What Is Web Hosting? A Plain Guide for Your First Website

Web hosting is renting space and computing power on a server — a computer that is always switched on and always connected to the internet — so that your website answers whenever somebody types its address. The host keeps that machine running, secure and backed up; you put your site's files, database and email on it.

What web hosting actually is

A website is a set of files (pages, pictures, code) and usually a database (posts, products, orders). For anybody to see it, those files have to sit on a computer that answers requests from browsers, day and night. Running such a computer yourself means a fixed public IP address, a fast and reliable connection, power that never cuts out, security updates and backups. A hosting company does all of that for many customers at once and rents each one a share.

What you rent is measured in a few numbers: how much disk space your files may take, how much memory (RAM) and processor time (CPU) your site may use, how many websites, mailboxes and databases you may create, and how many backups are kept for you.

A domain name is not web hosting

People often mix the two up. A domain name (such as yourshop.com) is the address people type. Hosting is the place the address leads to. You register a domain for a year or more at a time; you rent hosting by the month or the year. They can come from the same company or from two different ones — the domain only has to point to the hosting, which is done with its nameservers or DNS records.

If you have not chosen a name yet, read how to choose a domain name first, and search for free names on the domains page.

What happens when somebody visits your site

1. The visitor types your domain into a browser.
2. The browser asks the Domain Name System (DNS) which server answers for that name, and gets back an IP address.
3. The browser connects to that server — over HTTPS, so the connection is encrypted — and asks for the page.
4. The server runs your site's code (for example PHP), reads the database if it needs to, and sends the page back.

Everything from step 3 onwards happens on your host's server. That is why the server's speed, the limits of your plan and the host's care for the machine decide how fast and how reliably your site answers.

Shared hosting, VPS and dedicated servers

• Shared hosting: many accounts on one server, each with its own limits. The host runs and secures the server; you manage only your sites. It is the usual start for a business site, a blog or a small shop.
• VPS (virtual private server): a virtual machine of your own, with a fixed share of the server and full control of its operating system — and the work of keeping it updated and secure.
• Dedicated server: a whole physical machine for you. For large sites, or software that needs the machine to itself.

Most first websites do not need more than shared hosting. What matters is that your account on a shared server is properly kept apart from the others, so a neighbour's busy or broken site cannot reach yours.

What the numbers on a hosting plan mean

• Websites: how many separate sites (each with its own domain) you can run on the account.
• Disk space: room for files, databases, email and backups of your own. A simple business site with images rarely needs more than a few gigabytes.
• RAM and CPU: how much memory and processor time your sites may use at once. They decide how many visitors you can serve at the same moment, more than disk does.
• Email accounts: mailboxes on your own domain, such as info@yourshop.com.
• Databases: most content systems, WordPress included, need one database per site.
• Backups kept: how many past copies of your account the host keeps, so you can go back to yesterday or last week.

What to check before you choose a host

1. The renewal price. The first term is often discounted; every later term is charged at the renewal price. Read what to check about renewal prices.
2. Backups you can restore yourself, and proof that they work. A backup nobody has ever read back is a hope, not a backup. See the 3-2-1 rule for website backups.
3. Free SSL that renews by itself, so your site is always on HTTPS. See how free SSL works.
4. Isolation: your account should run as its own user, with its own processes, so other accounts on the server cannot read your files.
5. Two-factor sign-in for your control panel.
6. What happens if a payment is late. Is the account suspended, or deleted? When?

How Hostular's plans answer those questions

As of November 2026, every Hostular hosting plan includes free SSL for each site, renewed before it expires; account isolation, with your own Linux user, home folder and PHP pools; encrypted backups that count only once they have been read back and checked; two-factor sign-in; and a real terminal in your browser. Every plan card shows the first-term price and the renewal price side by side, in taka or US dollars, and an account that is not paid for is suspended, never deleted. The plans and their limits are on the pricing page.

A Hostular plan does not include a free domain, and WordPress is not installed with one click yet: you can install WordPress yourself in a few minutes.

Your first website, step by step

1. Choose and register a domain name.
2. Choose a hosting plan sized for the sites you will run.
3. Point the domain at the hosting — how nameserver changes and DNS propagation work.
4. Turn on HTTPS for the site.
5. Set up email on your domain, with SPF, DKIM and DMARC so it reaches inboxes.
6. Upload your site, or install a content system such as WordPress.