Even those things that were very expensive before like when Microsoft got into the web hosting industry. Microsoft is a very expensive web hosting option. The operating system alone is expensive and add up that, the applications and components comes with a price too. But today, even with Microsoft and ASP.NET web hosting included, the price is comparable to Linux web hosting.

Here are some kinds of ASP.NET web hosting that is not only affordable, but hassle free.

Shared web hosting
Shared web hosting is a kind of asp.net web hosting where many websites uses one server to get connected to the internet. Each site has its own place in the server to separate it from other websites and prevent conflicts. It is the cheapest kind of ASP.NET web hosting because all that uses the same web server share the cost for server maintenance.

The disadvantage of shared web hosting is that when the web hosting provider is not able to manage shared web hosting well, all websites on that server can get affected. Moreover, shared web hosting has bandwidth limit that when you exceed it, visitors will be greeted with Bandwidth limit exceeded which will be very uninviting to your visitors.

You can expect to get ASP.NET web hosting(windows web hosting) that can cost for about $3 to $5 per month.

Virtual Private Server (VPS)
Virtual Private Server is a kind of web hosting which will let users use a virtual server they can manage. Although websites share the same server, VPS will let you manage your own software, choose the applications to use, and select the operating system you want without affecting other websites in that server.

VPS is perfect for ASP.NET web hosting that wants to define the systems to use in order to make a more customized website. It is also a learning curve for dedicated hosting because it has the same setup as a dedicated hosting has, only that it has a lower monthly price.

The disadvantage is some web hosting providers do not properly split CPUs which can cause drastic performance loss in your website.

ASP.NET web hosting in VPS is about $10 to $30 per month.

Dedicated Server
Dedicated server is a kind of server where you get the entire server yourself without anyone sharing on it. Which means it is not shared nor VPS. This is the fastest asp web hosting there is because nobody shares bandwidth nor cpu with you. It is all yours.

But you’ll do everything from the ground up. If you are a beginner, you will find hard to configure an ASP web hosting in a dedicated server and you may miss components that are important or added some that are not very important at all.

Here are just about anything an asp web hosting have. Feel free to explore any kind of web hosting services if you have the money so you will know what exactly is compatible to your website.

However, having this kind of power has a cost. ASP.NET web hosting requires to be run under a Windows system that will require Windows and software licensing which is very expensive if you think about other alternatives like Linux that you can download online along with its components for free. Other disadvantage of ASP.NET web hosting are:
The web server controls some of the software’s functions which means you have limited control over it.
Windows-based servers are limited due to higher demands for Linux web hosting.

But this does not prevent anyone from not trying ASP.NET web hosting for their websites so nor you should too. Purchasing a product or service indeed has some premium benefits for your website:
You will be greeted with expert technical support teams in case problems arise.
Fewer bugs and errors since the most experienced ASP.NET programmers are only managing and maintaining the software.
You have the freedom to use any programming language you like to develop your website. ASP.NET accepts most programming language for the web.

Classic or ASP.NET
One situation that confuses most developers is the choice between classic and ASP.NET. Should they stick with the usual ASP classic with tried and tested features or should they adapt to changes and learn something new from ASP.NET?

Classic ASP was the first version of Active Server Page. It was a scripting engine used to generate dynamic web pages as opposed to static HTML pages before. Features of ASP are as follows:

• Write dynamically generated scripts VBScripts, JavaScripts or PerlScripts.
• ASP Pages are interpreted, meaning it isn’t a compiled code. Written languages are all read in ASP scripting engine. The code is displayed from top to bottom and the resulting HTML is displayed.
• It is a mix of HTML and scripting with the final HTML written in the browser.
• ASP is not Object Oriented.

ASP.NET is the upgraded version of classic ASP in which it uses .NET with ASP to create pages in object oriented environment using any programming language like C, C#, or VB.NET. Its biggest change, is the integration of Integrated Development Environment, Visual Studio. With that:

• We can create websites and applications using Microsoft Visual Studio.
• Object Oriented with support for Full blown programming languages.
• The code is compiled not interpreted.
• Introduces “code behind page” where the interface is developed in a GUI format and the code is placed in a separate class file “behind” the interface file.
• Drag and drop web development.

There are a few drawbacks if you are used to ASP web hosting, like having to learn .NET framework’s approach which is by far the most useful framework but this also compensated by giving free lectures offered by Microsoft so classic ASP enthusiasts can see the advantage of shifting to ASP.NET web hosting.

