Free hosting: just about all the free web hosting available is extremely limited when compared to paid hosting. Free web hosts generally require their own ads on your site, only allow web-based uploading and editing of your site, and have very tight disk space and traffic limits.
Good: Low cost. It’s free. Good for family, hobby or personal sites.
Bad: Few, limited, or no software options. Free email is often an option. Limited security options. Limited or no database support. Limited technical support. No domain names.
Image hosting: hosting only a few different formats of images. This type of hosting is often free and most require registrations. Most image hosts allow hotlinking, so that you can upload images on their servers and not waste space/bandwith on yours
Shared hosting: one’s Web site is placed on the same server as several hundred other sites. A problem with another site on the server can bring all of the sites down. Shared hosting also brings with it some restrictions regarding what exactly can be done, although these restrictions are nowhere near as restrictive as for free hosting.
Shared solutions often offer multiple software solutions like e-mail, database, and different editing options. Technical support tends to be good.
Good: Low cost. Cost is shared with others. Reduced security due to many sites on one server. Good for small business and average traffic. Multiple software options. Own domain name. Good support.
Bad:Restrictions on traffic volume. Restricted database support. Restricted software support.
Reseller hosting: designed for those who want to become Web hosts themselves. One gets a large amount of space and bandwidth that can be divided up among as many sites as the user wants to put on his account. A reseller account is placed on the same server with other reseller accounts, just like with shared hosting but there are fewer accounts.
Virtual Private Server (or Virtual Dedicated Server) hosting: Virtual Private Server technology enables one physical server to house several Virtual Environments which behave exactly like an isolated stand-alone server. This is often a much more affordable solution than a dedicated server, normally offering all the same benefits, such as root access.
Dedicated hosting: With dedicated hosting, one gets a server of one’s own. They have no restrictions, except for those designed to maintain the integrity of the Web host’s network (for instance, banning sites with adult content due to the increase risk of attack by hackers and grey legal issues for the ISP). Unless a separate plan is purchased from the host, the user is also generally on his own. This can be an expensive proposition, as the purchase of the dedicated server itself is generally far more expensive compared to shared hosting.
Colocated hosting: This involves a server the user purchases himself and installs at the host’s data center. Besides unmonitored reboots, the user must pay extra for many services dedicated hosting provides by default. Colocated hosting is generally chosen by people with server administration experience and those with more significant needs than which can be satisfied by dedicated or shared hosting. This is usually the most expensive and least cost effective option if you are not colocating many servers.
Web hosting service – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Web Hosting Types – w3schools.com
Web Hosting Review Sites
Hosting directories and review sites are useful in the process of narrowing your search, especially those who provide an automatic search utility based on price, space, bandwidth, OS, etc. which can save your time and effort in this aspect.
Avoid review sites with “top 10″ sort of recommendations. Go for those which provide user reviews, and read the reviews carefully. Compare reviews and user opinions from as much review sites as you can, at least three.