Which hosting to choose
Shared hosting, VPS, cloud
- Shared hosting: your site is one of many on a server the provider runs. A control panel, PHP, MySQL and mail are ready, updates are the provider's job. Cheapest and simplest; you cannot install system software.
- VPS: a virtual server of your own, with root access. You install and update everything yourself, from the web server to the firewall. See VPS hosting.
- Cloud platforms: servers, databases and storage billed by use, which grow with the load. More flexible and more to learn.
A blog, a business card site or a WordPress shop fits shared hosting. A Python or Node.js application, a Docker container or anything that needs its own system packages wants a VPS.
What to look at
- Support: how fast and how competently it answers. Ask a technical question before you buy.
- What runs there: the PHP versions, Python, databases, SSH access, cron jobs.
- Backups: how often, how long they are kept, and whether you can restore one yourself.
- Where the servers are: close to your visitors means faster pages.
- The price of the second year: the first is often discounted.
- Mail on your domain, free HTTPS certificates, and how many sites one plan takes.
- A way out: can you download all files and databases at any time.
Beget: one author's experience
The first author of this page, Andrei Olegovich, has hosted his sites at the Russian provider Beget since 2011. In 2011 Beget was somewhere at the end of the second ten in the ratings of .ru hosting providers; he chose it almost by chance, on a friend's advice that from Saint Petersburg its "ping would be lower". By 2020 Beget held about 15 percent of the .ru market and was among the leaders of most ratings. In his view the reasons were:
- fast technical support: without its help he would not have got Django and Flask running on the hosting;
- flexible plans: one more domain does not need a new plan, only a higher domain quota in the settings, and disk space can be added the same way;
- a clear control panel, and one-click installs of WordPress, Joomla and other CMS;
- a well-built partner programme;
- domain registration in the same panel, since Beget became an accredited .ru registrar; all accredited .ru registrars are listed on cctld.ru.
Some people never register domains at their hosting provider, so as not to keep all eggs in one basket; he keeps several domains at the registrar REG.RU with their sites at Beget, and it works without trouble. Ordering through his partner link supports this site.
DNS servers of Beget
To point a domain to a site at Beget, set these name servers at the registrar of the domain:
ns1.beget.com ns2.beget.com ns1.beget.pro ns2.beget.pro
The domain beget.com itself uses the same four, as dig showed on 26 October 2026:
dig +short NS beget.com
ns2.beget.pro. ns1.beget.com. ns1.beget.pro. ns2.beget.com.
The Russian market
statonline.ru counts which providers host the domains of the .ru zone. The twenty largest in May 2020:
| Place | Provider | Share of .ru domains |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beget | 15.6% |
| 2 | REG.RU | 15.5% |
| 3 | TIMEWEB | 10.7% |
| 4 | Hetzner | 6.9% |
| 5 | Selectel | 6.0% |
| 6 | Jino | 4.2% |
| 7 | RU-CENTER | 4.0% |
| 8 | SpaceWeb | 3.8% |
| 9 | ihc.ru | 3.2% |
| 10 | SPRINTHOST.RU | 2.9% |
In December 2018 REG.RU was first with 284,010 domains (14.48%), Beget second with 245,893 (12.53%) and TIMEWEB third with 184,951 (9.43%). The current figures are on statonline.ru.
Mail on your own domain
A good provider lets you create addresses such as info@example.com for your site, see Beget mail: create a mailbox. You can read that mail three ways:
- in the webmail of the provider: nothing to set up, but you have to log in there;
- in a mail service you already use, which collects or receives the mail, see Yandex Mail: collect mail from other mailboxes;
- in a mail program such as Mozilla Thunderbird, over IMAP and SMTP.
Thunderbird usually finds the servers by itself. For a Beget mailbox in 2020 it found IMAP at imap.beget.ru, port 143 with STARTTLS, and SMTP at smtp.beget.ru, port 465 with SSL/TLS:
After Done the mailbox is in Thunderbird with its folders:
Check who owns your domain
Beginners often order hosting and a domain in one go from the first provider they find. If that provider is an accredited registrar, the domain is registered to you directly. Often, though, the provider only resells, registering the domain through a real registrar for a fee, and then it is worth checking that the domain is registered to you and not to the provider. How: Moving a website: domain and hosting.
Article authors: Andrei Olegovich, Klavdiya Kondakova