.
- Security. The sites, also applying your shreable server, can’t approach your site’s data. Some web hosting businesses also provide some added security options.
- Seamless setup. It’s really swift and simple to set up a BigCommerce site on a shareable server.
- Easy-to-perform maintenance. Frequently, the shareable server is maintained by a web host provider and does not request any movements on your side. Thus you can concentrate efforts on developing your BigCommerce website and building your business, not hosting questions.
From there, if you don’t have much of an expertise of hosting, want to spin out money, value your time and are more concerned with growing your BigCommerce website, then shared web hosting is just what you need.
What is Cloud hosting
Cloud hosting implies the practice of outsourcing some company’s storage and computing reserves to a service provider suggesting its infrastructure services in a utility model. The cloud provider - host - oversees setup, cloud infrastructure, security, and maintenance. Sometimes customers are allowed by a host to construct hardware and applications, as well as adjust servers online. Compute and storage opportunities are spread around hundreds and thousands of virtual machines also called VMs that need I/O load balancing in a cloud infrastructure shape.
It's a considerably cheaper model in comparison to a usual dedicated host server. This last one stands for that businesses have to organise their own data centers and support them. They can account for really high spendings for an organization.
Below are some of the benefits cloud hosting l for BigCommerce guarantees:
- Cloud hosting permits BigCommerce website owners to save a power of money on keeping and managing data centers.
- BigCommerce website owners have the option to adjust more efficiently, paying only for the services and capabilities they need.
- Businesses choosing cloud hosting have all data protection pros - from high availability to fast disaster recovery.
- Using cloud hosting assures malleable and advantageous scalability in building web applications, like Bigcommerce Google reviews, BigCommerce websites and other services.
In conclusion, cloud hosting suits those BigCommerce audiences, who need to have near perfect uptime and are planning to grow their servers as they see fit, without experiencing any delay.
What is dedicated hosting
Yet one category of hosting to acknowledge - dedicated hosting. This category presumes that a physical server is granted by a host to a one single client. The client is granted total control over the machine, in this case it can be improved according to their needs and concerns, overall security and performance included.
The hosting provider here provides the physical server and environment, same as technical support and any other linked services. And here are some strong arguments why a BigCommerce website owner may want to consider using a dedicated model of hosting:
- It provides stronger control. Control over the dedicated setting is performed by the host company’s IT team.
- Higher adaptability. Companies are handed a possibility to easily change server structure, take advantage of new software and adjust all the possibilities to make them meet their expectations.
- Improved performance. Any group behind a BigCommerce website gets a possibility to enhance a dedicated host server to hold up their most demanding services.
- Flawless security. In case there are some specific security interests a company needs to accomplish, the host server may be customized.
So supposing your BigCommerce site has more custom needs, there's a great chance to fulfill them by picking dedicated hosting.
