Infographic showcases web hosting evolution

Cloud hosting company PEER 1 has created an infographic that provides an overview of the evolution of the web hosting industry.

The graphic particularly highlights how dramatically hosting has changed from the early 1990s, not only in terms of space, but also in ease of access and use. As the graphic shows, in 1991, you "needed your own server or computer to host [a] site, but today, you can find web hosts for less than you spend on a coffee in a week". And while today's web users typically upload content as and when they feel like it, 1995's landscape was a very different story, with GeoCities limiting you to just 1MB. But between 1998 and 2008, the average storage space for a site grew at a meteoric rate, rising from 153MB to 171,000MB.

Unsurprisingly, with PEER 1 being a cloud hosting company, its graphic also details the shift towards the cloud. Google searches for 'web hosting' have been in decline for years, but 'cloud hosting' has been on the rise since an abrupt appearance in 2009. The graphic also makes the argument that cloud hosting is more affordable than traditional hosting, more efficient, and more future-proof, arguments similar to those outlined by Amazon during its recent launch of NoSQL service DynamoDB.

Click the thumbnail above to see the full infographic