If you’re just getting started with hosting your own website, it can be tough to decide which provider is the best for you. Do you want a hosted server or a self-hosted one? Do you need dedicated space or shared space? What about bandwidth and speeds? In this article, we’ll take a look at the different factors that affect host selection and give you an overview of the three leading providers.
Everything You Need to Know About VPS Hosting
What is VPS Hosting?
Before we go in-depth about VPS hosting, first let us spell out what VPS stands for – Virtual Private Server. Let us define the word server first. To put it simply, a server is an authoritative computer that keeps all of the files and data that creates your site.
For example, when a person enters your domain name into his or her browser, the server will put your site to the searcher’s screen. On the other hand, for the virtual facet, Virtual Private Server utilizes virtualization technology to divide the server into multiple servers.
It is like a piece of machinery that works or operates like several multiple servers. Now for the word private. It means just what it entails. Meaning, what’s yours is yours. You don’t need to share CPU, RAM, or any files with others.
Overall, a Virtual Private Server Hosting provides you with exclusive resources on a single server with multiple users. It is a more stable and secure solution compared to shared hosting where you can’t even get a private server space. Not to mention, it much more affordable and offers stellar flexibility compared to shared hosting.
How Does VPS Works?
Virtual Private Server hosting offers users a virtual server that resembles a physical server. But, as a matter of fact, the server is being shared among multiple servers. With the help of the virtualization technology, your server hosting establishes a virtual layer over the OS or operating system of the server.
This virtual layer then splits the server into segments and permits a user to install their own software and operating system. For that reason, a VPS hosting is both private and virtual since you have the entire control over it.
Getting a Virtual Private Server hosting allows you to establish your site within a stable and secure environment with insured resources such as CPU cores, memory, disk space, etc. With that in mind, you won’t have to share your server with others.
To genuinely understand and fathom how virtual private server works, it is of the utmost importance to become aware of the basics of web hosting. Here is a concise breakdown of the differences between VPS, dedicated, and shared.
VPS Hosting
Virtual Private Server falls between dedicated and shared hosting. If you opt for VPS hosting, there’ll be other sites hosted on the very same hardware as yours. However, what sets it apart from the other two is that it is a big one.
By that we mean, your site is, for the most part, the only domain allotted to your virtual compartment. Thus, you get to have your own OS (operating system), unlimited bandwidth, dedicated storage, scalable RAM, and powerful CPU.
With a virtual private server, you can get tons of benefits and advantages of a dedicated server, for a reasonable price.
Shared Hosting
The most common type of web hosting and goes well for start-up site owners are, more often than not, Shared Hosting. When you buy a shared hosting account, you are also sharing essential and all-important resources such as RAM, CPU, and hard drive space with the other site owners who are also leveraging that shared server.
To better understand what shared hosting is all about, let us use an analogy. Consider a shared server as a vast and enormous apartment complex. , and all of you share the same sentiment. That is to have a place to stay into, like your site’s data, but purchasing a big family home would be too costly for your budget.
Sharing utilities and common areas in an apartment complex aids in keeping the costs down, which is also true for shared hosting. Going back to shared hosting, since other site owners are also using the same shared server you have, your web interface will be uncomplicated to navigate because website hosts set up and control the server for the users.
Unfortunately, there are several drawbacks to shared hosting, well most likely because you are sharing critical resources to other owners. For example, when a site owner on your shared server gets a towering spike in traffic, that could impact the performance of your site.
But if your goal is to get your site off the ground and do not have that much traffic volume, then shared hosting is an excellent way to introduce yourself to the online world.
Dedicated Hosting
For the most part, dedicated hosting is, without a doubt, the contrary to shared hosting. Instead of sharing costs and resources with the other site owners, you have one system that’s for your website only.
Does it sound great to you? Well, it may cost you more than shared hosting, but you get the complete control over your resources. Plus, you can opt to personalize software to align with your needs.
Dedicated hosting is suitable for sites with vigorous technical demands. Say, for instance, this type of hosting package could be best for you if:
- You’re installing your own OS (operating system).
- You have a huge traffic volume on a daily basis.
- You’re managing lots of financial transactions.
- Your site needs custom software.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting uses one server. However, it’s more of a cluster server that works in the cloud. Meaning, every server in the cluster keeps an updated copy of your site. So, if one of the servers is, for the most part, occupied, the cluster, by its own nature, redirects the traffic to a website that has less traffic.
For that reason, there is always a server in the cluster that can accommodate the demands of your site visitors. There is no downtime.
It’s good to stress that VPS hosting and cloud hosting are not restricted or limited to each other. Rather, plenty of hosting companies provide virtual private server on a cloud framework.
The most excellent way to assess and determine whether you need to upgrade or not to VPS is to monitor your website. For a more in-depth explanation, here’s a list of eight indications that tells you when you need to go virtual.
Security
If you are anxious and troubled about your site’s security, then perhaps it’s time to upgrade to VPS. Upgrading to a virtual private server will boost your site’s security features and website reliability, add more backup space, and can make any online payment more secure and convenient. With a virtual private server, you can get substantial resources and excellent security features.
