VPS hosting offers a lot of advantages for a wide variety of websites. Here’s what you need to know about what it is used for, what your other options are, and when it’s time to consider switching to VPS.
What is VPS Hosting Used For?
VPS hosting is an excellent option for midsize websites of a wide variety of types and purposes. It is a middle ground between shared hosting and a dedicated server which makes sense for websites that need a fair amount of real estate but don’t want to pay the high prices of a dedicated server.
Blogging sites, e-commerce, medium to large company websites, and many more all benefit from VPS hosting.
How Does VPS Hosting Compare to Other Types of Hosting?
To decide whether VPS hosting is right for you, you’ll need to consider the other available options. The primary competitors to VPS hosting are shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the most affordable kind of hosting. You share many vital components of the server with other websites. Sharing keeps costs down, but it also comes with some downsides.
For instance, if another website sharing the server has a spike in traffic, You will suffer a slowdown. Slowdowns can be particularly frustrating since they often occur during peak hours when your customers or website visitors will most likely want to access your site.
You probably know how important a fast site is to your rank on Google and to customer satisfaction, so suffering the slowdowns can be a serious downside, especially if they happen frequently. Security may also not be as good with shared hosting.
Dedicated Hosting
When you have your own dedicated server, you don’t have to share anything. Ram, CPU, data, and all other resources are only available to you.
The downside of dedicated hosting is that it is expensive. You will pay significantly more for your own server than if you share the server using a VPS or shared hosting.
Unless you have a very large website, you may spend too much on dedicated hosting to make it worth your while. However, as long as your VPS hosting is high-quality, you will get the same kind of security from it as you would from dedicated hosting, and you’ll probably get as much power as you need from a VPS.
Benefits of VPS Hosting
VPS hosting is a desirable choice for several good reasons. While many websites start with shared hosting, they often move up to VPS at some point as their site grows.
Most websites never outgrow VPS and require dedicated hosting. Here are some benefits of VPS:
- Affordable. You’ll pay significantly less for VPS than you would for dedicated hosting. While you’ll probably spend more than you would for shared hosting, you’ll still likely find the benefits are well worth choosing VPS over shared hosting, especially if you’ve encountered issues with shared hosting.
- Customizable. A VPS allows you to have your own operating system and customize it to the needs of your unique website. You get more control over your site than shared hosting.
- Plenty of RAM. If you’ve been slowed down on a shared hosting platform, you’ll appreciate the extra RAM available to you with VPS. So even during high traffic times, your website will run quickly.
- Grow with you. Unlike a dedicated server that gives you a huge amount of space but doesn’t allow much opportunity for you to grow later, or shared hosting that doesn’t give you many growth opportunities, VPS is highly scalable, allowing your website to grow with you.
When Should You Go from Shared Hosting to VPS Hosting?
Most websites start out with shared hosting, but they usually begin considering the switch to VPS at a certain point because:
- Your website is growing, and you find that either you are slowing down other websites on your shared server or that other sites are slowing you down.
- You expect to grow soon because of promotional efforts or other reasons, and you worry that your hosted site won’t keep up with the growth.
- You are starting an e-commerce store, handling lots of financial data, or for another reason, require better security and privacy than shared hosting can offer.
- You have run into restrictions in the customizability of your hosting, which a VPS host could solve for you.
Consider VPS Hosting
VPS hosting can be a great solution for many midsize websites. If you are not being served well by the shared hosting you’ve chosen, it is well worth considering moving up to VPS.
