Different types of web hosting allow you to perform different levels of customization on your server. They vary in pricing, performance (e.g. page load time), and the availability of the service (e.g. uptime) as well. Below, you can read about how VPS hosting compares to other hosting solutions.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the solution for website owners with lower traffic sites. It is the starting point of most small businesses and bloggers. With shared hosting, you split the same physical server with a number of other clients of the hosting company. You don’t get dedicated resources allocated to you, as your site runs on the same operating system as everyone else’s.

Therefore, the memory and computing power your site can use is affected by the needs of other service users. For instance, if there’s a sudden traffic spike on a website hosted on the same server your page load time may increase. You can’t choose your operating system and other server software either, as all users use the same configuration. All in all, it’s your hosting provider who takes care of every aspect of your shared hosting environment.

You can think of shared hosting as a rental where you share the same apartment with a number of roommates. VPS hosting is still a kind of flatshare, however, everyone has their own room where they can customize the space according to their needs. For instance, they get to choose the painting, furniture, decoration, etc.

Cloud Hosting

With cloud hosting, you don’t use a single server but rather a cluster that runs in the cloud. Each server in the cluster stores an up-to-date copy of your website. When one of the servers is too busy, the cluster automatically redirects the traffic to a server that is less busy. As a result, cloud hosting comes with no downtime, as there’s always a server in the cluster that can serve the requests of your website visitors.

Cloud hosting and VPS hosting are not exclusive to each other. Instead, many hosting companies offer VPS hosting on a cloud infrastructure. This is also the solution we have chosen at Hostinger, as we found that combining VPS and cloud technologies leads to the highest possible performance and reliability in the virtual server environment.

WordPress Hosting

WordPress hosting is a service specifically offered to WordPress site owners. It comes with several WordPress-related features that you can only use if you have a WordPress site, such as one-click installation, pre-installed plugins, or a WP command-line interface. Servers are configured for the needs of WordPress. Therefore, hosting providers offer WordPress hosting as a part of their shared hosting service.

Although it’s also possible to set up a WordPress site on a virtual private server, you can’t get access to the custom-built servers that have been configured with WordPress in mind. However, if you still choose VPS for your WordPress site you are able to set up and configure your hosting environment according to your business needs.

Dedicated Hosting

With dedicated hosting, you rent an entire physical server for your business. If you have a high-traffic website, dedicated hosting can be the best solution for you, as dedicated servers are fast, flexible, and fully customizable. However, the service definitely comes with a price tag as well, so they are not worth for everyone, especially if you have a small or medium website.

While VPS hosting allows you to choose and configure your operating system and server applications, dedicated hosting goes one step further. It doesn’t only let you configure the software but also the hardware, as the entire server is yours and no one has any say in the setup. You can also run a dedicated server on-site (for instance, in your office), however you lose the support of a professional hosting team in that case.

VPS hosting can be an ideal solution for you if that’s the service you really need. Below, you can read the pros and cons of running a virtual private server.

Pros

1. It’s faster and more reliable than a shared hosting server.
2. As server resources such as memory or processing power are guaranteed, there’s zero to minimal fluctuation in available resources.
3. Issues and traffic surges of other server users don’t affect your site.
4. You get superuser (root) access to your server.
5. You have better privacy, as your files and databases are locked from other server users.
6. It’s an easy-to-scale service. As your website grows, you can easily upgrade your server resources (RAM, CPU, disk space, bandwidth, etc.).

Cons

1. It’s more expensive than shared hosting.
2. It requires more technical knowledge to manage your server.
3. Improperly configured servers may lead to security vulnerabilities.

One of the biggest pitfalls of VPS hosting is having to manage your entire server environment by yourself. If your virtual server is not configured and maintained well, you may face serious security risks and performance loss. Managed VPS hosting services have appeared on the market as a viable solution to this problem. You can think of it as an enhanced alternative of VPS hosting, that comes with full technical support.

Managed VPS is still a new thing on the market, however more and more hosting providers offer it to their customers. For instance, at ded9, we aim to provide a fully managed hosting environment with all of our dedicated plans. We get your server up and running according to your needs, handle server uptime and monitoring, take care of backups and caching, and provide a 24/7 dedicated support for all of our managed VPS customers.