Quality hosting: selection criteria

Creating a site at the initial stage is usually accompanied by a number of mandatory questions, the main among which is the choice of a high-quality and reliable hosting provider. Since hosting is something akin to a web foundation on which the mobility and functioning of a future page will depend, it is worth starting its choice by studying in detail what the reviews of the most reliable paid sites providing such services say. The hosting rating is created in accordance with certain criteria.

Even a shallow review shows that the best hosting has several advantages, the main ones are as follows:

1. The presence of Uptime, which is typical of reliable servers, since their work is carried out as usual and does not threaten to fail.
2. Solid State Disk provides good loading speed.
3. 24/7 technical support.
4. Inexpensive hosting is always better than cheap hosting, because the latter, as a rule, contains some flaws in its work.
5. Unlimited and paid hosting.

A brief analysis of the advantages of leading hosting

To choose, it is worth analyzing the market to find out which hosting is the best. Next, we will see a list of the top 10 companies that lead the ranking of hosting providers. An overview of some of the benefits of paid web resources allows you to choose the most suitable option for your future site.

Timeweb.com is characterized by:

• affordable price and high speed of work;
• provision of timely assistance by the technical support service;
• the presence of an innovative control panel;
• free trial period - 10 days;
• disk space from 2 to 12 GB;
• 3 backups.

Timeweb.com offers its customers high quality shared hosting. Thanks to the free trial period, you can evaluate the benefits of choosing this particular site. You can use the tariff year+, the monthly payment of which is 129 rubles. Optimo+ will cost 149 rubles per month. The client can choose 2 more more voluminous options: Century+ for 259 rubles per month, and Millennium+, the price of which is 400 rubles.

Beget.ru offers:

• 30 days free trial period;
• affordable prices for registration;
• the ability to use the option of deferred payment;
• free site transfer;
• automatic backup;
• savings with a one-time payment for hosting for a year.

Beget.ru is an inexpensive hosting that exactly meets the needs of customers. Reviews about this platform speak of the reliability of the servers and excellent technical support. One of the best companies in its field. The basic rates of this hosting are as follows: Blog- 115 rubles, Start- 150 rubles, Noble — 245, Great — 390.

McHost.ru :

• 24/7 online support;
• a number of profitable promotions, for example, when transferring a site;
• affordable prices;
• bonuses when switching from another provider;
• profitable affiliate program.

McHost deserves praise for excellent technical support, as well as an extremely user-friendly control panel. It greatly facilitates the work of customers, as evidenced by numerous reviews. You can get unlimited hosting. Rates offered are: Mak-4", the price of which is 249 rubles per month," Mak-8"for 399 rubles, and" Mak-15". You can issue this tariff at a price of 699 rubles per month.

1Gb.ru :

• free 10-day trial;
• 24/7 technical support;
• support for PHP and mySQL;
• backup with automatic function;
• installation of components necessary for the user.

1Gb.ru attracts most of all with the flexibility of work and attitude towards customers. In case of late payments, according to the request of the client, the site will not be disabled. The overview of the services offered by this company is quite wide. Rate PROSTO can be issued for 99 rubles per month. " Optimal"- 239 rubles," Pro"- 1138 rubles, and, finally," Business"- 2677 rubles. It is worth noting that the client can choose all the parameters he needs and make his own tariff.

:

• Rent of virtual dedicated servers VPS/VDS and physical dedicated Dedicated servers.
• Own data center in Estonia + own and rented equipment in DCs in Germany, the USA and Russia.
• Guaranteed 99.9% uptime.
• 24/7 technical support that speaks three languages ​​and responds to the request even faster than 30 minutes.
• Free site transfer from another hosting (only in PHP, transfer from shared hosting - if you have access or ready backups).
• Tariff change within the line - in 1 click (only for VPS).
• Free help setting up the server.
• Unlimited sites on 1 server and a dedicated IP address.
• Large selection of tariffs and configurations of virtual dedicated servers:

About 15 more options can be found on the FASTVPS website.

