In short, your email and web hosting do not need to be with the same company. Back in the day, it was customary to get your web hosting, email service, and domain name all from the same company (such as GoDaddy, BlueHost, DreamHost, etc,).

But these days when things are getting more specialized and cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud have become major players, this is no longer the case. Some specialized hosts such as WP Engine, which started out as a WordPress-specific hosting company, don’t even offer email hosting.

4 main components of your web online infrastructure

When it comes to your web infrastructure there are four major components to it:

  1. Domain registrar
    This is where you buy/reserve your own domain name
  2. Domain Name System (DNS) server
    DNS server maintains a list of your domain’s DNS records. Think of these as public directives that tell the world where your email should be sent to or where your web visitors should be directed when they type in your URL.
  3. Web hosting
    This is the company whose server your website is served from and web visitors can access.
  4. Email hosting
    This used to default to your hosting company, but these days players like Google Apps/Workspace or Microsoft 365 have become the defacto service providers.

When you buy a domain, most domain registrars offer DNS server as a part of their service, so you don’t need to purchase it separately.

Typically, you’d buy your domain from a reputable service such as Google Domains, host your website at one company, and have your email service be provided by Google Workspace (Formerly G Suite) or Microsoft’s Office 365.