In this article, we’ll take a look at shared hosting (a natural starting point for small websites) and VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting — then finish up with a few recommendations for each type of service.
In essence, Virtual Private Servers are a significant step up from general shared hosting plans — with costs ranging from as little as $5/month on the low end to $20–$55 for a decent mid-range VPS service. Is the additional cost justified? Let’s take a look…
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is a way for hosting companies to put a large number of users on the same server. A server is nothing more than a computer with a processor, memory, and a hard drive — just like your own home computer. If you ever grew up in a household with a single computer used by the whole family, then you’re probably already familiar with some of the upsides and downsides of shared hosting.
On the upside, the cost-per-user is low. If you bought everyone in the family a computer, it would likely cost around $300 per person. If you all use a single computer however, the cost per person could be, between say six of you, as little as $50/person.
On the downside, the resources available to each of you will be limited, and you could be affected by the actions of others. For example, if your brother downloads ten games, he may be using up 80% of the hard drive. What’s more, if one of his downloads contains a virus, it could potentially stop everyone else in the family from being able to use the computer.
Shared hosting is very similar to having a family computer. The server you’re using may be quite powerful, but hosting companies will typically put hundreds (sometimes thousands) of users on it. This is how they keep the costs down to the $4–$8/month level. A powerful dedicated server — where you alone use the server — typically costs upwards of about $350/month. If a company uses the same hardware but puts 300 people on it, they receive over $1200/month — not a bad deal (for them)!
Of course, you shouldn’t really expect a whole lot for such a low cost. If there’s a website with a memory leak on the same server you’re on, you’ll be affected. If a site uses up 80% of the memory, all other websites (which could be thousands) can only access the remaining 20%. What’s more, malicious attacks towards a single website on a server may spread problems throughout the whole user base. This is often referred to as the “bad neighbor” effect. The worst part is that it’s completely unpredictable, which makes it almost impossible to plan for.
VPS Hosting
Compared to a shared hosting service, a VPS (Virtual Private Server) is a technically superior solution in almost every single way. Technically, VPS servers are actually still “shared” environments (in as much as there will still be more than one user running on the same physical machine) but the technology used to assign resources and keep users separate is much more sophisticated.
The key difference is how resources are divided up. Much fewer users use the same hardware and each has their own ‘private’ environment, which makes it seem as though they each have their own server.
With shared hosts, it’s essentially a kind of a free-for-all type of service: whoever grabs the resources first gets to use them. If the server has 16GB of memory, then a single website (out of thousands) could potentially end up using almost all of it. On VPS servers, the amount is divvied up in advance. For example, lower-end VPS plans might allocate 2GB to each user; each of these users would then be able to use as much of that 2GB as they need, but none will be able to overstep their own individual 2GB allowance.
Allocating resources per-user makes for a much more stable and predictable environment. Can you still run out of memory? If you have a poorly coded website, or you go viral and get tens of thousands of visitors overnight, then sure. However, VPS plans almost always allow you to get some additional memory as-and-when you need it (all be it for an added fee of course). The takeaway is that you won’t be adversely affected by what any of those other users/websites on the server do.
Another advantage to this is better security for everyone. There are instances of scripts that can bypass the hypervisor — the process that creates the virtual servers, but these are exceedingly rare.
Should I Switch To VPS?
The simple answer is: Yes. You should almost definitely consider moving away from shared hosting if you’re running a serious online business — although depending on the type of website you’re running, a VPS may not be the only choice worth considering: but we’ll get to that a bit late