• First a server must have a Microsoft Windows license so the server will be able to use other components.
• Next is certain applications to use in a web hosting can cost money too.
• MSSQL needs to be bought.

ASP.NET hosting providers cover those prices by setting a higher monthly rate to customers. There are other ways that we can harness the power of ASP.NET yet minimize our monthly ASP.NET hosting expenses. Here’s how:

• Get the best deals around. You may not know it, but some ASP.NET hosting providers give promo deals every month.
• Go for long term plans. 1 year plans are more expensive than a 3 year plan, you might spend more cash in your initial cost, but the savings of a longer term plan are 50% less than a monthly plan.
• Look for ASP.NET hosting providers that offer Linux and free, open source software. ASP.NET can work well under Mono, a Linux alternative to .NET, MySQL is also a good alternative for MSSQL. Both software can be in par with the paid software that Microsoft is offering.

Cheap ASP.NET hosting won’t yield good results if the company is not in the performance level to use ASP.NET. For a web hosting provider to be at a peak performance, the web host must have:

The latest version of ASP.NET

Updated IIS

Windows Server (They say that Windows 2003 is better than 2008 but compared to 2003, Windows Server 2008 have more features, more efficient, and more reliable)

The web hosting provider must have an SQL server or supports Microsoft Access.

Hardware

An ASP.NET hosting server should use the best hardware to perform the job. A dual core processor won’t be as fast as a QuadCore processor nor will a 4GB RAM be faster than a 2GB ram.

Finally, getting a cheap ASP.NET hosting should also depend on your website needs. Here’s why:

A website that had just started don’t need a special server to accomodate too few visitors, so you can start with shared web hosting first to see how your site will go. Shared web hosting is a type of web hosting where several people share a single server.  Monthly costs for an ASP.NET hosting go for as low as $4 per month.

If your site gets a bit popular and reached your shared web hosting’s bandwidth limit, then it may be time to shift to Virtual Private Hosting. You all share a single server but each have its own virtual server. Which means that it has more bandwidth limit and a more customized server for your website. Virtual private hosting costs about $20 a month.

Most websites do not go beyond Virtual Private hosting so a dedicated server is only optional. Dedicated server costs around $100 per month.

The key aspects in looking for a cheap ASP.NET web hosting is to look not just one,or two web hosting providers, look for at least 10 to get you satisfied. Be weary of the tips I discussed here and use it when looking for the cheapest web hosting for your website.

ASP.NET is a newer version of ASP(Active Server Pages) created by Microsoft to help develop dynamic, feature-rich websites. It is not just a next generation ASP but a new era in web development. The most popular feature of ASP.NET is its ability to use other programming language other than Microsoft-only programming language offered before on ASP.

Pros

Web Developer Friendly

Since ASP.NET is under Microsoft, all the developers of ASP.NET are fully trained and equipped to develop such program. Therefore you may experience minor bugs and better performance compared to open source alternatives.

Another advantage as I’ve said earlier, is the ability of ASP.NET to use other programming language. So developers working in C++, Java or Visual Basic can use existing component to work with their ASP.NET hosting.

Hard Core Programming and WYSIWYG
Developers have the option to hand code their site (hard core programming) or use a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) HTML editors for a faster and easier web development.

Easy Data Management
ASP.NET uses XML for data storage, configuration and manipulation. Tools available in ASP.NET for XML is very easy to use and what’s more you can cache information in the computers memory after it has been extracted.

Backwards Compatible

ASP.NET is compatible with ASP applications. No need to convert is to ASP.NET since ASP.NET can read it. ASP.NET and ASP runs in a separate process so if your ASP application experience problems, your ASP.NET won’t be affected.

Cons

Expensive
ASP.NET is under Microsoft so in order to run ASP in your computer, you should have an Microsoft Operating System. The licensing requirement covers at least five dollars a month in your ASP.NET hosting but as a compensation for that, a great deal for your money because ASP.NET is run and maintained by Microsoft’s top notch software engineers and developers.

The price also adds up to ASP.NET hosting plans. You will see a big difference in price for ASP.NET hosting compared to open source web hosting plans.

Adapting to Changes
If you happen to be developing for ASP for quite some time then you may find it hard to adapt to .NET framework included in ASP.NET hosting. You will have to learn about .NET first which takes up too much time for a similar function as ASP.

