Imagine you’re ready to create your site – your website planning is spot on, your domain name was precisely chosen, and the only thing separating you from going live is selecting a web hosting plan that best fits your needs.
Now, imagine that looking for the perfect hosting solution for your website is a process you can skip, or at least leave it up to us to help you find the best possible option for your budget.
Your business could be entirely new, with few prospects and customers, but you might already hold the reins of a small business booming quickly.
No matter your business type, there are a few options, like Shared Hosting and VPS Hosting, and these will be our main focus in this HostPapa blog.
- About Shared Hosting
- VPS Hosting: More of Everything
- Why Is VPS Hosting Perfect for Growing Businesses?
- VPS Hosting: The Ideal Use Cases
About Shared Hosting
Shared hosting plans are the most cost-effective and the most popular web hosting services available.
This means you have an affordable starting point for your website, with more than adequate bandwidth to support your starting needs and plenty of storage space to host all your website files.
In essence, it’s a fantastic way of getting online.
For readers with more technical knowledge, we want to expand on what shared hosting is and what it means in terms of performance.
Think of your website as a room in your house where you have your own space. However, just like in a shared house, other family members also have access to their own rooms.
Similarly, your website has to share the CPU resources and memory resources (among others) with other websites, which is like sharing the living room couch. If you need to use more resources, you need to find an available spot on the couch.
Shared hosting means that multiple websites share the same resources on a web server, which are allocated dynamically. If you require additional resources, your plan permits you to access them from the server. This arrangement may not work well for websites with high traffic, but it’s an excellent way to begin for others.
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VPS Hosting: More of Everything
Now, let’s introduce VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting. What is VPS Hosting? How can it help a business expand its operations?
In the analogy to the house we mentioned earlier, VPS Hosting provides a dedicated server but in a virtual form on which your website (home) resides. This virtual area is fenced off from your neighbours, ensuring your space and resources are exclusively yours.
So all the rooms are available to you and you only.
VPS Hosting Explained: A More Technical Approach
For those with an eye for technical details, a VPS server operates on a principle known as virtualization. This technology divides a physical server into multiple virtual servers, each acting independently.
This separation ensures that the resources allocated to your VPS server – like CPU, RAM, and storage – are isolated from those of other users. Essentially, virtual private servers are, as their name suggests, virtual, and you’re not occupying resources from the entire physical server.
It’s also great for the environment!
The benefits of this isolation are profound.
It means your website isn’t affected by other websites’ traffic spikes or resource-hungry activities, as is often the case in a shared hosting service. You can install and configure software, manage security protocols, and even reboot your virtual server independently.
For example, while Softaculous is a brilliant software library with over 400+ apps available on our hosting solutions via the control panel, it’s still not enough for some web administrators who want to write and deploy custom code on their web server.
Consider this: On a shared hosting account, if a neighbouring website experiences a sudden surge in traffic, it can increase loading times and slow down the entire server, impacting your website’s performance – even if you’re the only visitor around.
With VPS Hosting, such occurrences are less likely to affect you because you have dedicated resources at your disposal. It feels like dedicated hosting, but it’s all running inside a virtual machine.
Here’s a quick comparison table between Shared hosting and VPS hosting:
| Shared Hosting | VPS Hosting | |
| Resource Allocation | Shared resources with other websites | Dedicated virtual resources |
| Performance | Suitable for small to medium-traffic sites | Better performance, especially for high-traffic sites |
| Control | Very limited control and customization | Complete control over server configuration with root access |
| Security | Security depends on server neighbours | Enhanced security with isolated resources and server monitoring |
| Scalability | Limited scalability | Easily scalable to accommodate growth |
| Price | Affordable, ideal for beginners | Slightly higher cost, but more value and control |
| HostPapa solutions | Shared Web Hosting | Enterprise-Grade VPS Hosting |
Why Is VPS Hosting Perfect for Growing Businesses?
The benefits outlined above aren’t the only ones available in VPS hosting plans.
For businesses on the ascent or those with dynamic web app requirements, a VPS hosting provider emerges as a strategic choice.
Let’s delve into why VPS matters for businesses.
1. Perfect Testing Environment for Web Applications
Web applications are taking the world by storm. With its vast resources, VPS is the ideal solution for experiments and launching web apps like inventory management, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, project management tools, and even exploring multiple content management systems (CMS) like WordPress.