• An equally wide range of tariffs and configurations of physical dedicated servers:

About 15 more options are on the FASTVPS website.

FASTVPS has been operating since 2006. Over the 10 years of its existence, the company has earned a reputation as a reliable, high-quality hosting provider with mega-technical support. An important role in the stability of FASTVPS hosting is played by the presence of its own data center in Estonia, as well as its own and rented equipment in data centers in Europe, the USA and Russia. In user reviews, among the strengths of FASTVPS, a high level of technical user support is noted: the support responds as quickly as possible to requests (solution of typical problems takes an average of 30-40 minutes), is always ready to help sort out the settings, give advice and get into the position of the user in difficult situations. controversial situations.

hostland.ru :

• the possibility of obtaining 4 domains for the price of 1 hosting;
• test period — 1 month;
• unlimited hosting;
• discounts when paying for the year;
• MySQL databases;
• free website builder.

Hostland.ru offers great promotions and a fast response from technical support. One of those companies that gets great reviews. Hostland.ru is a good choice, because there are no problems with loading servers. There is a convenient trial period. The tariff plan looks like this: Space 1"- 119 rubles," Space 2"- 159 rubles," Space 3"- 259 rubles," Space 4"- 399 rubles.

Sprinthost.ru :

• backup;
• mail with antispam;
• free 15-day trial period;
• personal web server.

Sprinthost pleases with the speed of downloading information, as well as convenient service management. There is a function that helps expand the possibilities of the tariff. The rates themselves are as follows: Vostok-1"- 110 rubles," Vostok-2"- 360 rubles," Vostok-3"- 600 rubles," Premium"- from 1200 rubles.

hostlife.net :

• 7-day trial period;
• antispam;
• large disk space, unlimited hosting;
• unlimited traffic;
• website builder;
• automatic installation of scripts.

A very convenient hosting that offers a wide range of choices for creating a website. Tariffs are divided into Simple— from 1.8$, Basic— from $3.75, Advanced— from 7.5$, Prime— from $11.25.

spaceweb.ru :

• high speed of information transfer;
• antivirus and antispam;
• reliable servers;
• unlimited hosting;
• the opportunity to carry out a free site transfer at the expense of shares;
• auto-installation of known platforms;
• support for Perl, Python, Ruby.

A large selection of configurations is inherent in SpaceWeb.ru. In addition, it is impossible not to note the reliability of the servers. For 159 rubles per month, you can issue a tariff plan " Takeoff». « Rocket"will cost 279 rubles, and" Space"- at 479 rubles.

Smartape.ru :

• excellent speed;
• support for any number of sites;
• 14 days free trial period;
• support for all CMS;
• free control panel when renting a server.

Smartape.ru provides shared hosting of a very high level, which is confirmed by reliability and reasonable prices. Feedback on the work of this company convincingly testifies to the legitimate presence in the top 10. Unlimited hosting - 145 rubles per month. VPS hosting is divided into the following tariff plans: "Start" - 399 rubles, "Standard" - 599 rubles, "Profi" - 899 rubles, "Business" - 1499 rubles, "Mega" - 2699 rubles.

This is how a sketchy overview of the main nuances that are characteristic of the work of leading hosting resources looks like. Attention is drawn to the general principles of work for most companies. Many have already been mentioned among the criteria for good hosting. Of course, this indicates a high professional level of each site from the top 10. As a rule, these companies receive relevant reviews, the review of which will only convince you of the appropriateness of your choice.

The actual features of hosting

The list of top 10 sites well demonstrates the benefits that a hosting company gives to its customers. In addition to virtual, there is the possibility of creating cloud servers. This is a different kind of paid hosting sites. A similar service can also be obtained from one of the top 10 companies. As already mentioned, cheap hosting is not a productive solution. It is worth adding that only a paid resource exhaustively implements your plans, if they are serious enough. A review of free hosting sites shows that their functioning leaves much to be desired. The choice of a quality hosting company may also be determined by the goals pursued by the site creator.

