For many people, starting a business demands a steep learning curve across various disciplines. In the early stages, you’ll quickly become a fundraiser, an accountant, and a marketer.

Creating an innovative new workflow tool or a secret recipe hot sauce doesn’t mean you’re a natural when it comes to these other elements of business! For most people, building a website is one thing they never thought they’d have to do until it became a necessity.

In 2024, 71% of businesses have a website, and over 40% of small businesses are focused on improving their online presence. If you want your new brand to make a serious splash, suddenly, domain names, servers, URLs, and hostnames are on your radar.

Domain names are your primary, customer-facing online brand name, and they’re how customers find your website. Meanwhile, hostnames identify the location of a server so browsers can return your website when customers are searching for it.

This is hostname vs domain name, and as we go deeper, we’ll learn how the internet’s domain name system works. We’ll also discover what you should focus on as a business founder to bring your product or service to the world through a powerful online platform.

What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is a unique address that leads internet users to a website. They comprise a memorable alphanumeric section (such as “Atom”) paired with a top-level domain or extension, like .com. Our domain name is Atom.com, which then forms the basis for the URL of every page on our website, pages like https://www.atom.com/blog/what-is-a-domain-name.

Domain names are how humans remember websites and navigate the internet, and they’re an important component of your brand. They must be memorable and familiar and build an instant connection with your customers.

Because domain names also form the basis of your email addresses, the credibility and emotional connection of your domain name are reinforced in many of the marketing communication moments you have with your audience.

We use domain names to find websites, but computers use strings of numbers called IP (internet protocol) addresses. Every domain name has a unique IP address, and when you type a domain name into the search bar, your browser looks up the IP address to find the website.

To find the IP address, the browser is directed through a sequence of servers, like a librarian moving through a large library from floor, to aisle, to shelf, to the desired book. This whole system is called DNS — the domain name system — and hostnames play an important role in this process.

What is a Hostname?

The simplest way to understand a hostname is to think about a small, local network in an office or home. In this context, a hostname refers to an individual device on that network, like mylaptop, roommatelaptop and printer1.

Likewise, in the domain name system, a hostname identifies a specific location on the much larger network of the internet. Hostnames lead browsers to the IP addresses that browsers need to access website files. 

A hostname plus a domain name is a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) — the fullest expression of a domain name that tells your computer browser where to go to access website files.

www, the almost ubiquitous prefix of websites, is a traditional web server hostname hence www.Atom.com is our fully qualified domain name. However, www has become increasingly redundant because DNS now passes requests to the correct server automatically, with or without www.

Hostnames in DNS

We likened DNS to a library, where the user moves through increasingly specific locations — an aisle, a shelf, a book, and finally, a particular page. In the domain name system, these locations are called nameservers, and they’re used to resolve DNS requests (which is just a fancy way of saying they find the websites you search for).

The last location tells your browser the particular IP address, that numbered code, that matches the URL you entered into your browser. Although it happens in the blink of an eye, there’s a journey taking place behind the screen.

What’s the role of the hostname in this process? Hostnames are part of how DNS requests are resolved. They tell browsers the location of the nameservers in the final stage of DNS request resolution.

Hostname vs Domain Name: What’s the Difference Between a Hostname and a Domain Name?

Both domain names and hostnames are fundamental to the working of the domain name system, but they play very different roles. Domain names are primarily important from a naming and branding perspective — they determine how easily customers can find your website, how well they remember you, and the deeper connection they form with your brand.

Hostnames, meanwhile, name the location of a server and allow browsers to find the appropriate IP addresses and website files.

There is generally some confusion and overlap about what can be called a domain name and a hostname, so let’s look at some examples: en.wikipedia.org could be called a domain name, as could www.Atom.com. They could also both be called hostnames, as the “en” and “www” are named servers that direct the browser to an IP address.

In a technical sense, however, these are fully qualified domain names that include host and domain names. Only “en” and “www” are the hostnames, while wikipedia.org and Atom.com are the domain names.

This clears up some of the confusion about whether www is part of the domain name. It’s not — it’s the hostname, and only appears in fully qualified domain names. As of 2024, the hostname www has been made largely redundant by new transfer protocols that find the correct server without the need for its inclusion in the address.

Hostname vs Domain Name Examples

Let’s take an example: wikipedia.org is a domain name that loads the main home page of Wikipedia in your browser.

En.wikipedia.org and es.wikipedia.org are subdomains for the English- and Spanish-language Wikipedia sites and include hostnames for nameservers containing the IP addresses of those individual pages.

Type the fully qualified domain name www.wikipedia.org into your browser, and you’ll find the main site.

Try en.wikipedia.org, and you’ll be taken to the main page of the English-language Wikipedia.

But type www.en.wikipedia.org, and your browser will return an error message. By including two hostnames, you’ve sent your browser on a journey to somewhere that doesn’t exist.

This demonstrates the importance of getting hostnames right. If you change the hostname of your server, you must change the hostname in your DNS settings, otherwise, browsers won’t be able to find the IP addresses and website files.

In such a case, when customers try to access your website, their browser will return an error message. Customers won’t find you, and your site will effectively appear “down” to other users.

Wrapping Up

When you’re starting a business, domain name comes first. It’s how people first encounter your web presence, and they appear in every online interaction you have with your customers. Choosing your domain name is a decision that goes to the heart of your brand.

Hostnames are less important for branding but play a key role in the technical performance of your website.

However, most people don’t need to worry about a hostname as your web host will be responsible for the servers hosting your website and zone files. Finding a domain registrar that offers web hosting services can simplify the process of getting your website online, and provide a safety net of customer service if something goes wrong.

Of course, if you’re setting up your own computer to be a server and hosting your website from that, then hostnames will be an important part of the process. Keep your hostnames updated in your DNS settings, as a mistake could lead to DNS errors and your website being inaccessible to users.

Ready to take that hot sauce out of the kitchen and introduce it to the world? Or maybe your customers are craving a workflow tool to boost productivity and communication. Atom’s Premium Marketplace is expertly curated to include only the strongest, most brandable domain names, and they’re all paired with a popular, credible extension. Whatever your business, shop today to find a business name that’s all you.