Hosting Terms
What is Webhook?
Webhook in plain English — the meaning, the comparison, and why it matters to anybody running a website.
Straight answer first
A webhook is an API call running the other way — a service pushes a message to your URL the instant something happens, so you never have to keep asking.
The sections below open it up properly — how it works, why a site owner should care, and a concrete example of it doing its job.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
0
Terms left unexplained
100+
Definitions, cross-linked
Real
Examples from real kit
Free
To read, naturally
You register an address with the service, and it posts event data to that address as things occur: a payment cleared, a form was submitted, a branch was pushed. It reacts to events as they happen instead of checking over and over on the off chance.
Good manners matter on the receiving end. Your endpoint should check the signature on each delivery, because anyone at all can post to a public URL, and it should answer quickly. Most services will retry a delivery that failed.
The picture that makes Webhook stick
A bell on the shop door instead of walking outside every ten minutes to see whether the delivery has arrived. The caller announces themselves, and you still check the driver's paperwork before unlocking anything.
Comparisons simplify, naturally — but this one holds together well enough to reason with, and reasoning is the whole point of a glossary.
Why this one is worth knowing
Webhooks are the thread holding modern stacks together — payment confirmations, deployment triggers, automation between tools. Once the pattern makes sense, integration documentation reads like plumbing instead of incantation.
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.
One concrete example
Stripe posts a payment-succeeded event to a shop's endpoint. The order flips to paid and the receipt goes out seconds after the card clears, with nothing anywhere in the chain politely asking 'has it happened yet?'.
Multiply that example by every website on the internet and you have the concept's entire job description in one go.
How this turns up in your own account
You will meet it in the control panel and occasionally in a support conversation, usually already set the right way. If this term made sense, the natural next reads are API, Git, WooCommerce and Cron Job.
SSL comes free with every plan and reissues itself before it lapses, so nobody has to diary the padlock.
A glossary written by the people on the counter
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.
What you pay on day one is what you pay at renewal, so the year-two invoice holds no surprises worth opening early.
- 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
The next reads, mapped
Read on into API and Git — terms rarely stand alone, so the neighbours are linked.
Plain English first
Every term defined for people who run sites, not for other sysadmins — jargon translated rather than restated.
Pictures that stick
Each concept gets a comparison you will still remember at the moment you actually need it.
Linked, never siloed
Related terms cross-reference each other, so one lookup grows into a working understanding.
The stakes spelled out
Not only what it is, but when it turns out to be the answer to a problem you are having.
Grounded in real kit
Examples point at hosting you would actually use, not at an abstract diagram.
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 — API, Git and WooCommerce finish this one's picture, and each is a two-minute read away.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- LiteSpeed caching running at the server, not bolted on by plugin
- Webmail in the browser plus IMAP, POP and SMTP for your own client
- SSH, Git and Composer on the plans built for developers
- Site migration done for you by our staff, at no charge
- Upgrades apply to the account in place, with no move between plans
- A domain free for year one when you order annually
- Nothing added at setup — no joining fee, ever
- Spam and virus filtering fitted to every mailbox
- A backup taken daily, with restores you run yourself
- NVMe SSD storage on every shelf, not just the top one
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
When should I use a webhook and when a cron job?
Use a webhook when something has happened and you want to react immediately. Use cron when the work belongs to the clock, such as a nightly tidy-up or a weekly report. Grown-up systems use both: events for the moments, schedules for the sweeps.
Is exposing a webhook endpoint safe?
They are when they are set up properly: an HTTPS endpoint that verifies the sending service's signature on every delivery. An endpoint that skips the check will happily accept a forgery from anyone who finds the URL. That one check is the difference between a doorbell and a door left open.
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.
Is the SSL certificate genuinely free?
On every plan, with nothing held back. The certificate is issued the moment your domain points here and reissues itself well before expiry. The encryption is the same as a paid DV certificate — paid tiers exist only for wildcard coverage or organisation validation, which most sites never need.
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 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.
Can I test changes somewhere safe first?
Yes — plans with staging let you clone the live site, work on the copy, then push it across when you are satisfied. It is the difference between hoping an update behaves and knowing that it does before any customer meets it.
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