On the other hand, the hosting rating is also determined by the degree of preferences on the part of customers. To determine which hosting is better, it is enough to study the list of hosters and analyze all the nuances of the services provided. Another factor that the best hosting companies have is copying customer information. Thanks to this more than prudent option on the part of the company, the client will not lose his data in the event of a breakdown of his computer. Finally, an essential feature of good hosting for your future site is a number of offers such as discounts, gifts or bonuses. Reviews of such resources are positive. If at least some of the above characteristics of paid hosting sites are present, you can use the services offered to you.

As follows from the above, even a cursory review of paid hosting sites allows you to determine the resources that are most deserving of attention.

For more than 10 years I have been looking for the best hosting, I have spent a lot of time and, to be honest, I have not found the perfect hosting provider. During this time, I managed to change 13 hosters, about each of which I will write below in this article. And since I have always chosen only the most reliable hosts from what is available, my list can be safely called the list of the best hosting providers, or my personal hosting rating. I will tell you in detail about the features of working with each of them in the article, and at the end of the article I will summarize and write which hosting is the best and why.

If you don't know what hosting is, then read this Wikipedia article: "Hosting".

First, I will give official statistics on which hosters are the largest in Russia. The information in this article will remain relevant for many years from the date of publication, as the leaders in this industry do not change quickly. In addition, you can see the official statistics at the moment using the links below and compare the information with the situation that was at the time of writing this article. So, you will find out which of the leaders have lost the market, and which new hosting leaders have appeared.

CONTENTS

The largest hosting providers in Russia - official statistics

There are objective criteria for assessing the size of a hoster. For example, earlier it was possible to look at the statistics of distribution of domains by hosters from the company nic.ru. However, in 2015 they stopped publishing these statistics, and until 2017 only the old statistics were available, and since May 2017 they have completely removed the “Statistics” section from their website (stat.nic.ru link is not available at the moment). I was very lucky, because when I started writing this article, statistics for all hosting providers since 2009 were still available on the nic.ru website, and when I finished the article, they had already removed the statistics. But I still have a file that I downloaded from their website with statistics on the distribution of zona.ru domains by hosting providers in Russia from 2009 to 2015. You can download .

To date, the following websites provide up-to-date statistics on the distribution of zona.ru domains by hosting providers:

• statdom.ru - hosting providers (this is a project of the National Internet Domain Coordination Center - an organization that administers Russian-language domain zones and appoints domain name registrars);
• statonline.ru (this is a project of reg.ru, the largest hosting provider and domain name registrar, nic.ru abandoned the project for collecting and publishing statistics, and reg.ru picked up the abandoned banner).

nic.ru was once the largest domain name registrar in Russia, now reg.ru has caught up with it, which today is not only the largest domain name registrar, but also the largest hosting provider in Russia.

All data from these sites is summarized in the table below, in addition, I added data from the CNews article for 2007 “TOP-15 Russian hosters: who holds the Runet? “so that you can compare who was the leader among hosters 10 years ago and how the situation has changed today. It is interesting that 10 years ago, the reg.ru company, which is the leader today, was only taking its first steps, because it was created in 2006 and therefore it is not in the Cnews rating.

The data in the table is sorted by the last column, which gives statdom.ru statistics on hosting providers for March 2017, statdom.ru is an independent project, so I trust their statistics more than the statistics of nic.ru and reg.ru companies. If you want to sort data by another column, then simply click on the heading of the corresponding column.

