There are several ways to host joomla. We call these Joomla Hosting Types. They range from the inexpensive to the most expensive, shared servers to dedicated servers, etc...
Basically this categorizes each hosting company for you to figure out which category you fall into.
This refers to your website being hosted on a Shared Server. Most servers can hold a lot of websites. It's ideal to be sharing your server with as little other websites as possible. Of course, this will be out of your control, and partly why Shared Hosting is so affordable. However, a majority of websites are run on shared server.
All Companies with Shared Joomla Hosting Plans
Our Editor Top Picks for best Shared Hosting.
Business Class Hosing is the step up from shared hosting. A little more expensive, but you get more from your server. There are less accounts per server and the hardware is usually better.
Go with business hosting if you are a website that generates it's income from having a web presence. Whether its directly through the site (i.e. ecommerce site) or even it's for a company who's primary traffic comes through the website.
All Companies with Joomla Business Class Hosting Plans
Our Editor Top Picks for Joomla Business Hosting
Virtual Private Servers are the step above Business Class Hosting. VPS essentially works the same as business class hosting. Meaning its shares a server with a few other accounts. The difference is that you have access to your own, separate(virtualized) instance of the server with a given set of resources allotted to your account. This allows you to configure the software on your server so that it is optimized for your site.
All Companies with Joomla VPS Hosting Plans
Our Editor Top Picks for Joomla VPS Hosting
Dedicated Server Hosting is the top of the line when it comes to website hosting. If you want full customizable control and security this is the way to go. As well as providing optimal speeds for your website. This pushes you far a head of other websites.
All Companies with Joomla Dedicated Server Hosting Plans
Our Editor Top Picks for Joomla Dedicated Hosting
Cloud hosting is a specialty request. There are few sites like cloudaccess.net that provide it. Hopefully, there will be more as cloud services become more popular. Cloud refers to the hosting of your website on multiple connected servers. Should one faulter, the others share the load.
All Companies with Joomla Cloud Hosting Plans
Our Editor Top Picks for Joomla Cloud Hosting
This is a new development in the hosting world. These companies speciallize in setting up and managing your Joomla website. Two companies that do this are simplweb.com and cloudaccess.net.
Reseller Hosting allows you to resell your server space to others. This is often done by web developers or people looking to make money from their support services.
This type of hosting is purely environmentally friendly. Their service will be based on green technology that saves energy. It's not that expensive and will become more affordable as the rest of the industry adopts green technology. GreenGeeks is the leader of green hosting.
All Companies with Joomla Green Hosting Plans
Our Editor Top Picks for Joomla Green Hosting
Budget Hosting simply means, offering cheap hosting. This often times is not worth it. You will be offered less features and server space. If you have a small website that has very little needs, then this could work for you. HostGator provides a great budget hosting plan.
Not recommended. Joomla was developed using Linux, PHP, MySQL and Apache. You will run into issues and may constantly needing support.
Hopefully this guide gives you insight into the world of Joomla hosting companies and the plan types they offer. Like we said above, shared hosting is the most common, but you may have more needs than just that. Check out our guide, How To Choose A Joomla Host, or our section about Best Joomla Hosts.
David writes for several websites. Specializing in Joomla, he develops websites like this one in order to provide help to those who need it. He enjoys taking concepts not everyone understands and breaking them down so that it is easy for everyone. On the weekends he can be found having beers with friends, watching soccer and enjoying the outdoors.