Hosting & Infrastructure
Shared hosting to Kubernetes — every tier of web hosting, what it costs, and who needs what.
The Hosting Ladder: Control vs. Simplicity
Web hosting exists on a spectrum. More control means more responsibility. More simplicity means less flexibility.
Shared Hosting
Your site shares a server with dozens (or hundreds) of others. Limited control, limited resources, but extremely cheap. Good for WordPress blogs, small business sites.
Typical pricing
Control: Minimal | Skill required: None
Virtual Private Server (VPS)
You get a virtualized server that you control entirely. You manage OS, software, security. More power and flexibility than shared hosting, but you're responsible for maintenance.
Typical pricing
Control: High | Skill required: Moderate
Dedicated Server
You rent an entire physical server. Maximum control and performance, but you pay for it — and you manage everything.
Typical pricing
Control: Total | Skill required: High
Cloud (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure)
Rent compute, storage, and networking on-demand. Pay only for what you use. Massive scalability, but steeper learning curve and cost can spiral if misconfigured.
Typical pricing
Control: Complete | Skill required: High
Managed Cloud (Render, Railway, Fly.io)
Cloud infrastructure managed by a third party. You deploy code, they handle servers, scaling, and databases. Great for startups and teams that don't want ops overhead.
Typical pricing
Control: Medium | Skill required: Low
Platform-as-a-Service (Vercel, Netlify)
Deploy directly from git. Automatic scaling, SSL, CDN built-in. Zero infrastructure concerns. Limited to specific frameworks (usually Node.js/serverless).
Typical pricing
Control: Minimal | Skill required: None
Managed WordPress (WP Engine, Kinsta, Bluehost)
Hosting optimized specifically for WordPress. Automatic updates, backups, and security. Perfect for WordPress-only sites, but locked into WordPress.
Typical pricing
Control: Low | Skill required: None
Serverless & Edge
No traditional servers. Deploy functions that run on-demand. Cost is per execution. Perfect for APIs, webhooks, and bursty workloads.
Typical pricing
Control: None | Skill required: Medium
What Hosting Costs Actually Include
The headline price is only part of the story. Watch out for:
- Bandwidth: Cloud providers charge for data egress. Shared hosting includes it.
- Backups: Some include automatic backups, others charge extra.
- SSL Certificates: Let's Encrypt is free, but some providers charge $50+/year.
- Email: Shared hosting includes email; cloud doesn't.
- Database: Cloud charges separately; shared hosting includes it.
- Support: Premium support plans add $50–$500/month.
Choosing Hosting: A Quick Decision Matrix
Starting out / Learning
Shared hosting (Bluehost, GoDaddy) or Managed Platforms (Vercel, Netlify)
Startup / MVP
PaaS (Vercel, Render, Railway) or Managed Cloud (Fly.io)
Scaling but no ops team
Managed Cloud or cloud with managed databases (AWS RDS, Heroku)
Enterprise / Complex needs
Raw Cloud (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) with Kubernetes / Container orchestration
Scale and Cost Over Time
Different hosting tiers become cost-effective at different scales. Shared hosting at $5/month is cheap until you outgrow it. Cloud with on-demand pricing is expensive at small scale but cheaper at massive scale because you pay only for what you use.