Table-rating of the largest hosting providers in Russia

or distribution of .ru zone domains by Russian hosting

Six hosting market leaders in different years (from the table):

• in October 2007: 1. masterhost.ru, 2. nic.ru, 3. hc.ru (RBC hosting), 4. agava.ru, 5. spaceweb.ru, 6. infobox.ru;
• in May 2015: 1. reg.ru, 2. timeweb.ru, 3. masterhost.ru, 4. nic.ru, 5. spaceweb.ru, 6. hetzner.com;
• in March 2017 (reg.ru data): 1. reg.ru, 2. beget.ru, 3. hetzner.com, 4. timeweb.ru, 5. nic.ru, 6. spaceweb.ru;
• in March 2017 (statdom.ru data): 1. reg.ru, 2. timeweb.ru, 3. nic.ru, 4. hetzner.com, 5. jino.ru, 6. leaseweb.com;
• in October 2018 (reg.ru and statdom.ru data matched): 1. reg.ru, 2. beget.ru, 3. timeweb.ru, 4. hetzner.com.

Interesting conclusions from the rating table of the largest hosting providers in Russia

• in 2007 there were three leaders in the market of hosting providers: masterhost.ru, nic.ru (RU-CENTER) and hc.ru (RBC hosting). To date, there is no one left in the top three of them;
• the leader of 2007 masterhost.ru today has turned into a small company in terms of the number of serviced domains in the .ru zone. Looking ahead, I will say that they have the most expensive hosting prices;
• the reg.ru company, which no one knew in 2007 (it was founded in 2006), has been consistently the market leader in recent years;
• new hosting leader in recent years: timeweb.ru. This hoster has been in the top three for many recent years, and St. Petersburg's beget.ru is in second place today.

