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Plain answers about servers and hosting.

How hosting actually works, how to move a site without losing anything, and how to do the server work yourself. Written to help, with nothing to sell.

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Topics

Four shelves. Everything on the site lives on one of them.

U1

Hosting

Shared, VPS, dedicated and cloud, what each one really gives you, and how to judge a plan without a sales page.

U2

Migration

Moving sites, databases, email and DNS between hosts, in order, with a way back if something breaks.

U3

DIY

Step-by-step server work: web servers, SSL, backups, firewalls and SSH, with every command shown.

U4

Concepts

DNS, IP addresses, proxies, caching and RAID, explained from the ground up before you need them.

Latest guides

Newest and most recently re-checked guides first.

How we write

Written to help. Nothing to sell.

  1. No money changes hands. No ads, no affiliate links, no sponsored posts, no paid placement in any comparison.
  2. We name tools, not winners. When a choice depends on your situation, we explain the trade-off and let you decide.
  3. Every guide is dated. Each page shows when it was last checked, and which systems the steps were written for.
  4. Mistakes get fixed in public. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us and the page says what changed.