"Shared hosting
A shared web hosting service or virtual hosting service refers to a
web hosting service where many websites reside on one web server
connected to the Internet. Each site has it's own section on the
server to keep it separate from other sites. This is generally the
most economical option for hosting as many people share the overall
cost of server maintenance. This is the option which provides the
least flexibility as management is completely done by the hosting
company. It's also the cheapest option. In this case you don't need
any Linux knowledge as you only need to upload your files to your
server and that's it.
"Virtual private server hosting
A virtual private server (VPS, also referred to as Virtual
Dedicated Server or VDS) is a software solution emulating different
servers on the hardware of one server (not completely correct, as
there are many different technical solutions to accomplish the same
thing). Virtual server hosting provides a lot more flexiblity than
plain shared hosting as you are often free to choose which linux
distribution you want and you have the freedom to install almost
any software available for the operating system of your choice. Not
all software runs on as well on virtual servers though and there
are many different technologies for achieving this. In most cases
the technology used is transparent to the end user"