List of 13 hosts I have worked with and my reviews of them

1. masterhost.ru. I worked with them many years ago. They are criticized by many, but they have first-class 24/7 support. They helped me solve all the problems immediately at any time of the day. Managers were always very friendly and helped to solve the problem immediately. I left them because they are very expensive, and I found an excellent reg.ru hosting with excellent support, many times cheaper. Masterhost is the most expensive hoster in Russia. At least, I have not seen more. Read more about reg.ru below.
2. nic.ru (RU-CENTER). It is the largest domain name registrar in Russia. They also have hosting. I worked with them many years ago and not for very long. I left because they had an inconvenient, complicated and ugly hosting management interface and problems with support. I don’t remember exactly what I didn’t like about support, it seems that it only worked fully on weekdays during working hours, but not at night and on weekends. In addition, their prices were high, cheaper than Masterhost, but still expensive with such quality. They also have very expensive domain name registrations. For example, at the time of this writing, a domain in the .ru zone costs them 890 rubles a year, while other registrars, for example, reg.ru - 199 rubles a year, and timeweb.ru - it costs 179 rubles a year. For nic.ru, all these years, registration of domains in the zone.ru was unreasonably expensive - 600 rubles a year, and now they have gone completely crazy, they have made it even more expensive. Who will register domains with them, if it costs several times cheaper for other large providers?
3. reg.ru. This is my favorite hosting. I worked with him for many years in a row. It was better not to find it before. Why? Very cheap. acceptable interface. And most importantly - super support. Because of this, I think they grew up so fast. But that was the way it used to be when they were little. Then I called support, I was immediately connected to the system administrator by phone, and he immediately resolved all issues on the spot. Then they grew up and created a multi-level service system. Now you communicate with managers, no one will connect you with the system administrator, only by e-mail. Respond to letters, sometimes for days. And sometimes they write replies. For this reason, I left them. However, I still have the best memories of them. And although I don’t work with them now, I keep all domains with them and register new domain names only through them, as it is profitable.
4. spaceweb.ru. This hosting was once recommended to me by a webmaster. And more recently, one businessman-blogger who keeps all his projects on it. I worked with this hosting many years ago, I left, because then support worked there on weekdays and I had to call St. Petersburg, and I lived in Moscow. Plus, I then found superhosting reg.ru. I tried to work with them recently, but I did not like the interface and the work of the support service. I could not immediately find where to write a support request, and when I found and wrote, I did not receive a response to the request. Then it turned out that you create a ticket in your personal account, and the answer comes to the mail. The answer did not appear in the personal account, i.e. there is an unanswered ticket. And in other small things they are somehow crooked. For example, there are no affiliate links, you have to enter a code when registering a client, it is difficult to find information on the site - you need to write in support, and a number of other small but inconvenient moments. I call such things "hands not out of the shoulders." And although they have been ranked 5-7 in the TOP 10 hosters since 2007 to this day, which is cool, they practically do not grow, which is very bad. I'm not going to work with them anymore.
5. peterhost.ru. I worked with this hoster many years ago. I really didn't like this host. Inconvenient, complex and ugly hosting management interface. And I didn’t like the support, but I don’t remember what, but unpleasant emotions remained.
6. infobox.ru. I worked with this hoster several years ago. I ordered VPS hosting from them. They have it very cheap. Then it was cheaper than all competitors. Support works acceptable, answered in a reasonable time. I was very pleased with the hosting itself, considering the price, but they have a very poor and inconvenient personal account interface. That's why I don't want to deal with them anymore. At the time of this writing, VPS prices from timeweb.ru were cheaper than from infobox.ru.
7. hc.ru(RBC hosting). I have worked with them for a long time. About 10 years ago. My sites were constantly unavailable, it was impossible to get through to support. Of course, I didn't stay long with them. But they say that it was then that then RBC hired a cool team that solved all the problems. I don't know if this hosting is currently related to RBC, most likely not, since there is not a single word about RBC on the site. In general, I do not plan to work with them anymore.
8. digitalocean.com. This is the cheapest VPS hosting in the world. The quality is excellent, but the support is only in English, and you will have to set up the hosting yourself or hire a system administrator. This company appeared 5 years ago, but all the world's newspapers and magazines immediately wrote about it, as they created the fastest, most reliable and cheapest hosting in the world. This is really a very good hosting!
9. linode.com. This hosting is considered to be one of the best VPS hosting in the world. I worked with him and I like him very much too. But it's expensive, it used to be more expensive than digitalocean.com.
10. fastvps.com.(hosting reseller hetzner.com). I did not work with them for long, because I did not like the admin panel and support. I don't remember the details, because it was a long time ago. VPS prices are high…
11. godaddy.com. American hosting, market leader. I have worked with them and also with bluehost.com. These two American hosting are the same. I like their support - they always respond very quickly in the chat. But if the site is aimed at Russia, then it will slow down very much, since America is very far from us. To prevent sites from slowing down, you can use, then there will be an acceptable speed.
12. site5.com. This American hosting is praised by many bloggers in the USA. When I started working with them, I couldn't be happier. I have used it with . Support has always responded very quickly. The sites were always available. And then the problems started. Support could not respond for 3-7 days. But the height of impudence was when they wrote off the subscription fee for one month twice in a row after 5 minutes. No one responded to my email asking for a refund. The money was not returned, but simply silently credited towards the payment of the next month. The chat support does not speak English well. In general, I experienced a lot of unpleasant emotions, although in the end the money was returned to me. It's not worth working with them.
13. timeweb.ru. I am working with this hosting now. Support response speed is acceptable - they answer in 10-60 minutes. I like the interface of my personal account, everything is neat and clear. Websites are relatively fast. This hosting provider ranks second in the market and is the biggest player. Domain registration there is inexpensive, and their prices are cheap. And they also have mobile apps. Everything is as it should be!

As you can see, my list mainly includes the most famous and largest hosting providers, if not now, then in the past. I think they are all good, because I chose each of them very meticulously: I studied the ratings, carefully read the negative user reviews, checked uptime (server uptime), evaluated them on a number of other parameters and always chose only the best and most reliable .

However, I have complaints about each of the above hosts, otherwise I would not change them so often. There really is no best hosting and they all have their pros and cons and you will find tons of negative reviews on the internet for each of them. Nevertheless, you need to work with someone! Therefore, I chose several hosting evaluation criteria for myself and chose the best one based on them.

