When selecting a web hosting plan, there are three main options: shared hosting, dedicated hosting, and VPS hosting. Let’s examine the key differences between shared, dedicated, and VPS hosting.
Shared hosting is the most common and the most cost-effective form of web hosting and works well for most new website owners. When you purchase a shared hosting plan, you’re sharing resources like CPU, RAM, and hard drive space with other website owners on that same server.
Consider shared hosting as multiple websites renting a single apartment in the same building. Each of you gets your own private bed, but you share the apartment with common spaces like the lobby, elevators, and utilities. In the case of websites, it’s CPU, RAM, and storage.
This offers multiple benefits, including lower costs, as the server costs are split among all the website owners. If one of the websites on your shared server has a huge spike in traffic, that could affect your website’s performance as well.
But when you’re just getting started, you are unlikely to notice the impact—and if you need help starting out, you may want to read this web hosting guide.
Dedicated hosting allocates an entire server to just your site. You have full control over resources and can customize them to meet your needs.
Sounds great, right? The catch is that it’s much more expensive — but you get 100% control over your resources and can customize the software to meet your individual needs.
VPS hosting provides a middle ground between shared and dedicated. When you choose VPS, other websites will be hosted on the same hardware as yours (remember that powerful server we talked about earlier?)
But now, your website is running on a virtual machine with its own dedicated resources. That means you get your own operating system, dedicated storage, powerful CPU, scalable RAM, and unlimited bandwidth.
Thinking of it from the apartment complex analogy, consider all apartment owners now have access to their private lobbies, elevators, and utilities. One person using the resource no longer impacts the rest.
This provides you with the double benefits of dedicated hosting, where you have complete control over the resources and lower costs because of the shared physical servers.
If your website is growing, you may wonder: should you upgrade to VPS? Here are eight key signs that can indicate you’re now ready to make the switch.
Shared hosting offers basic security, but VPS delivers if you need more advanced features like firewalls, SSL certificates, or daily backups. This is particularly true for sites that process payments or store sensitive data. VPS gives you top-notch security features for the complete safety of your website.
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. In short, it’s a protocol for maintaining a secure connection and protecting sensitive data. Transport Layer Security (TLS) is the successor to SSL. It is a cryptographic protocol that provides a safe connection over any given computer network.
Shared hosting is great when you’re just starting out and have a low visitor count, but it can struggle and slow down when your site has large spikes in traffic. With VPS, you get dedicated resources (CPU, RAM, bandwidth, etc.) that can smoothly handle those traffic swells.
On shared servers, you’re fighting for resources with other sites. As you add more content over time, you can max out limits for things like RAM. Suddenly, pages take forever to load.
Because with VPS, you have a secure and dedicated virtual server where you are more likely to pass a PCI compliance test. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard was established by major credit card brands to protect against cardholder data theft.
If you are accepting credit cards on your website via a payment gateway, you want to do everything you can to ensure the safety of your consumers’ financial information.
Shared hosting is great for website owners building their site with WordPress or other Content Management Systems. However, suppose you reach the point where you need to install custom software, engage in any other advanced programming, or use a custom server configuration. In that case, you’ll want a hosting option that affords you more control.
International RO ServerSimilarly, several standard tax, billing, bookkeeping, and other integrative programs require around-the-clock server availability as well as high-speed internet. You’ll need a VPS or a dedicated hosting account to run these applications successfully.
If you operate on a shared server, you’ll only be frustrated when you learn advanced actions are forbidden, or that apps don’t have the support to function properly. Instead of dealing with this potential problem, upgrade to VPS hosting and immediately gain more control over your programming actions.
While you can troubleshoot downtime issues, every minute of downtime costs money for your online business. Instead, upgrading your resources usually offers better time-to-value for your business.
While it’s true that a dedicated hosting package can address many of the problems on this list, it’s important to remember that a dedicated plan is a much pricier option. If you need to improve your bandwidth, increase your security, and get more RAM, then the most affordable option is to opt for VPS hosting.
Shared hosting can be great for building personal or portfolio websites. It’s simpler to manage and offers lower costs. But when handling client sites, you do not want a slow server to impact them.
Now, let’s understand how you can find the best web hosting provider and the perfect VPS hosting plan for your needs. Before you begin, you need to pick between self-managed and managed VPS servers.
Managed VPSs, on the other hand, are an excellent choice when you are unfamiliar with these admin skills or you just want your hosting company to handle it for you.
All of DreamHost’s VPS plans are fully managed, meaning you can skip worrying about the intricate technical details and focus on what really matters: creating great content for your website.
