Hosting with ASP, The Good and Bad

Are you confused deciding which hosting platform to choose for your website? Well, you might be not alone. Many web owners out there are facing the same problem. That is understood since integrating data connectivity and dynamic web pages within a site are not a simple process. Besides, there a lot of competing technologies available like CGI, PHP, Perl and ASP.NET hosting. In this article you’ll learn what are the pros and cons of utilizing ASP.NET hosting for your website.

What is ASP.NET?

Microsoft introduces ASP (Active Server Pages) to the dynamic web sites field about a decade ago. ASP allowed you to “actively” change the web pages served to the client depending on your needs. ASP worked (and still works) very well for basic web design. It requires a Microsoft based IIS server and the necessary licenses.

Then Microsoft came with another evolution by releasing ASP.NET for server driven web pages. Rather than amend ASP to add new functionality, ASP.NET is a complete overhaul providing a programming interface that allows developers familiar with Visual Basic and other Microsoft based client-server development tools to code for the internet. The major hosting providers that do support the .NET technologies typically support both ASP.NET 2.0 and ASP.NET 3.5.

ASP.NET hosting allows developers that have been developing in the client-server world to easily and seamlessly transfer their skills to the internet. Developers that have been developing in C++, Java, or Visual Basic can use existing components to work with their ASP.NET web pages and web forms. This functionality has been significantly enhanced in the latest release, ASP.NET 4 hosting.

In addition, the developer tools and database integration created for ASP.NET has been designed to be incredibly easy to use. While developers are still able to use their “hard core” programming, they can also use WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) HTML editors to make the web page development even easier. If you use Microsoft Access as your database, ASP.NET 2.0 hosting, ASP.NET 3.5 hosting and ASP.NET 4 hosting will reduce your development time significantly.

What Are The Additional Costs For ASP.Net Hosting?

Better performance only means one thing, higher price. While most reputable hosting companies support ASP.NET hosting, the additional licensing requirements will increase your monthly costs. However, if you plan on spending a great deal of time on development and you already have extensive Microsoft based programming experience, this cost will be insignificant when compared to the time you will save.