My criteria for choosing the best hosting provider

1. The speed and quality of responses support. For me, this is the most important criterion. This is the most important thing in hosting! Everyone sometimes “falls” servers, everyone makes mistakes, on every hosting from the list above I had such that my sites were unavailable. And it is very important that at the same time support works around the clock and immediately helps to solve problems, respond quickly to requests. How support works can only be understood by working with the hosting provider.
2. Big company. I have only worked with large hosting providers that have been on the market for many years. All the hostings listed above are large and old companies that have been on the market for a long time. This is an important criterion, since you don’t really want to use hosting, which was organized by some webmaster a couple of months ago and who may get sick or just change his mind about doing it.
3. Uptime and site loading speed. All the companies from my list have very high uptime (the time that their servers worked without interruption), about 100%, and the high speed of loading the sites of the hosts themselves. The uptime and loading speed of your sites when they are on this hosting is a very versatile criterion that depends on many parameters, incl. and from your website, and you won't know until you try and buy hosting. So it's all about experience.
4. Convenience and design of the personal account interface. It is important for me that the interface is beautiful and convenient, so that hosting is pleasant to use. And although this parameter is in my last place, I will not use hosting with a poor interface, even if it is the coolest in all other respects.

Before we get into my choices, I will explain how shared hosting differs from VPS hosting. If you know this, then just skip the next section.

Shared hosting and VPS hosting

I have used both shared hosting and VPS hosting for many years:

• virtual hosting- the cheapest option, when a lot of sites “sit” on the same server, like mushrooms in a basket, and your sites, along with other sites in this basket, and all these sites simultaneously use the resources of one server;
• VPS hosting- this is when a certain “piece” of the server is assigned to your site, which only you can use, as if a basket of mushrooms was divided into compartments. This option is more expensive, but not always.

Shared hosting is ideal for beginners, as it is administered by the host itself, while VPS hosting is more advanced, as you will have to set it up completely on your own or hire a system administrator.

And if your sites are very large, with huge traffic, then you will need a dedicated server and, possibly, more than one:

• dedicated server- this is when the entire server is completely assigned to you.

Almost all hosters from my article have shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers.

The best hosting in Russia

Hosters, which I have chosen for myself as the best, are suitable for any site. For example, if you want to buy hosting for a WordPress site or any other popular engine such as Drupal, Joomla or Bitrix, then these hostings will also be one of the best choices. In addition, they have special solutions "sharpened" for WordPress and Bitrix, as these are the most popular CMS in Russia.

Best Shared Hosting

I repeat once again that there is no best hosting, everyone has their pros and cons, and I chose the two leaders based on my experience with them and other hosters, as well as using my hosting evaluation criteria, which I wrote about above. Any hoster has many shortcomings, but you have to work with someone! So my choice is:

• timeweb.ru. This hoster takes the 3rd place in the list of TOP-10 hosting providers in Russia. I'm working with them now and although I have some gripes, overall it's good compared to other hosts I've used. I like the interface of my personal account and the work of the support service. They have low prices for hosting and domain name registration. And they also have mobile applications for Android and iPhone, which not every hosting provider can boast of today. Worthy choice!
• reg.ru. If you want to work only with the market leader, with the largest, then there’s nothing to even think about - choose reg.ru. Their hosting is cheap, good support and domain registration is very cheap. The interface is complicated and support sometimes slows down, but at an acceptable level. I used their hosting for many years, now I don’t use it, but I keep all my domains with them, and I register new ones only through them, as it’s profitable. I am registered as a partner and pay only 125 rubles a year for .ru zone domains.

Best VPS Hosting

All the hosts that I wrote about above in the "Best Shared Hosting" section also have VPS hosting. Therefore, consider them for VPS as well. However, in my opinion, the best VPS hosts are digitalocean.com and linode.com. These are American companies and support there is only in English. Of these two, I would prefer digitalocean.com, as they have a nicer interface and cheaper prices. Nevertheless, timeweb.ru has cheaper VPS prices and servers in Russia.

