Your simple guide to web hosting.

Do I Need a Website to Need Hosting? (A Quick Explanation)

Category: Getting Started with Web Hosting Last Updated: 2025-05-15

You've learned that web hosting is like the land for your website and a domain name is its address. Most of the time, when people talk about web hosting, they're talking about making a traditional website (with pages, images, text, etc.) visible to the world.

But what if you're not building a typical website? Do you still need hosting? Let's explore.

Hosting is for More Than Just Websites

While hosting a collection of web pages is the most common use, web hosting (and the servers that provide it) can be used for other online services too.

Here are a couple of examples, explained simply:

  1. Email Hosting:

    • If you want a professional email address like you@yourdomain.com (instead of a generic one like you@gmail.com), you'll need email hosting.
    • Sometimes, web hosting plans include email hosting. Other times, you might get it as a separate service.
    • The hosting server, in this case, stores your emails and manages sending and receiving them.

  2. File Storage and Sharing (Advanced):

    • Some people use server space (which is what hosting provides) to store large files online, perhaps for backup or to share with others. This is a bit more advanced and less common for beginners just starting out.
    • Think of services like Dropbox or Google Drive – they use massive servers to store your files. You could technically set up something similar on your own server, but it's usually more complex than a beginner needs.

  3. Application Backends (More Advanced):

    • If you're building a mobile app or a web application that needs to store user data, process information, or connect to a database, the "backend" of that application often needs to be hosted on a server.
    • This is definitely a more advanced topic, but it shows that hosting isn't just for displaying simple web pages.

For Most Beginners, Hosting = Website

For most people starting out (our "noobs"), when you hear "web hosting," it almost always means you're planning to create and show a website to the public.

The primary goal of getting web hosting as a beginner is to make your website – whether it's a blog, a portfolio, a small business site, or a simple one-page site – accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

Key Takeaway

While web hosting can technically be used for things like email or file storage, if you're a beginner looking into web hosting, it's almost certainly because you want to create a website that people can visit online. The other uses are generally more specialized or advanced.

Next Steps

Now that you know hosting is primarily about getting your website online, let's look at: