The active server pages is quite a popular platform for web hosting used by many developers and individual due to the dynamic web applications, pages and web sites it can create. It is actually one of the more popular services for web programming and development. An added benefit is that it is supported by most servers of Microsoft particularly the Windows NT.

Popular Applications

There are a lot of applications that are ASP- based that are most commonly used  here are a few that you can look into if you choose to use this platform for your websites.

-          ASP Guestbook

-          MegaBBS message board

-          Comersus Active Server Pages shopping cart

-          Vcalendar

-          Dblog

-          Livio Web calendar

-          Jmail email program

-          Visubox live chat

ASP Web Hosting Features

ASP offers a lot of features that offer additional functionalities that you many want to add to your website.

-          Webmail Access

-          Support for the most recent technologies like Perl, CGI, Python, Server Sides and PHP included

-          FTP access

-          Control panel that is web based

-          Disk space and monthly bandwidth that is sufficient

-          Options for add-ons like Cold Fusion and Miva Merchant

-          Email accounts

-          Ecommerce

-          Live Chat

-          Photo galleries

-          Discussion Forums

These are just to name a few however with the more advanced service that ASP can provide you might want to check with your ASP provider what they can offer you.

Disadvantages of ASP

-          It is a paid service unlike that of the PHP and MYSQL

-          Since most blog websites are using PHP there has been an increase in web developers and small businesses using the PHP rather than ASP

-          ASP web hosting needs the scripts that have been written in the ASP language. Websites using this type of platform can't exist without the type of web hosting

Because of the competitiveness of other service providers the cost of the ASP has been lowered so even a webmaster can afford it, however the offer of a free service is sometimes just too much to resist regardless of the features a better service can provide.

ASP hosting has not stopped creating new and unique capabilities for the world of web development and design. So you might want to check out the updates from time to time as there might be a feature that will interest you. It may not be for free but it can provide you better features other service can't.