For app and web developers, VPS is a place for all their projects, especially if they don’t have access to high-performance computers. Collaboration with other devs on the same projects is also a big factor that VPS proves its convenience.
2. Made for Your Growing Website
A virtual private server is particularly well-suited for small businesses experiencing growth or companies with expanding web application demands. Web applications that require high resource consumption perform better in a VPS hosting environment.
As your website’s traffic and resource requirements surge, VPS Hosting provides the room to flourish. Unlike shared hosting, where you may face resource constraints, VPS Hosting offers the scalability needed to accommodate your rising ambitions.
3. Increased Reliability and Uptime
Imagine your website as the digital face of your business. In this context, reliability and uptime become critical. Our customers here at HostPapa have always experienced seamless and uninterrupted service thanks to our steadfast commitment to providing 99.9% uptime on every hosting plan.
With its dedicated virtual environment, VPS Hosting ensures that your website stays up and running, even during traffic spikes or resource-intensive operations.
With shared hosting, the actions of websites on the same server can impact your own. On the other hand, VPS Hosting guarantees the reliability that your business demands.
4. Better Security
Security breaches can harm businesses of all sizes. According to IBM, data breach costs last year averaged $4.65 million USD, more than a 2.5% increase from the previous year. VPS Hosting enhances security by isolating your resources from others on the server.
The isolation means that vulnerabilities in neighbouring websites are less likely to affect your website – a common problem on a shared server.
Also, you have more control over security configurations for your website and applications running on the server. All this, though, requires technical expertise unless you select a Fully Managed VPS configuration.
5. More Performance
The performance of your website is a critical factor in user satisfaction and search engine rankings. VPS Hosting shines in this regard. With dedicated resources, your website enjoys consistent and high-performance levels.
This becomes especially vital if your business depends on rapid response times like eCommerce sites or interactive web applications.
6. And Consistent Performance
One of the standout features of VPS Hosting or any type of dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, or a single physical server, is the guarantee of resources.
Unlike shared hosting, where resources are shared and can fluctuate based on others’ usage, VPS Hosting assigns specific resources to your virtual server.
This means that your website’s performance remains consistent and reliable, regardless of what other websites on the server are doing.
Another advantage of a VPS hosting plan is the fact that you can have fully managed VPS hosting, too, which means your web hosting provider will manage your server. All updates and maintenance will be carried out on the operating system by your web host.
Server management is essential if you lack the knowledge to configure the server to your liking, and it saves precious time if you’re a small business with intentions to expand.
VPS Hosting: The Ideal Use Cases
So, with all that in mind, how can you identify if you need VPS hosting for your website? Here are a few examples:
- A high-traffic news website: A site with many news articles daily and thousands of followers on social media. VPS helps keep the website available and able to complete every request in time.
- A trending eCommerce online store: If you have thousands of SKUs and customers, VPS is the perfect hosting solution for your eCommerce website. It has plenty of traffic bandwidth and can support multiple requests at once.
- E-learning platform and educational websites: A place where you can sell or host online courses and educational material can be a real data hog if you have many visitors. VPS hosting solves this problem by offering an always-available environment for uninterrupted use of the platform.
- A small business website with potential: Let’s not forget the elephant in the room. A small business website doesn’t have to stay “small” forever. By improving your lead generation, customer service, and social media marketing, growth will follow sooner rather than later. In that case, it’s best to choose a web hosting company with a clear upgrade path and excellent customer service. This way, you can upgrade seamlessly without any issues.
Wrap-Up: Shared Hosting vs. VPS Hosting: Which One Is For You?
By now, you should have painted a complete picture of these two different web hosting types – and thankfully, you have chosen what fits your type of website best.
Whether you’re a beginner looking for a hosting plan to launch your new idea or an entrepreneur looking to boost your website’s traffic, selecting the appropriate hosting plan is a crucial and necessary choice.
For small businesses with few prospects and a small inventory, shared hosting appears to be a more suitable option – at least initially. For example, small business owners into dropshipping won’t need the vast server resources VPS hosting brings.
For an eCommerce store that generates hundreds of sales every day, it’s crucial to have a high-performing web server to meet customers’ needs. Along with improved performance, there are added benefits such as enhanced security and complete server control, which create a safe environment for your customers and their sensitive data.
As the business grows and expands, the need for more web hosting performance increases with it. In that case, VPS hosting becomes an appealing choice. It delivers the reliability, scalability, and security required by high-traffic websites and ensures your web presence remains resilient and responsive.
Have you made your choice?
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