A virtual (or shared) hosting refers to a singer server running multiple small websites owned by different customers. Virtual hosting is the provision of a web server, so that the individuals do not have to purchase and maintain their own server and connectivity to the Internet. Since a single server is being shared by multiple (several hundreds) other customers, the cost of shared hosting is very cheap as compared to other hosting services such as VPS and dedicated hosting.

For personal and business web sites just starting out, the shared web hosting service will likely meet organization's need. Most web hosts today offer abundant bandwidth, 24x7 technical support, control panel that includes spam filters, email and database management, and web statistics.