Deployment module

Traditional Shared Hosting and Control Panels

Understand shared hosting accounts, public web roots, control panels, account ownership, support boundaries, backups, and provider comparisons.

What Shared Hosting Includes

Shared hosting means many customer sites live on managed hosting infrastructure. A hosting account may include storage, bandwidth, domains, email, databases, backups, SSL, logs and support. The host manages the server environment; you still manage your files, renewals, credentials, content and backups.

For client or business sites, account ownership matters. The business should know who owns the account, who pays renewal invoices, where support is requested and where backups live.

Shared hosting is common because it bundles many practical website needs into one account. That convenience is also why students need to read carefully. Storage, bandwidth, email accounts, databases, backup frequency, support hours and renewal prices can vary across plans from the same provider. A cheap first year is not the same thing as a cheap website over three years.

• Account ownership: the client or organisation should own the account where possible.
• Billing responsibility: someone must receive and pay renewal notices.
• Backup responsibility: provider backups are useful, but students should still keep project copies.
• Support boundaries: hosts may help with server/account issues, but not custom code bugs.

Control Panels You May See

cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk and proprietary dashboards look different, but often provide equivalent functions.

The Public Web Root

public_html/
├── index.html
├── css/
│   └── styles.css
├── js/
│   └── script.js
└── images/
    └── logo.svg

The public folder may be named public_html, htdocs, www, httpdocs or something provider-specific. Confirm the correct folder in your host's documentation.

Provider Guidance for Students

This section is educational, not promotional. Hosting prices, free plans, renewal rates and feature limits change frequently. Check each provider's current official website before signing up, distinguish introductory pricing from renewal pricing, and check currency, GST and cancellation terms where relevant.

Provider details below were checked against current official provider pages on 14 July 2026. They are deliberately written as comparison guidance rather than promises. Before students buy hosting, they should open the provider's current plan page and record the first-term price, renewal price, currency, GST/tax treatment, storage, email, databases, SSL, backups, support and cancellation policy.

Free Traditional Hosting

Free shared hosting can be useful for experimentation, but it should not be recommended for real client or business sites. If you mention providers such as InfinityFree, AwardSpace or FreeHosting.com, verify their current terms first.

• reduced storage or bandwidth
• limited databases or no email
• restricted support
• provider subdomains
• advertising, branding or disabled features
• account inactivity rules
• uncertain long-term availability
• restrictions on commercial use

Free shared hosting is most useful when the learning goal is to see a control panel, upload files and understand limitations. It is not a sensible default for a real client or business website because support, continuity, backups and commercial-use terms matter.

Preferred Free Modern Hosting for Static Projects

GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel and Cloudflare Pages are not traditional shared hosting services. They are generally better suited to static sites and frontend projects than free shared hosting, especially when a project is already in Git.

• GitHub Pages
• Netlify
• Vercel
• Cloudflare Pages