Web Hosting Services

There are thousands of web hosting companies out there offering services that range in price from very cheap to very expensive. Unfortunately, many of the companies offering affordable options have not been around long and often go out of business quickly leaving you without a place to host your website. This complicates the already daunting task of sorting through the thousands of server related acronyms to choose a good web hosting service. The two charts that follow offer comparisons of five of the best web hosting companies for both business and personal uses based on server space, e-commerce support, and technical support. However, if you are a small business that could do with a little less space, and you don’t have any impending requirements for e-commerce support, I encourage you take a look at the personal use chart as well.

Table 1: Recommended Personal Hosts
Hosting Services	Host Monster	Hosting Metro	Dotster	Host Gator	Downtown Host
Price (/month)	$5.95	$4.95	$5.95	$6.95	$7.95
Disc Space (GB)	300	0.5	5	50	5
Bandwidth (GB)	3000	10	250	200	100
Uptime	99.9%	99.99%	-	99.5%	99.9%
Domains (/site)	Unlimited	1	1	1	Unlimited
Sub-Domains	Unlimited	Unlimited	-	20	Unlimited
Domain Included	Yes	No	No	No	No
Shopping Cart	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
SSL Support	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
24/7 Support	Phone/Chat	Phone/Chat	Chat	Phone/Chat	Phone/Chat
mySQL Databases	100	10	1	Unlimited	Unlimited

Table 2: Recommended Business Hosts
Hosting Services	Web Hosting Buzz	Host I Can	Lunar Pages	Vista Pages	Blue Host
Price (/month)	$4.00	$6.95	$6.95	$6.95	$6.95
Disc Space (GB)	300	200	350	350	300
Bandwidth (GB)	2000	2500	3500	3000	30000
Uptime	99.95%	99.9%	99.9%	99.9%	99.9%
Domains (/site)	2	1	10	16	Unlimited
Sub-Domains	Unlimited	25	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Domain Included	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Shopping Cart	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SSL Support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
24/7 Support	-	Phone	-	-	-
mySQL Databases	Unlimited	50	Unlimited	100	50

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