Conclusion

Choosing ASP.NET hosting over other hosting platforms can be both a wise choice and a dumb one. You can be wise in deciding ASP.NET hosting if you have enough knowledge and money to cover for the initial costs. It is only a dumb decision if you don’t know how things work in ASP.NET yet you settled for one.

If you are looking for the answer to your question: “Is ASP.NET hosting right for my website?” Ask this question first: “Will my website and my skills adapt the change?”
If not, then stick to your old web hosting. If you can adapt to change then why not try and see it for yourself.

Why choose ASP.NET Web hosting over…

ASP

ASP is an older version of ASP.NET which means less features, no authentication, and slower performance.

With ASP.NET Web Hosting we can

1. Have an isolated process. ASP is running under the inetinfo.exe process therefore the application will crash often thus we need to constantly restart or stop IIS.
2. Use non-Microsoft Platforms. ASP cannot run on non-Technology platforms. If we use every Microsoft platform then we’ll be paying for all of it whereas if we can use other alternatives to these platforms, we can save more.
3. Use other programming languages aside from VBScript and JavaScript. ASP supports only 2 programming language, VBScript and JavaScript, where in ASP.NET we can use any programming language we want.
4. Have easy configuration and deployment. When configuring ASP.NET, we’ll just be using a plain text file. It can be uploaded even when the application is running so no need to restart the server. No more metabase or registry puzzle.
5. No need to restart the server when you are to deploy or replace compiled code. ASP automatically redirects all new requests on the new code.

NOTE: ASP.NET is not fully compatible with earlier versions of ASP. To overcome this problem, ASP.NET uses a new file extension (.aspx) so that ASP.NET applications can run side by side with standard ASP applications on the same server.

PHP

PHP is a general purpose scripting language suited for Web Development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP is free and has a wide number of support groups willing to help both professional and beginner in PHP.

Compared to  ASP.NET Web Hosting

• There are pre-compiled code so it is easier to maintain the code when we are dealing with larger websites.
• You can choose any programming language you like (C#, C++, etc).
• Has SQL Server that is faster than other SQL alternatives and can store large amounts of data without any difficulty.
• You get the whole .NET Class Library and more third party components compared to the components available in PHP.

The Top 12 Advantage of ASP.NET

1. Reduces the amount of code needed to build large applications.
2. Has built-in Windows authentication and configuration so your applications are safe and secured.
3. Uses Visual Studio, the most powerful and fastest IDE to date.
4. So simple to perform common tasks.
5. Source code and HTML are altogether so it is easier to maintain and write codes.
6. Better performance. Takes advantage of just-in-time compilation, native optimization, and caching services that are out-of-the-box.
7. All processes are monitored at runtime, so when there is a dead process, new processes are created to take its place.
8. Purely a server-side technology, meaning codes are executed on the server first then sent to the browser once confirmed.
9. Language independent. You can choose any language you like.
10. Ease of deployment, component configuration information are already embedded, no need to register it.
11. Easy to work with ADO.NET.
12. Can easily detect infinite loops, illegal activities, memory leaks and immediately destroys it.

1. AspDotNetStorefront – AspDotNetStorefront is a complete e-commerce storefront with an easy-to-use admin web site. Full source code in C# or VB.NET is available. Supports ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005.Price starts from $795.
   • Look & Feel – of your store in fully customizable.
   • SEO – AspDotNetStorefront let you add meta tags, keywords and static product & category pages for search engine crawling. They also provide URL rewrite functionality.
   • Product management – AspDotNetStorefront has come up with a wide range of possibilities for configuring your ecommerce site. With NEW and improved kit products, inventory features, import and export tools utilizing Excel or XML and Web Service Interface (WSI), product management is simplistic.
   • Payment & checkout - Google Checkout, PayPal and over 47 other payment gateways
   • Shipping – shipping rates calculated by total, weight, zip code.
   • Tax calculation – set up tax by State, Zip Code, and Country. Additionally you can mark items or product categories as taxable and tax-exempt.

   For a full list of features please visit http://www.AspDotNetStorefront.com/

2. nopCommerce nopCommerce is the leading ASP.NET online shop e-commerce solution. nopCommerce is available for free.
   • It has user friendly administration tools to manage your storefront, customers, wish lists, discounts, and coupons.
   • Add unlimited products, Configurable product attributes, support downloadable products,add discounts & coupons,
   • SEO - Search Engine Friendly URL’s, Automated URL Re-Writing, Every product, category and manufacturer page can have their own custom search engine meta tags, page title, Customize default SEO meta tags, Google XML site map.
   • Shipping – shipping rates calculated by total, weight, zip code.
   • Tax calculation – set up tax by State, Zip Code, and Country. Additionally you can mark items or product categories as taxable and tax-exempt.
   • It also has flexible tax support, multi-lingual support and support for the most popular gateways.

