Almost every website starts out with a humble shared web hosting service. For a brand new website that doesn’t have a ton of pages and traffic, a low-cost shared hosting plan can often be more than enough for it to run efficiently. And that’s what shared hosting is typically recommended for; i.e. new, small and low-traffic sites.
But if you already have an established website that receives a considerable amount of traffic, or if you are launching a new website that uses a resource-heavy content management system — such as an e-commerce site — then you probably need a more powerful hosting solution that is capable of handling the high demand for server resources. That’s where a virtual private server (VPS) can nicely fit the bill.
Let’s look at the main aspects that make VPS hosting come out on top when stacked up against regular shared hosting.
Fully Dedicated Resources
In shared hosting, you get your own quota of disk space, but you share the server’s computing resources (CPU and RAM) with other websites. With a VPS, you get fully dedicated portions of CPU and RAM that are not shared with anyone else on the server.
How much of a performance difference the dedicated resources will make depends on your own website or application. Systems that are CPU-intensive and/or memory-intensive perform much better under a virtual private server compared to a shared server environment.
One big advantage of VPS hosting that is worth pointing out here is that many providers let you select the exact amount of CPU, RAM, and disk space you need. This ability to build a custom plan isn’t normally offered with shared hosting where you can only choose from pre-made plans, each with a fixed amount of resources.
Having a flexible and customized plan is arguably the most desirable feature of cloud computing that makes it easier for small businesses to lower their operational costs by only paying for the exact resources they need. If that’s something you are interested in, check out this list at Startup Info featuring a handful of the best cloud VPS providers that offer flexible plans.
Isolated and Customizable Software
You will have a completely isolated software environment when working with a VPS server just like if it were a dedicated server. Whatever software runs on your virtual server is not shared or connected with other VPS instances that reside on the same physical server.
Each and every piece of system software will be under your full control and you can modify and customize its configurations to work best with your website. You may start with a free Apache server software but if you later decide to upgrade to a faster, commercial web server like LiteSpeed then that wouldn’t be a problem. Got sick of your current control panel and want to switch to another one with better features? That’s doable too.
On the other hand, you don’t enjoy such freedom with shared hosting. What you’ll get instead is a one-size-fits-all solution with preinstalled and preconfigured software that for the most part cannot be modified or customized. If you later figure out that a certain software on the server isn’t meeting your requirements or expectations, you can’t do much about it other than migrate your site to another host.
Improved Security
Like we said earlier, a VPS grants you total control of your server’s software and this can be very useful in tightening up the security of the server. You can install and customize any third-party security system that works best for you. You can also modify your web server settings and disable any unnecessary features that may be exploited by potential attackers.
Virtual private servers don’t normally come with pre-configured security measures as shared servers do, so you’ll have to take care of software security on your own. If you order a managed VPS, the support team should assist you with installing and configuring security systems. Most providers offer one or more add-on options under the security category so pay attention to that before you finalize your order.
Instant and Unlimited Scalability
If you are introducing a new startup project to the world wide web, it makes sense to start with a small web hosting plan that is easy on your wallet. But you must have high hopes for your project, so in case it does hit the big time and you start getting hundreds or even thousands of new users every day, you want a hosting service that can instantly scale up and adapt to constantly growing resource demands.
This is where cloud virtual servers particularly shine and triumph over all other hosting solutions. A cloud VPS can typically be automatically scaled up or down depending on how many resources your website requires at any given moment. If your provider implements a pay-as-you-go pricing model, then you’ll only be charged for the resources used within each billing period.
You don’t get the same level of flexibility with shared hosting where the plans come with fixed resources and limited options for upgrading or downgrading. Furthermore, you prepay a fixed price for shared hosting regardless of how much of the available resources you use, which means you could be wasting a lot of money on unused resources.
Conclusion
Shared web hosting is cheap because the cost of the hardware and software that run the server is split between a large number of users that share its resources. This may work decently for a small blog or a simple website that receives a low amount of traffic, but the larger and more active the website gets, the poorer and slower its performance becomes under a shared server environment.
In contrast, when you buy a VPS, you will have dedicated resources at your disposal alongside an isolated software environment that you can customize it any way you deem fit. In addition to higher computing performance, VPS hosting offers you much more room for future growth with the ability to scale up instantly and as needed.
VPS hosting is an ideal choice for startups looking for a customizable, high-performance hosting service without having to spend a fortune on a fully dedicated server.
