Shared Hosting Vs VPS: Which Is Best For You?

Author: Eman Jan 01, 2023 673 0

When you design a website, you need to buy a hosting service in order to store the website’s data and files and make your website available on the Internet. There are several hosting services including shared hosting, virtual server, and dedicated server. Users are usually confused about the right hosting service to use, and what's the difference between a virtual private server and a dedicated server, Or Shared Hosting and VPS and Which one should they use?. In this article, you're going to learn what is shared hosting and VPS, and the differences between them.

What is shared hosting?

Shared Hosting is a hosting service that manages and maintains several users and websites on a server. The available resources on this server, including bandwidth, storage, processing, are shared with all users and websites; Even the prioritization or restriction of resource access to users is applied. So, in shared hosting you have no control over the resources you are using on the server, and it will be managed by the hosting company.

For biginners, Shared hosting is recommended because it's easy to manage server and also available for good price. However, shared hosting is not recommended for high traffic and large websites that require a lot of bandwidth due to limitations and possible issues.

When Is Shared Hosting Recommended?

Here are the cases to use Shared Hosting:

For small websites with few visitors.
Weblogs.
If you need a low price hosting service.
Beginners who need easy server management.

Shared Hosting Advantages

A cheap hosting service.
Suitable for beginners.
It doesn't require experience to manage the server.
Manageing, updating, configuration, and technical support of the server can be done by the hosting company.
Efficient for websites with low traffic.

Shared Hosting Disadvantages

Limited resources and server management.
It has security risks.
Can be disturbed by high traffic.
The website can be affected by shared websites on the server.
Server settings can't be customised.
By exceeding defined hosting limits, hosting could be disabled.

What is VPS?

VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting uses virtualization technology to split that one powerful server into multiple virtual servers. So, by buying VPS users can use a piece of physical hardware that functions like several separate servers. And private means that your virtual server is dedicated to you, so you won’t have to share RAM, CPU, or any data with other users.

When Is VPS Hosting Recommended?

If your website have a high traffic.
You start a business website.
If you need to host your website to keep the site's speed, high performance, and security.

Why should you buy VPS Hosting service?

It can be customized.
It can be used easily at reasonable cost.
More stable and faster than Shared Hosting.
It has ROOT access to the server and you can manage server directly.
It has scalability and resources can be upgraded along with the website growth.
Your website would not be affected with other websites' performance.
Security settings can be customused.
You can install and run the software and operating system you need and configure customized VPS.

VPS Disadvantages

Requires skill and technical knowledge to manage it.
You need to guess how much storage space and bandwidth you need.
It is higher cost than shared hosting.
The system does not back up automatically, so you need to constantly back up the site information.

VPS Vs Shared Hosting

Here are 8 differences Between Shared Hosting and VPS:

1. Performance

Fast loading websites' pages are important to the site's performance. Most users won't wait more than two seconds for the page to load, and they would leave the website. Also if you have an online store with low performance, 79% of customers would never shop from it or return back again to the site. So; the quick access to your website and the high performance are the most important for visitors.

So, it is severe to buy the right hosting service for your business. VPS Hosting provides a fast and smooth performance.For small websites, shared hosting is usually good, but for websites with high traffic, VPS is recommended.

2. Stability and reliability

High stability means how often server or network problems might prevent website from loading properly. This can be related to the update time or the online server. The uptime provided by the hosting company should be more than 99.9% especially if you have a commercial website, Online stores, and professional portfolios so that visitors can access easily to your website.

VPS and shared hosting can both be vulnerable to server problems because they both provide good quality server hardware and software and support. But with VPS, fewer such problems would appear because you share fewer users on each server. Also, with VPS you can optimize settings for a specific website or application, and this helps effectively to create a more secure and stable environment. Otherwise the large number of websites coulsd be hosted on a shared server.

3. Divided resources

Having dedicated and separate resources like storage space, can affect the host’s performance. In shared hosting, your website is being managed and hosted with several different websites that share resources, and by excessive use of websites's bandwidth, other websites connections would be slow and disrupted.

In VPS, by having a larger portion of hardware resources and also private partition, you would have fewer restrictions compared to shared hosting. Also, with root access to the server, you would control over the server, and allows you to make changes to any file and install new programs.

4. Scalability

When a hosting plan is scalable along with the website's expansion, you can upgrade capabilities and resources like storage space, bandwidth, and CPU.

Shared hosting may be a good choise for a temporary or low-traffic online presence and limited traffic levels for a website per month, but may not be responsive with the website’s popularity increase.

In this regard, VPS offers unlimited scalability. Usually, website owners prefer to start their business with an affordable shared hosting service and change the hosting service to VPS as the website's grow. However, if you expect your website to grow, It's better to invest in VPS hosting which would can pay off in the long run due to easy scalability.

5. Cost

For host service's cost, shared hosting is the best choise if you need to start a small business website with a low budget. However, VPS is more expensive than shared hosting which provides more resources like bandwidth, storage space, better performance, reliability, and high security.

6. Security

As much as security is the most important for your website, you must accept that due to hosting large numbers of websites on a server, IT would be exposed to hackers access to sensitive information, especially in a shared hosting server which could be more exposed to possible risks. Note that performance, reliability or security in shared hosting depends on the hosting company’s security itself.

In VPS Hosting, you would have higher security levels, and more control over security issues. VPS Hosting may be the best choise for websites that process large amounts of data. Since it has powerful security features which usually managed by professionals, you can be sure that your private data is safe.

7. Customization and configuration

Sometimes you need to launch special software or install functional plugins or customise settings to improve the website’s performance, but in shared hosting, managing host service is limted. Usually, management and configurations of shared hosting are being done by hosting service providers, and your'e only provided with a control panel, So you can perform some limited tasks to manage your website.

On the other hand, VPS provides you with a higher accessbility and customization, including security issues and settings, configuration, and installation of any software and operating system.

8. Server management and control

With using Shared Hosting there is no need to worry about technical and basic maintenance' because the Hosting company would install and update a control panel to you like cPanel so you can manage the website, and from the back end, they ensure your problem-free work process. On the other hand it is a good choice for beginners who don't have enough experience to server management.

On the other hand, VPS resources can't be easily managed and comes with challenges, it is important to master professional technical knowledge and be able to change even the back-end settings of the server with root access and the customization feature to make changes required to optimize the website's performance.

How To Choose The Best VPS Hosting Plan For Your Website?

Let’s talk about what makes a great VPS plan and how to find the best web hosting provider.

Self-Managed Vs Managed VPS Services

With VPS hosting, you usually have two options:

Self-managed VPS service (unmanaged VPS): You need to be well known with server administration, troubleshooting, and managing the applications, software, and services installed on your VPS.
Managed VPS service: if you don't have admin skills or you just want your hosting company to manage it.

Linux/Windows

Make sure the hosting package you choose is compatible with your operating system.

Reliability

VPS hosting service you buy should have uptime ratings of 99.5% and above.

Hardware

When buying a VPS hosting package, make sure your service provider offers the latest hardware, including solid state drives (SSD), the quickest storage technology which makes running high-speed applications easier.

24/7 Customer Support

When it comes to support, you simply don’t know when you’ll experience an issue with the site. So make sure your hosting company offers 24/7 customer support.

Backup Service

If something goes wrong, you won't lose your data because you backup your website. You would also save money and time. Make sure when you buy Hostong service, you choose a provider with easy backups.

Now to choose the most suitable hosting plan between shared hosting and VPS, you need to define the best hosting service due to your website's business goals and needs.