Also known as: Web hosting, Shared hosting
Web hosting is a service that runs your website on someone else’s servers so it is reachable on the internet.1
Overview
Shared hosting is the cheapest tier: many customers’ sites live on one server, sharing its CPU, memory, and disk. It is managed for you — you upload files and the provider keeps the machine running — but you get limited control in exchange. It comfortably runs the common cases: PHP apps, Python sites, and plain static pages.
Where it stops being enough
Shared hosting hits a wall when you need custom software, background services, or root access to the operating system. At that point you step up to a virtual private server, which gives you your own slice with full control, or a dedicated server for the whole machine.
Sources
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Web hosting service — Wikipedia, on hosting tiers including shared hosting. ↩