Specialized Web Hosting
In recent times, there have been hosting companies showing up who specialize and cater to a smaller chunk of the web hosting market.
Types of Specialized Hosting
These companies have setup their hardware and software environments to optimize the loading of a specific type of web site.
Drupal Hosting
Drupal is a popular content management system and framework that can be used to build any size of site, from a small blog to some of the most visited sites in the world (weather.com).
Blackmesh
My most recommended web hosting company due to their excellent support service, fast server infrastructure, and expert knowledge of Drupal sites.
Pantheon
These guys run a container based cloud hosting service, which is awesome for scalability. They started as a Drupal specific hosting company, and since have also specialized in Wordpress sites.
Acquia
Amazon web services is the basis for sites hosted with Acquia, which was started by the founder of the Drupal project itself. They have developed their own workflow, which aides continuous integration and makes deployment much easier.
Drupion
Shared, dedicated, and cloud VPS hosting is offered by Drupion. They have an excellent support team who will go the extra mile in helping you run your site.
Wordpress Hosting
Starting as a blog publishing platform, Wordpress has grown to become a full content management system and is part of one of the most popular technology stacks behind sites around the world.
WPEngine
A popular option with reasonable pricing to run and scale a busy Wordpress site.
Pantheon
These guys run a container based cloud hosting service, which is awesome for scalability. They started as a Drupal specific hosting company, and since have also specialized in Wordpress sites.
Jekyll Hosting
As a static site engine, Jekyll can create some very fast web sites and has an awesome community behind the project.
Cloud Cannon
Their platform has been built around an app designed to make updating a Jekyll site much easier and without any coding knowledge. The app is like a lightweight content management system, except for static sites built using Jekyll. Amazon Web Services is used to deploy the site to the public.
Github Pages
Sites here are generated and updated from a code repository. Github allows for the use of your own domain name as well, which is really rare for free web hosting
Is Specialized Hosting right for me?
This type of hosting isn’t usually necessary when you first start out with a web site. It becomes very useful as you gain more visitors.
Everything is optimized for a specific technology stack, which results in fast page loading for visitors and logged-in users. Faster sites result in a better user experience, and ultimately, better search engine rankings.
When running a more complex site, having a hosting company as a partner with expert knowledge of how the technology stack works is a huge asset.