What is web publishing?
Web publishing, also called online publishing, is the process of putting content on the internet. TechTerms lists what it covers: creating and uploading websites, updating webpages and posting blogs. It is the work of making something and getting it in front of readers.
To publish on the web you need three things, by the same definition: software to create the content, an internet connection, and a web server to put it on. The software might be a code editor where you write HTML by hand, an image editor for graphics, or a content management system (CMS) where you type into a form and press Publish.
Web publishing carries on for as long as the site exists. Writing a new article, correcting a price on a product page, adding a photo gallery or deleting an old post are all publishing. None of it changes where the site is stored.
What is web hosting?
A web hosting service provides the infrastructure that keeps a website online and reachable on the World Wide Web. MDN puts it more plainly: web hosting is rented file space on a hosting company's web server. You put your files there, and the server delivers them to anyone who asks.
The web server does two jobs. It stores the site's files, and its HTTP server software sends those files to visitors' browsers when they request a page. That has to happen at any hour. You could serve a site from your own computer, but MDN notes that a dedicated web server is more convenient: it is always connected to the internet, can have a fixed IP address and is usually maintained by someone else.
Hosting comes in several forms. On shared hosting, many websites sit on one server and share its resources. Many hosts also give you a control panel such as cPanel, where you manage the server and install scripts without using a command line. A virtual or dedicated server gives a site more resources to itself, but the job is the same: store the files and serve them.
Web hosting vs web publishing: the difference side by side
The simplest way to keep them apart: publishing is what you put on the web, and hosting is where it lives. A newspaper is a fair comparison. The journalists and editors do the publishing; the printing press and the delivery network do what hosting does online.
| Web publishing | Web hosting | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Creating, uploading and updating content | Renting server space that stores the site and serves it to visitors |
| Question it answers | What is on the site? | Where is the site, and is it online? |
| Who does it | You, your writers or a web developer | A hosting company, or whoever runs the server |
| Typical tools | A CMS such as WordPress, a code editor, an image editor | Web server software, a control panel such as cPanel, file transfer by SFTP or Git |
| How often | Every time content changes | Continuously, every time someone opens a page |
| What it costs | Your time, plus any software or design work you pay for | A recurring fee to the host |
| If it stops | The site stays online but goes stale | The site goes offline, however good the content is |
You need both. Content with no hosting has nowhere to live, and hosting with no content is an empty folder on a server.
How hosting and publishing fit together
Getting a site online joins the two in a fixed order. The hosting, upload and domain steps below follow MDN's guides to publishing a website and to web servers:
- Make the content. Write the pages, or install a CMS and add your posts. This is publishing work.
- Get hosting. Rent space on a web server from a host.
- Upload the files to the server. MDN is clear that once you have hosting, you must upload your files to the web server. The usual ways are an SFTP or FTP client, rsync, or a Git repository the host fetches and publishes from. A control panel's file manager does the same job in the browser.
- Point a domain name at the server. A domain name is a human-readable address for a web server. When someone types it, their browser asks a DNS server which IP address matches, then connects to that server. If you bought the domain from a different company than your host, you have to point it at the server yourself.
- Keep publishing. From here on, each new page or edit is uploaded or saved to the same server.
Pointing the domain usually means one of two changes at your registrar: switching the nameservers to the ones your host gives you, or adding an A record with the server's IP address. Our guide on how to host a website walks through both, along with uploading by File Manager, FTP accounts and SFTP.
Web publishing tools: CMS, static sites and hosted platforms
Much of the confusion between the two terms comes from tools that blur the line. There are three common set-ups.
A CMS on your own hosting. A content management system is software used to create, manage, modify and publish digital content. It is publishing software, but it runs on a web server, so you install it on hosting you rent. WordPress is the most widely used: W3Techs counts it on 38.6% of all websites, while 32.9% of sites use no CMS it monitors. When you write a post in WordPress and press Publish, you are web publishing; the server running WordPress is the hosting.
A static site from a repository. If your site is plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript, services such as GitHub Pages and Netlify can host it straight from a Git repository. You publish by pushing changes to the repository, and the service serves the files.
A hosted platform that bundles both. Some services sell publishing and hosting as one product. The clearest example is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com includes managed hosting, so you sign up and start writing. With the WordPress.org software you have to find, pay for and manage your own hosting. The publishing tool is the same; what changes is who looks after the server.
| Set-up | You publish with | Hosting is |
|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted CMS (WordPress.org) | The CMS dashboard | Rented separately and managed by you or your host |
| Static site (GitHub Pages, Netlify) | A code editor and Git | Provided by the service from your repository |
| Hosted platform (WordPress.com) | The platform's editor | Bundled in and managed by the platform |
| Hand-built site on shared hosting | A code editor, then SFTP or a file manager | Rented separately, often with cPanel |
Do you need web hosting to publish a website?
Yes, always, but you do not always pay for it separately. Every website is stored on a web server somewhere, so every published site is hosted. The real choice is whether you rent hosting yourself or use a platform that bundles it.
A bundled platform is quicker to start with, because there is no server to set up. The trade-off is control: you work within the platform's features and plans. Your own hosting takes a little more setting up, but you choose the software, install plugins or scripts, reach the files directly and can move the site to another host when you want to.
A rough guide:
- A personal blog or a test site, where you just want to write: a hosted platform, or a static site host if you are comfortable with Git.
- A business site, shop or anything with a database: your own hosting with a CMS, so you control the files, the backups and the software.
- A site someone else builds for you: the developer handles the publishing, but ask where it will be hosted and who holds the logins.
What to check in hosting for a site you publish yourself
If you choose your own hosting, the questions follow from the publishing tool you plan to use.
- Software requirements. WordPress recommends PHP 8.3 or greater, MySQL 8.4 or MariaDB 10.11 or greater, HTTPS support, and Apache or Nginx as the web server. Check the host supports these before you sign up.
- A way to upload and edit files. A file manager in the browser, plus FTP or SFTP, covers most needs. Git deployment helps if you build sites in code.
- One-click installs. An installer such as Softaculous sets up a CMS from a short form in the control panel, so you can get to the publishing part sooner.
- SSL. WordPress lists HTTPS support among its requirements. Look for free certificates that renew themselves.
- Backups you can restore yourself. Publishing mistakes happen, such as a deleted page or a bad plugin update, and a daily restore point lets you undo them.
- Where the server is. Pick a server location close to most of your readers.
Bigdomainhost sells hosting, not a website builder. Web & cPanel hosting runs on servers in Mumbai with full cPanel, Softaculous one-click apps, free auto-renewed SSL, PHP 5.6 to 8.4 selectable per domain and JetBackup daily restore points kept for 30 days, from ₹49 (US$0.56)/mo plus GST on a 3-year term. If you know you will publish with WordPress, WordPress hosting comes with WordPress pre-installed, LSCache configured and automatic core updates, from ₹149 (US$1.69)/mo plus GST. If you would rather not do the publishing yourself, our web development team builds the site on a fixed quote and hosts it for you.
To see what a control panel looks like before you choose, read what cPanel is and how it works. It covers uploading a site with File Manager and installing WordPress with Softaculous.
Sources (checked )
- TechTerms: Web Publishing
- Wikipedia: Web hosting service
- MDN Web Docs: Publishing your website
- MDN Web Docs: What is a web server?
- MDN Web Docs: What is a domain name?
- Wikipedia: Content management system
- W3Techs: Usage statistics of content management systems
- WordPress.com Support: WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
- WordPress.org: Requirements