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In selecting the appropriate type of web hosting for your new website, the first main distinction is between free, shared & dedicated hosting. In addition to cost considerations, your choice would also be guided by the requirements of your website, both now and in the future. Free hosting may prove adequate for a private or family web space whilst a business website would probably require at least shared hosting. The more complicated or high volume website may justify the added expense of dedicated server hosting.
Free hosting may be from companies that concentrate their services here, earning revenue from advertising. This would involve their placement of advertising on your website. Alternatively, you may find free hosting offered as a trial for paid services. This could work for you if you foresee upgrading at a later date, or perhaps for a site required for a limited time only. Various restrictions apply to free sites. Often, you are unable to use your own domain name, having to use a sub-domain of their URL. This probably wouldn’t pose a problem for private sites but would impact negatively on a business or other public site in the eyes of users. Other restrictions would be seen in the amount of storage space and bandwidth made available and on the level of support.

Shared hosting is when your site is hosted on a server along with many, often hundreds, of other websites, all sharing the server´s resources. The security afforded to your website might sometimes be compromised, dependent on the service provider and the speed your website loads will also be reduced. You will, however, have access to all the most used features including email, file management through a control panel such as cPanel, and FTP access. Most shared hosting plans come with some pre-installed scripts such as a shopping cart, forum, guest book and statistics. With everything most websites require at a very modest price, shared hosting is by far the most popular web hosting plan.

Dedicated Server Hosting: Here your website is hosted on its own independent server and as such is considerably more expensive than shared hosting. An alternative worth considering is Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) hosting, often called Virtual Private Server (VPS). With VDS your site is hosted on a shared server, but in its own partition. This provides most of the benefits of dedicated server hosting but with some restriction on the software and scripts that can be used. The price point would normally also mean a lesser level of support. In both cases, a dedicated server solution allows a much higher level of security and technical support, much higher storage space and bandwidth along with the ability to upload and configure a wide array of software and scripts unavailable on a shared server.