   Recommended nopCommerce hosting: Arvixe. For a full list of features please visit http://www.nopcommerce.com/ .  You may also want to read Arvixe Review to know more about Arvixe a good web hosting company.

3. DotNetCart – .netCART is a full featured ASP.NET shopping cart and ecommerce solution enabling you to create a full featured store for your online presence and customize it quickly and easily to meet your diverse requirements. The cost is $295.
   • Total control on the cart style – colors, format, fonts etc can be set for the cart as a whole, for each item, alternating item, header, and footer.
   • Powerful tax system, supports any number of custom taxes at any level, US with multiple offices in many states, Canada with GST / HST / PST, VAT, and special rules are all simply handled.

   For a full list of features please visit http://www.dotnetcart.com

4. Advantshop – is open source shopping cart software built of Microsoft.NET platform based on ASP.NET, AJAX, Microsoft Reporting Services and other technologies. Cost ranges from $199 to $299.
   • Template-based design built on Master Pages and User Controls technology
   • Payment option Credit cards, Cheques , Wire transfers, PayPal, 2checkout, Authorize.net, Google Checkout, eWay and more.
   • Shipping – Fixed shipping cost & Weight-based shipping charges
   • SEO – Dynamic TITLE, META description and keywords tags for products, categories and static pages , Sitemap generation

   For a full list of features please visit http://www.advantshop.com/

5. Ablecommerce – is a complete shopping cart system. The online merchant administration is a secure ecommerce solution with features to help you manage orders, process payments, manage your customers and maintain an organized product catalog. As well as easy configuration menus for payments, shipping, and taxes. You’ll also have marketing tools like coupons, discounts, product feeds, featured products, product reviews, and more. Plus, seventeen different reports and the Merchant Dashboard for a bird’s eye view of your store’s sales and operation. Use management tools to replenish inventory levels, batch process orders, maintain subscriptions, and more. For a full list of features please visit http://www.ablecommerce.com
6. DashCommerce – is an Open Source ASP.NET e-commerce application.
   • Drop-In Configurable Payment Providers, Drop-In Configurable Tax Providers, Drop-In Configurable Shipping Providers, Drop-In Configurable Coupon Providers
   • PayPal Payment Provider, Simple Weight Shipping Provider, RegionCode Tax Rate Provider
   • Add Unlimited Products & categories.

   For a full list of features please visit http://dashcommerce.org

7. Storefront - StoreFront is a flexible, feature-rich platform that let you create a Web store quickly. StoreFront shopping cart software is serving for more than 10 years and 50,000 Web stores went into the development.The cost is $995.
   • StoreFront offers flexible design options
   • Product Management – Add Unlimited Number of Products, add Unlimited Categories & Sub-Categories
   • Multiple Payment Options – Accept electronic checks, purchase orders, COD, credit card, and phone/fax orders.
   • Automated Tax Calculations
   • Integrated Shipment Tracking, add coupons and more.

   For a full list of features please visit http://www.storefront.net

8. Znode -  .NET ecommerce software that enables retailers to quickly launch multiple web and mobile stores using a single integrated system. It’s easy to integrate the Multifront ecommerce store software with other systems. They use 20 SEO Practices Improves Rankings. For a full list of features please visit http://www.znode.com

