What’s the difference between a domain, hosting and a website builder?
The short answer
The domain is your address, such as yourbusiness.com. Hosting is the computer that stores your website and shows it to visitors. A website builder such as Squarespace, Wix or Shopify bundles hosting with design tools. You can buy them from one company or several, and a domain can always be pointed somewhere else.
| Like… | Examples | |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | Your street address | GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, Porkbun |
| Hosting | The building your shop is in | SiteGround, Hostinger, Vercel, Netlify |
| Website builder | A furnished shop you rent, building included | Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Webflow |
Buying your domain through your website builder is convenient, but it often costs more each year than a specialist registrar, and moving builders later means moving the domain too.
If you already own a domain somewhere else, connect it to your builder instead of buying another one. Otherwise you may end up paying for the domain twice.
Words used here
- Domain
- Your website’s name, like mycoolstartup.com. You rent it year by year from a domain registrar.
- Website hosting
- The company that stores your website and shows it to visitors — like Vercel, Netlify, Squarespace or Shopify.
- Domain registrar
- The company you buy (rent) your website name from — e.g. Namecheap, Cloudflare, Porkbun or GoDaddy.
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