In fact, there is no better hosting, the ideal cannot be found. I choose a hoster based on how much I like the interface, prices, ratings, user reviews, site speed, and technical support. support. What kind of hosting do you like and why? Please share in the comments.

Inexpensive hosting will serve as a good start for beginners and is suitable for creating static HTML sites. If your project develops into a commercial resource, you can always choose a more powerful hosting plan with PHP and MySQL support for large, highly loaded sites and professional platforms. For legal entities (including LLCs), electronic document management (EDF) is available, which allows you to quickly exchange documents and perform operations with hosting and domain services.

Hosting specifications include high-performance SSD RAID, Linux CentOS or Windows for ASP.NET with support for Python, Java, PHP, Perl and the Django framework (on plans starting with Host-A). The ftp server is accessed via the FTP and SSH protocols.

The security of your site is important to us, so in addition to the hosting service, you will receive for free:

• protection against DDoS attacks;
• unlimited traffic;
• double anti-virus check;
• SSL certificate.

For better site security, you can additionally order the treatment of infected files and advanced spam protection.

When transferring hosting to the site for any tariff, you will receive a month of service as a gift!

Hello friends! We continue to deal with questions on the creation of the site. In the last part, we learned . Today we will talk about what kind of hosting to choose for the site and where to buy it.

I will tell you what characteristics you need to pay attention to and I will review the TOP 7 hosting providers, from which you can easily choose the best option for your project in terms of price and quality.

I will not dive deep into the technical aspects, so even a beginner will understand.

To choose the best hosting option, you need to understand the site with what characteristics you are going to place on it.

For most who make a site from scratch, any of the cheapest shared hosting will do. For example, Beget.ru (1 month free). Because young sites do not have high traffic and load.

I do not advise you to immediately buy an expensive powerful server. Start with the simplest, then as the load grows, you can easily upgrade the tariff or move to another hosting.

Think about it when hosting can't handle the load. I transfer my information sites to dedicated servers after they reach 20,000 visitors per day.

I propose to start the selection with the initial data. I understand that most modern hostings support any site characteristics and this section is essentially useless, but still, let's figure it out.

Site characteristics

What site are you going to create?

Site type

All other characteristics depend on the type. If you are creating a simple project: a blog, an information site, a project business card or a personal portfolio, a landing page, an online store, then you do not need high performance, any of those listed in this article will do.

If you are going to make a portal or service where you will upload heavy data or complex computational algorithms, then a simple virtual hosting may not be enough. In this case, I can advise you to take a VPS or a dedicated server.

Load

Hosting load is expressed in units such as CP. CP is an abstract value that is calculated in many ways. In simple terms, it depends on how many users access the resources (data) of the site, and how much these resources consume server power when used.

When the site is young or under development, this load cannot be estimated. In other cases, you go to the reports and see what load is on your resource daily.

Volume

Volume is the amount of storage for site data, like the size of a hard drive on a computer. You can find it out if you already have a website ready for launch.

For example, a landing page weighs up to 3 MB on average. If you are making an information site that will be updated daily with content (articles and photos), then 1-2 GB will definitely be enough for the next year or two.

The problem is that beginners do not know how to optimize data, thus uploading very heavy files to the site and managing to spend all the disk space that they have to buy in a month.

For 4 years of blogging, I used only 1.5 GB. Come to me, I will teach you how to optimize content correctly so that the pages load quickly and do not load the hosting.

Platform (CMS)

Another parameter that you need to know is what engine your site is on and whether it is supported by hosting. If WordPress, Bitrix, Joomla or another popular CMS, then you don't have to worry. All hosts support them.

We estimate our parameters, taking into account plans for the future, and choose the necessary hosting based on them.

Hosting Features

What else to look for when choosing the best host?