Here are some control panels for Windows platform

• DotNetPanel
  DotNetPanel is the first-class feature-rich management solutions for Windows web hosting businesses of any size. DotNetPanel is a truly distributed, scalable, n-tier application. It is very easy to use and uses the most advanced security technologies. Many hosting companies offers competitive pricing and great support!. Find a reliable DotNetPanel hosting provider
• Plesk is available for both Linux and Windows platforms. Plesk is structured, easy-to-use and it’s intuitive Web-page model lets users learn quickly and rapidly find the desired functionality. Plesk has complete customer and business management capabilities include support for account resources, FTP, SSL, e-mail accounts, Web mail, favorites, databases, traffic limits, DNS management, service rebooting, Web statistics, shell access, service plans, cron jobs, backups, and search capabilities — plus an internal file manager. The Website builder tool and other features integrate well with Plesk. Find a reliable Plesk hosting provider
• Helm is a Windows only Web hosting control panel. The Helm control panel has many customer friendly features. You can easily create FTP accounts, e-mail accounts, run cronjobs, and do database administration from the site-level interface. You can view disk space usage, bandwidth usage, server resource usage, and several other benchmarks for each individual account. Helm also has a complete billing system with extensive reports and extra billing information. Find a reliable Helm hosting provider
• H-Sphere is another control panel for both Linux and Windows. H-Sphere has many end-user features, such as mail system, site building tools, SSL, electronic mail system with antivirus and antispam filtering and integrated WebMail etc. H-Sphere has built-in billing system with variety of payment methods.  Find a reliable H-sphere hosting provider
• Hosting Accelerator is another Windows only Web hosting control panel. It is powerful, secure, easy to navigate, and offers a lot of features, but the interface isn’t properly though out and it lacks in extra feature.
• Ensim, another control panel for both Windows and Linux, has to cover more ground when compared to other Web hosting control panels serving both Linux and Windows.
• echoPANEL
  echoPANEL is a browser-based ASP.net dedicated web server control panel that simplifies your day-to-day hosting tasks. Create and manage your Windows IIS Websites, DNS Entries, Domain Aliases, Folder Permissions, FTP Users, and Email Accounts inside a single, secure and simple-to-use interface.
• InsPanel
  The InsPanel is a web-based hosting control panel for Windows. InsPanel supports Windows 2003, Cold Fusion MX, MS SQL, distributed mail and DNS and a multilingual interface. It comes with separate levels for server admins, resellers and end-users making it the first choice for dedicated server clients with little or no administrative experience. Comes with built-in support for MailEnable, .NET, MySQL, PHPmyAdmin, Sub-domain, Templates, installable scripts; PHPBB, WebWiz Forums, a web-based File Manager, an HTML editor, Cold Fusion MX and MS SQL etc.
• WebsitePanel is an easy to use control panel for Windows hosting. It allows you to manage multiple servers, it has a robust, scalable and secure architecture. With WebsitePanel you can easily manage all your web sites, FTP accounts, databases and other resources from a single place.

• DotNetNuke
  DotNetNuke is an open source cms written in VB.NET for building web sites based on Microsoft .NET technology. It is distributed under both a Community Edition license and a Professional Edition proprietary license. DotNetNuke’s content management system is highly customizable and can be expanded through the use of skins, modules, data providers, language packs and templates. The current version of DotNetNuke requires IIS 6 and ASP.NET v2.0 to v3.5 and supports SQL Server 2005 and 2008. Previous generations of DotNetNuke supported SQL Server 2000 and ASP.NET v1.1. Find a reliable DotNetNuke hosting provider.
• Kentico CMS
• SharePoint Server (MOSS)
• Telligent Community
• Ektron CMS400.NET
• Quantum Art QP7

Common advantages of a CMS:

• Easy to add, edit or update the content. No technical skill required to edit content
• Control access to data, based on user roles. User roles define what information each user can view or edit
• Since content is stored separate from design, the content from all authors is presented with the same, consistent design.
• Content is stored in a database. So it is easy storage and retrieval of data.
  easy storage and retrieval of data
• Content publication can often be time-controlled; hidden for previews; or require a user login with password.

Whether your needs are for asp net sql server hosting, asp net dotnetnuke, asp net ajax net, or asp net reseller hosting, you will be more than satisfied with the results. And maintenance isn’t a problem, since you don’t have to be an html whiz kid. There are less html files than with other hosting products, so you really won’t have to know html at all. It also doesn’t matter what web browser you use, since ASP is processed by the server. This means that the user will always be able to view the page in the way you want it to be viewed.

There are many factors to consider when looking for the right ASP web host. When it comes to cost be sure that you are comparing “apples to apples” since there are so many different features available. Your host provider should also allow for easy upgrades as the need arises. You also should have the availability of technical support around the clock. To avoid downtime as much as possible, you should select a host that is known for reliability and has the most current hardware.

You also should choose an ASP plan that offers virtual hosting, unless yours is a high-traffic website. In that case, you should opt for the dedicated hosting plan. A free 30-day trial period is also recommended to ensure that the plan meets your needs and displays your web pages in a satisfactory manner. Consideration of email features is also important, such as the number of email accounts you will needs, the availability of web-based email, availability of email forwarding, and the need for an auto responder feature. Finally, you want to be sure that the control panel is user-friendly so that the site can be navigated with ease.