Choosing The Most Appropriate Web Hosting Plan For Your Company
Not sure which web hosting plan is right for your business? Confused
about the differences between Unix web hosting and Windows web hosting?
This page should help you answer these questions. Follow this link (or
scroll down) for a detailed comparison between Unix
and Windows web hosting, or find out which hosting plan is best
for your company directly below.
Ingenuity Web Hosting Plans in Plain English
i-Mail
This plan is an email only plan - It provides you with 20 email addresses
that can be associated with your domain name (such as sales@yourcompany.com.au
or yourname@yourcompany.com.au) but does not provide space for you to
have a website. This plan is ideal for companies that want the professionalism
of having a company email address on their business stationary and is
easier for their clients to remember than an email address associated
with your ISP (eg. companyname@bigpond.net.au).
i-Lite
An excellent entry-level web hosting plan that is ideal for a standard
website, but also offers enough space to accommodate a reasonable amount
of growth without having to upgrade. This plan also includes 20 email
addresses that can be associated with your domain name.
i-Biz
Designed for dynamic websites and online shopping carts. If your website
requires a database back-end or if you want to sell products online
then this is the best plan for your business. Included in this package
is support for a MySQL database, SSL for secure online transactions
and 50 email addresses.
i-Corp
The i-Corp package offers the same features as the i-Biz plan but allows
for more webspace and 100 email addresses. This plan is designed for
medium to large sized companies with reasonably complex websites.
i-Premier
This plan is designed for large companies that have particularly sizeable
multifaceted websites. 200 email addresses are supplied since most businesses
that choose this plan would have 200 staff members.
Unix vs Windows
A common misconception exists, that you cannot host your website on
a Unix server if you have used a PC with Windows or Apple Mac to design
the site. This is, in fact, incorrect. A website may be hosted on a
Unix server, and quite often is, regardless of the PC or operating system
used to design and publish the site.
Both Windows and Unix offer the same standard web hosting features
so if your site is a basic online brochure for your company then it
doesn't matter what server your site is hosted on.
If your website uses a scripting language (like ASP or PHP) or you
have a database (such as MySQL or MS Access) or you would like to use
Microsoft's FrontPage software to publish your website then you have
to make a decision between the two. The table below shows the differences
between the two systems:
Unix Vs. Windows
|
|
| Features |
Unix |
Windows |
|
| Operating System |
FreeBSD |
Windows Server |
|
| Web Server |
Apache |
IIS |
|
| Server-Side Scripting |
PHP |
ASP, ASP.NET |
|
| Database Support |
MySQL |
MS Access, MySQL |
|
| Web Server |
Apache |
IIS |
|
| FrontPage Support |
Unix can view a site
that has been created in FrontPage, however the File Upload and
other dynamic components (such as forms) will not function |
Supports all Microsoft
FrontPage features and components |
|
| Software Support |
Standard Unix tools
|
COM Objects, .NET
Framework, ISAPI DLLs |
|
| Email |
There is no difference
in email features. Email services are managed by a separate system
running on unix (FreeBSD) for greatest reliability and flexibility. |