What is ASP.NET Web Hosting?

Before discussing how ASP.NET Hosting is different from other types of hosting it is important to understand what ASP.NET is all about. ASP.NET is a Microsoft web application framework for developers to develop dynamic web sites and applications. ASP.NET replaced the original ASP (Active Server Pages) which is now commonly referred to as ASP Classic.

ASP and ASP.NET were created to allow people to start using dynamic websites instead of the static pages which were commonly found on the internet in its infancy. The difference between a static and dynamic page are that dynamic pages can call different information from the database to populate a page. This allows changes to be made in the database and then called onto the webpage when it is loaded. This means editing is easy and changes can be made on a live website without uploading new files. This wasn’t an option with static web pages which could only be changed when the master file was edited and uploaded to the server it is hosted on.

ASP.NET was originally known as ASP or ASP+ before it was updated to support code written in languages such as Visual Basic, C++, C# and Perl. An ASP.NET file looks similar to an HTML file and it can contain HTML, XML, and scripts.

ASP.NET is a server-side technology for developing web applications based on the Microsoft .NET Framework. ASP.NET Web Hosting therefore runs on Windows-based servers. As the page is dynamic it needs to call information from a database to populate the page. The request is passed to the server where the APS.NET engine runs the query line by line executing the script. The information is then returned to the browser and displayed for the end user.

For a list of ASP.NET Hosting providers please visit our ASP.NET Web Hosting Spotlight Category page