What is Web hosting?
Also called: Hosting, Host
The short answer
Web hosting is the service that stores a website's files on internet-connected servers and delivers them to visitors around the clock.
What people say: “where my website lives”, “hosting plan”.
Web hosting, explained
Hosting comes in tiers: shared hosting puts many sites on one machine; a VPS gives you a slice of a server; managed platforms handle servers for you; static and edge hosts serve pre-built pages from locations close to each visitor.
For most modern sites the right host is the one that deploys from your code automatically, serves over HTTPS by default and keeps pages fast worldwide.
Questions people ask about Web hosting
What is Web hosting?
Web hosting is the service that stores a website's files on internet-connected servers and delivers them to visitors around the clock.
Do I need hosting if I have a domain?
Yes. The domain is the address; hosting is the building. You need both.
Is free hosting good enough?
For a static site, the free tiers of modern platforms are often enough; check bandwidth limits and whether you can use your own domain.
Related terms
A web server is software, and the computer running it, that receives requests from browsers and responds with web pages and files.
Shared hostingShared hosting puts many websites on one server that share its resources; it is cheap, but one busy neighbour can slow everyone down.
VPSA VPS is a virtual machine with its own reserved resources on a shared physical server, giving more control and consistency than shared hosting.
Managed hostingManaged hosting is hosting where the provider handles servers, updates, security, backups and scaling, so you only manage the site.
CDNA CDN is a network of servers around the world that keeps copies of a site's files and serves each visitor from the location nearest to them.
DeployTo deploy is to publish a new version of a website to its host so visitors see it; modern hosts deploy automatically when code is pushed to Git.
Part of the Web Encyclopedia by Apex Flow Digital. Definitions are general knowledge, kept current, with no invented statistics.