Hosting Terms
What is Apache?
What Apache really means, with the jargon taken out — plus the example that makes it obvious.
Straight answer first
Apache is the long-serving open-source web server whose conventions — .htaccess above all others — shaped the way shared hosting still works today.
Below: the fuller explanation, a picture that makes it stick, why it matters in practice, and where you will actually run into it.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
100+
Terms on the shelf
2 min
Typical read
Plain
English, we promise
24/7
People if you're stuck
Its module system and per-folder configuration made it the shared hosting standard for decades. The trade is its process model, which grows expensive under heavy concurrent load where the event-driven design of nginx pulls ahead.
Modern stacks tend to blend the two ideas. LiteSpeed, which we run, keeps Apache compatibility including .htaccess while serving with an event-driven engine — a deliberate attempt to have both.
Apache, by comparison
The old delivery van every mechanic in town can still fix. Not the quickest thing on the motorway, but you can find parts anywhere and everybody already knows how it works.
Comparisons simplify, naturally — but this one holds together well enough to reason with, and reasoning is the whole point of a glossary.
Why it matters if you run a site
Knowing Apache is knowing hosting. Its conventions — htaccess recipes, rewrite rules, virtual hosts — are the common language that tutorials assume and that compatible servers such as LiteSpeed go out of their way to honour.
That is the test for any technical term, incidentally — not 'do I understand it fully' but 'do I know when it is the answer to my problem'. For this one, you now do.
Apache out in the open
A migration guide's .htaccess rules, written for Apache years ago, drop straight onto our LiteSpeed servers unchanged. Compatibility keeps twenty years of accumulated recipes usable.
Perfectly ordinary once you have seen it, which is rather the point: most hosting concepts are simple machinery wearing an intimidating name.
The Hosting Seller angle
On our hosting this largely looks after itself — the platform applies sensible defaults, and the panel hands you the controls when you want them. The concepts worth reading next: Nginx, LiteSpeed, .htaccess and PHP.
What you pay on day one is what you pay at renewal, so the year-two invoice holds no surprises worth opening early.
Why we bothered with a hundred definitions
Every confusing term in hosting turns into a support ticket sooner or later, so we defined the hundred most common ones properly, once, in the plain English we would use across the counter.
NVMe disks and LiteSpeed caching sit on the shelf at every price point, not behind a premium tier.
- 100+ terms, all in plain English
- Everyday comparisons and real examples
- Related concepts linked together
- Written by the people on the desk
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
Grounded in real kit
Examples point at hosting you would actually use, not at an abstract diagram.
Pictures that stick
Each concept gets a comparison you will still remember at the moment you actually need it.
One term, fully landed
Apache defined, pictured by comparison and placed in your own control panel — recognise-level in a single read.
Honest about what to skip
Most terms are recognise-level rather than operate-level, and the glossary says which is which.
Plain English first
Every term defined for people who run sites, not for other sysadmins — jargon translated rather than restated.
Linked, never siloed
Related terms cross-reference each other, so one lookup grows into a working understanding.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Find it in your own account
Open the control panel and find where this concept lives — seeing it attached to your own site is what turns a definition into understanding.
- 2
Check what the defaults are
Confirm how your account has this set. It is usually right by default here, and now you will know rather than guess.
- 3
Follow the terms next door
Concepts travel in packs — Nginx, LiteSpeed and .htaccess finish this one's picture, and each is a two-minute read away.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- The renewal price printed on the tag matches the order price
- Spam and virus filtering fitted to every mailbox
- The Softaculous installer for one-click application setup
- WordPress Toolkit, with updates applied for you
- Staging copies so changes get tested before they go live
- Nothing added at setup — no joining fee, ever
- WebP image optimisation built in and costing nothing
- PHP versions picked per site from the panel
- Site migration done for you by our staff, at no charge
- Real people on the counter, every hour of every day
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
Apache or nginx — which one is better?
They are good at different things: Apache brings flexibility and the .htaccess ecosystem, nginx brings efficiency under heavy concurrency. For most site owners the honest answer is whichever one your host runs well, and LiteSpeed is our answer to the question.
Do I ever have to deal with Apache directly on shared hosting?
Only through .htaccess and the panel's settings, since the server itself is looked after for you. That thin but genuinely powerful surface is meant to be the whole of what a shared hosting customer ever needs to touch.
Are backups included, and can I put one back myself?
A backup is taken daily on every plan, and the restore is yours to run from the panel in minutes — files, databases or both, at three in the morning without waiting on a ticket. Keeping your own copy offsite as well is never a bad habit, and nothing here stops you.
Can one plan hold more than a single website?
From the Pro tier upward, yes — several sites, each with its own domain, mailboxes and certificate, all under one account. If those extra sites belong to clients rather than to you, reseller hosting is the better fit: it gives each one proper separation.
How do I pay, and does it bill again on its own?
Orders go through a secure checkout by credit or debit card, and the renewal is taken at the same price you first paid. Every invoice sits in the client area for you to read, and switching auto-renewal off is a toggle in your account rather than a phone call.
What does round-the-clock support actually stretch to?
People at the counter at every hour, and a scope that takes in the practical work: mailbox setup, DNS records, WordPress trouble, restores. Not 'the server responds, ticket closed'. Ask us something hard before you order — the reply is a fair sample of what you would get afterwards.
How do I read the mail when I am away from the desk?
Webmail opens in any browser, and every mailbox also speaks IMAP, POP and SMTP — so the mail app on your phone, the client on your desktop and webmail all show the same messages in the same order.
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