Before you launch your own website, it is important to decide on the perfect hosting plan for your business. You will also need to find and register a domain name which is a relatively simple task. But, finding out the right hosting solution is what takes time and requires much deliberation and consideration. You will need to analyze many factors to understand which hosting solutions are best for you, whether you should sign up for shared hosting or VPS hosting.
Shared Hosting Vs. VPS Hosting:
The market is flooded with different kinds of hosting plans such as cloud hosting, shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting etc. You will be spoilt for choices and such variety of hosting plans will definitely leave you confused. For those who are just starting off their online ventures, the dilemma of choosing between shared and VPS hosting seems to be the most common.
To know which is right for your business, you have to first understand what these two types of solutions have to offer you.
– In shared hosting, you will be sharing server space with many other users. So, you will have to share the server resources with your neighboring sites. While the costs of hosting may be low as responsibilities are shared amongst many users, you get to access only limited resources. In VPS hosting, on the other hand, a single server is divided to produce many virtual servers. Each of these will act like a private server and can run its own operating system. While resources may be shared, each unit functions independent of the others.
– In shared hosting, since many websites share the same server and resources, you need to share the same storage and databases too. Costs may be less but you have to be satisfied with less customizability. You do not have root control over the server. In VPS hosting, while many sites may share a single server, every site gets its own share of dedicated resources. So, you will not only have more resources for your site; you will also be able to scale up the resources when needed. You can enjoy better customizability and performance as you have far better access to more resources.
– In shared hosting plans, you must share resources; so you will be forced to enjoy limited bandwidth or space. When you are new to web hosting and just launching a site, this solution may be useful. But as the traffic to your site starts to increase after a while, you will feel the need to scale up resources as resources tend to become scarce and inadequate. The performance of your website may become slow and downtimes become more frequent. So, when you find that you are getting more traffic to your site and resources from shared hosting plans are not enough, you must consider VPS hosting plans. You will get dedicated space and greater bandwidth from VPS solutions. You can better handle the sudden traffic spikes with VPS plans and you do not have to worry about the resources getting used up by neighbors.
– In shared hosting, the key administration tasks relating to servers are handled by the host. You do not need administrators for the job; neither do you have to pay more for supports. But, with VPS hosting, you are expected to have technical expertise and a system administrator to troubleshoot problems. Moreover, VPS will let you enjoy a higher degree of customizability and you get to configure many apps and software for upgrading the site security and site performance.
– When security requirements are not too high on your site, shared hosting can be sufficient. However, since server space gets shared amongst many users, there are high chances of your website getting affected by malicious activities being carried out in neighboring sites. But, when you sign up for VPS hosting, such threats are lesser as security arrangements are more stringent. You are also free to configure stricter security arrangements like more effective firewalls and authorized access measures.
– For businesses which are looking for root access, VPS hosting is the best. These solutions will allow you to install software and applications of your choice, your preferred OS, reboot the server if needed and adjust its settings to suit your requirements. Shared hosting will not permit this because the host will alone have the authority to customize software installations and applications.
So, to sum up, shared hosting is best suited for companies which are not likely to get a lot of incoming traffic. These solutions are also well suited for those sites which are new to web hosting and do not have extra funds to invest in other types of hosting plans that are high-priced. VPS hosting however is best suited for websites getting a lot of traffic and those that are expected to scale up their resources fast. So, for businesses looking for higher customizability, security and greater control, VPS solutions are recommended.