Test period

All normal providers provide a test period from 1 week to several months. This allows us to get acquainted with all the functionality, stability of work and launch the site without investments.

Location of data centers

According to the law on personal data (152-FZ), all databases of sites that collect personal data of Russian users (phone numbers, e-mail, names, surnames, and so on) must be stored on the territory of the Russian Federation. Otherwise, access to your site in Russia may be blocked.

When choosing a hosting, look at where its data centers are located.

Interface

An individual parameter that only you can evaluate. How convenient and intuitive is the personal account with all the functions and settings.

Technical support

The speed and quality of support response is an important factor of choice. When working with hosting, there are often situations when technical support is needed.

Variety and flexibility of tariffs

Considering your goals and plans for the future, see if there is an opportunity to increase the performance characteristics of a hosting without moving to another one.

Don't get free hosting

There are so-called free hostings, I would even say shareware, because free cheese happens you know where.

Such providers do different things, they can show their ads on your site and thus monetize, they do not bear any responsibility for data problems, technical support can take a long time to answer or demand many times more for a tariff upgrade with a lack of performance.

If you just want to practice making websites, then use it, but I don’t recommend it for serious projects.

TOP-7 hosting

Overview of the best providers according to the reviews of webmasters in Russia and the CIS. They work on Linux and Windows operating systems and have everything necessary for the functioning of any sites.

Beget

Beget.com - in my opinion, the best hosting, most of the sites I have on it. They recently added a flexible pricing feature, a very handy feature that makes it easy to change settings as needed.

For example, if you run out of storage space, you can increase it. You choose only what you need, without overpaying.

• Works since 2007.
• Price: from 115 rubles per month.
• Test period: 1 month.

Quite convenient and clear interface, supports all modern programming languages ​​and CMS. It is possible to switch to VPS and a dedicated server.

Read a detailed review and instructions for working with Beget.

REG.RU

Reg.ru is the most popular Russian domain name registrar. Provides hosting services and a bunch of other useful tools.

• Works since 2006.
• Data center in Moscow.
• Price: from 84 rubles.
• Test period: 1 month.

Makhost

Mchost.ru is a popular Russian provider. Slightly ancient interface of the personal account. As it was 6 years ago, when I kept sites on it, it has remained so.

• Works since 2004.
• Data centers in Moscow and Amsterdam.
• Price: from 52 rubles per month.
• Trial period: 10 days.
• Number of sites in the minimum tariff: 1.

timeweb

Timeweb.com is an average hosting with different rates in terms of performance and cost.

• Works since 2006.
• Data center in St. Petersburg.
• Price: from 99 rubles.
• Test period: 10 days.
• Number of sites in the minimum tariff: 1.

Sprinthost

Sprinthost.ru is a good inexpensive shared hosting. A simple and intuitive interface that any beginner will understand.

• Works since 2005.
• Data center in St. Petersburg.
• Price: from 98 rubles.
• Test period: 15 days.
• Number of sites in the minimum tariff: 2.

Offerhost

Offerhost.ru is a young hosting provider, perhaps with the most favorable conditions for beginners. But if you look at the prospect of developing your project, then the following tariffs are more expensive than those of competitors.

• Works since 2016.
• Data center in Moscow.
• Price: from 49 rubles per month.
• Test period: no.
• Number of sites in the minimum tariff: 5.

FastVPS

Fastvps.ru - only powerful VPS and VDS servers from Russia and Europe. This option is for those who no longer have enough conventional shared hosting.

• Works since 2006.
“How to create your own blog and earn from 20,000 rubles” work stably.

After all, we live in the 21st century and now there are no problems with server performance, everyone has powerful hardware, tariffs for any needs, high-speed communication channels and round-the-clock technical support.

It remains for you to wish only success and prosperity in creating your Internet project. Subscribe to blog news and stay tuned for new interesting articles for webmasters.

Write in the comments which host you chose and why.

In the next part, I will show you how to buy hosting with an example.