Hosting for Joomla has never been cheaper, well it does depend on what you want from your web hosting provider but basically you have a number of options shared, VPS and dedicated if you go for shared enviroment then you can pickup some good deals on the net where you can host your Joomla CMS

In my view the most important factor to consider is a web hosting company which offers a stable and secure environment with good support. Dont fall for the sales pitch many hosting companies offer the reason why i say this is because many people including myself fall into the trap of signing up to a 1 year contract with a provider because they offer 999 GIG bandwidth, 99% uptime and lots more which all sounds great but in reality its not. The facts are no host has a 99% uptime and you will never use the 999 GIG plus if you use to much resource on the shared server your account could be suspended and you may be aksed to move to a vps hosting package or dedicated server solution.. 

Before choosing a provider visit the various forums like  webhostingtalk forum this will give you a good feel for the company plus real life web hosting experiences. Also try out the 30 day trial period which many companies offer this will provide you with the opportunity to test the facilities and support before making a decision.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is basically where you are sharing a web server with a number of other sites. This is a very popular choice as it offers good value for money about 90 dollars per year plus you get all the functionality needed to run your Joomla CMS. Most shared packages also offer sufficent disk space and bandwidth to run a site. The down side to shared hosting is you are sharing the resources with other sites for example ( CPU, memory, disk space,MYSQL and apache resources ) plus some companies have a high ratio of sites to server. Also some people advise shared hosting can pose a security risk. There are also restrictions on the server resources you can use, so if you site is using to much cpu or memory then you may be asked to consider a vps or dedicated server. 

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting is where a single server is splitt into multiple virtual servers. This practice of partitioning a single server so that it appears as multiple servers is common practice. This type of solution will cost you more than a shared hosting package but you get more control and functionality over the hosting environment. For example you have root access, control over the apache and mysql services or install what ever software you like. VPS is a good choice if if you want a stable environment which has the resources to handle a popular site plus offers the control you need.

Dedicated Hosting

Basically dedicated hosting is where you get your own server. If you are serious about your web site and expect it to be very popular the dedicated server solution is a good option. It is more expensive compared to the shared or vps hosting solution but you get alot more for your money. The benifits of dedicated hosting provides you with complete control over the server including the ability to install your own applications, reboot the server plus dedicated hardware resources ( cpu, hard drive, memory ).

What do you need to host Joomla

Here are the minimum requirements for Joomla are as follows.

• PHP 4.2.x or above - http://www.php.net
• MySQL 3.23.x or above - http://www.mysql.com
• Apache 1.13.19 or above - http://www.apache.org

You must ensure that you have MySQL, XML and Zlib support built into your PHP.