The Four Major Pieces of Website HostingUpdated a year ago
You can view all of the categories below for your website using our DNS Detangler tool
Domain Registrar - the place you buy (rent, actually) your domain.
- Cost: Typically on the order of $10 - $20 per year
DNS Host - the place where your DNS records live.
- Typically free if you know what you are doing
- Usually the same as your Domain Registrar unless you choose to decouple them
- Your DNS Host is determined by the Nameserver entries that are controlled at your Domain Registrar
- Hard to beat Cloudflare here since they offer a free DNS tier that includes
Website Host - where your website lives.
- Typically $5/mo for VPS Wordpress hosting up to $20/mo for something like Squarespace
- Your Website Host(s) are controlled via ARecord and/or CNAME records at your DNS Host
Mail Host - where your email gets delivered.
- Typically ~$5+ per mailbox per month somewhere like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 but you can it for $0 if you host your own mail server on your website VPS.
- Your Email Host is controlled via MX records at your DNS Host