A web hosting service is a type of helpful activity done by an individual or company that enables other individuals, businesses and organizations to get their sites accessible via the Internet. Web hosting companies provide spaces on their own servers for their clients to use. These companies also provide Internet connectivity in their data centers.

There are four (4) main types of web hosting packages, namely, shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS (virtual private server) and dedicated server hosting. I will briefly explain each of them and proceed to give reasons why it is better to choose a web host that offers all the packages, when you need a site to be hosted.

• A shared web hosting service is a cost-effective approach of hosting many websites belonging to different people on one server. Each client creates an account with the host and a hard drive partition is assigned to his/her website(s). The hard drive partitioning approach helps web hosting companies to eliminate any mix-up with other websites that sit on the same servers but belong to other clients.
• A reseller hosting is an approach that enables a web hosting client to resell to others the hard drive space and bandwidth assigned to him/her. A reseller portrays himself as a web hosting provider and “hosts” other people’s websites, but in reality, he/she is just reselling someone else’s service. Reselling web hosting spaces allows one to share the cost of hosting with other people, known as his/her “clients”, and also make some profit out of it.
• A VPS (virtual private server) is the virtual splitting of one server into a couple of parts, making each part to appear as a dedicated server. A separate OS (operating system) can be installed on each virtual server and be independently rebooted. In this type of hosting a web host allots shares of resources to each virtual server. VPS is recommended for someone whose website has outgrown the resources available on shared hosting.
• A dedicated server hosting is a situation whereby a client leases an entire server from a web hosting company. The total control and flexibility it offers makes it to stand out as the best type of hosting. But like in mostly everything in life, the best things do not come cheaply.  It costs a lot of money, but excellent for hosting large websites that are resource-intensive.

A shared web host that serves all your needs now might not have enough resources to contain your future needs. An example is a scenario whereby one starts out modestly and builds a few static web pages. In this case any good shared hosting provider can comfortably host the site. But when the site starts getting a huge amount of daily traffic, the server will slow down by the activities significantly. Add a few dynamic scripts to the account, and the server will be crushed. Without being told, it’s time to consider a better hosting package. But what will you do, if your host doesn’t offer VPS or dedicated server hosting? Likewise, if you can afford a dedicated server today, that doesn’t mean you will surely have enough money to hire it next year. If your income dwindles, you will start to think about downgrading to either a VPS or even a shared hosting. But if your web hosting provider doesn’t offer shared or VPS hosting, you will start to consider changing to another company, right?

Moving from one web host to another can be stressful and sometimes costly. Serious issues, such as loss of data, might occur, due to change of software environment. I went through a lot of unanticipated trouble when I moved my sites to another host. From my personal experience, I came to understand that it is far better to choose a service provider that offers all the four (4) packages; shared, reseller, VPS and dedicated hosting. This helps a client to upgrade or downgrade his/her account at any time, while still maintaining the same environment. Changing from one host to another one forces a client to lose the good relationship he/she has built with a provider over a period of time. Also think about the time that would be wasted during DNS propagation. Stability is always better, at least for me.