Now, when it comes to choosing a hosting provider,
I did mention that you will have
to compare them on your own.
And that is the case.
But there is one important thing
to understand and keep in mind
that will indeed influence which hosting providers
you can consider and which hosting providers
will not be great choices.
And that's the question of which kind of website you build.
If it's a static or a dynamic website.
Now I did use these terms before in the course,
but I briefly want to recap what they mean.
If we build a static website,
that means that we build a website that only contains
HTML, CSS, and browser-side JavaScript code.
It does not contain any server-rendered templates
or any other service-side code.
It uses no server-side language like Node
and no server-side framework like Express, therefore.
We also don't use any database server with such a website.
Instead, it's really just a basic website
with HTML, CSS and browser-side JavaScript.
And in such a case, if you have such a website
you only need a static hosting provider:
A hosting provider that specialized
on hosting such static sites.
Some hosting providers might offer both
static and dynamic site hosting,
but there also are dedicated static site hosting providers.
You can, for example, google for a static site hosting,
and this should then yield you hosting providers
and comparisons and blog posts about hosting providers
that offer static website hosting.
So, then you can choose a provider from
that list if you have this kind of website.
And in case you're wondering if that is realistic,
if there are real websites that are static.
Yes, absolutely.
There are websites that don't need any backend code.
For example, our website academind.com is a static website
because it just contains front-end content
we got no backend code on this page alone.
We got some backend content for some sub pages,
but the main page is a static website
hosted on a static site provider.
Now static sites are just one kind of website though,
and of course, there are many used cases
where a static site is not enough.
If you're building an online shop or a blog,
then of course you need to store the data somewhere
you need to do some calculations on the back
and you need to have some backend logic.
And in this case, you're building
a so-called dynamic website.
Though that's not a fixed or a reserved term
It's just a term you'll often hear.
Such a website is still a regular website
but it's a website that has front-end,
so HTML, CSS, and possibly browser-side JavaScript code
and the backend, so Node and Express for example,
or any other backend programming language
it doesn't have to be Node-JS.
Here you very often will have server-side templates
and definitely some kind of service-side code.
You also very often will have a database server
though, of course that's not a must have
it's just something you'll often see.
And in such a scenario, you need a dynamic hosting provider
or to be precise it's best if you google for
the programming language you're using
and then hosting provider.
So here, if I google for Node-JS hosting provider,
I find various examples, blog posts with explanations
and so on about hosting providers, I could be using.
And therefore that's an important differentiation
you should be aware of when it comes to choosing
a hosting provider.
Now again, we'll choose a hosting provider
later in this course section,
but I already wanted to make you aware
of this important difference.