High Traffic Volumes
With VPS, you gradually start to encounter high traffic volumes. It’s particularly helpful if you’re website is just starting up and do not get a significant amount of traffic. But if your site’s readers are continually growing, it may be the time to upgrade.
If you do not want to make your website run slow or crash because it’s incapable of handling too much traffic, then switch to VPS. Do yourself and your site a big favor and upgrade to a virtual private server.
Slow-running Website
For websites that consume or takes up massive amounts of RAM, shared hosting may not be the perfect web hosting for you. Keep in mind that as your site develops and you post more and more article, you’ll start seeing a decline in your site’s loading time.
When this happens, it is a sign that you’re reaching the limit of capacity or in the realms of your limits. As such, consider going virtual. Upgrading to a virtual private server will allow you to remove obstacles when hitting specific restrictions on your website without worrying about slow site speed.
Online Store
When you have or planning to have an online store, consider upgrading your web hosting plan to a virtual private server. Why? It’s because virtual private server enables you to have a more dedicated and secure server where you’re more likely to meet the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
The PCI compliance test was, for the most part, built by huge credit card brands to secure cardholders against data theft. So, if one of your payment methods is by credit card, do everything in your power to make sure that all of your customers’ financial information is safe. Since a virtual private server is more secure and stable compared to shared hosting, it is a much better alternative for e-commerce sites.
Installing Custom Software
More often than not, shared hosting is ideal for site owners who establish their website with WordPress plugins and other common programs. If need to have custom software, then consider a hosting option that lets you have more control over it.
Likewise, a few standard taxes, integrative programs, bookkeeping, billing demands 24 hours server availability and high-speed internet. To be able to employ these apps successfully, you will need to upgrade to a dedicated hosting plan or VPS.
If you have a shared server, you will only come across frustrations when you know that advanced actions are not allowed or that applications don’t support these apps to run correctly. Rather than resolving this possible problem, upgrade to a virtual private server and you’ll instantly have more control over your actions.
Server Errors
Does your website run into server errors too often? When your site runs into errors, it is more likely that your audience is also. So, while you can resolve these issues immediately, then do it. Keep in mind that there’s no room for errors especially if you are running an e-commerce site. Avoid such server errors by upgrading to a virtual private server.
Budget
It’s good to stress that dedicated and shared server are much costlier than VPS hosting. Therefore, if you want to boost your bandwidth, enhance your security features, and have more RAM, then a virtual private server is the most affordable option for you.
Client-based Websites
Do you build and develop websites for your clients? If that’s the case, it may be pricier to buy an individual shared server again and again. Moreover, it can be hard for you to manage and monitor each domain from different accounts.
But with a virtual private server, you can manage lots of domains and all the while ensuring that you still have sufficient RAM for each website to run correctly.
VPS: Advantages and Disadvantages
Virtual Private Server may be the perfect solution for you if that is the hosting service you, for the most part, need. To understand more about VPS hosting, listed below are the advantages and disadvantages of running a VPS hosting.
Advantages
- VPS hosting is less costly compared to dedicated server hosting, and unlike in shared hosting, the virtual private server accommodates many users onto a single server so that you can still split the cost of the server.
- VPS hosting is more reliable and way faster than other web hosting options.
- Since crucial resources like processing or memory power are, without a doubt, guaranteed, there is hardly any variation in available resources.
- Traffic escalation won’t affect your website.
- You have the complete control over your server.
- You can have more privacy because your databases and files are, believe it or not, secured from other users.
- Scaling your website is easy. As your site develops, you can upgrade and improve your key resources like bandwidth, RAM, disk space, and CPU easily.
Disadvantages
- VPS hosting requires constant maintenance like system updates and security patches. Though it’s not much compared to a dedicated server, you are still accountable for the software compared to a shared hosting plan.
- VPS hosting is costlier than shared server hosting.
- You need to have sufficient technical knowledge to monitor your server.
- Inadequately and inappropriately configured servers can cause more security vulnerabilities.
How to Pick the Best VPS Hosting Plan
Now that you have learned and fathom what a virtual private server is and why you should upgrade to such hosting plan, let us dig deeper about what makes an excellent virtual private server plan and how you can look for the best hosting provider. For sure, you would not entrust your site with just anyone, right?
There are plenty of service providers available on the internet today, making it hard to choose the best one. Here are the things that you need to take into account before deciding and spen
Managed Services vs. Self-managed
When choosing a virtual private server hosting, most people often have two options in mind: managed service and self-managed service. If you go for a self-managed service, you must be able to manage the applications, troubleshoot errors, be knowledgeable about server administration, services, and software installed on your virtual private server hosting.
On the other hand, if you do not know about these administration skills, then a managed service is perfect for you.
Windows or Linux
If you’re hosting sites with Windows-based automation, for example, Microsoft SQL Server and ASP.Net, then go for the Windows Virtual Private Server Hosting. On the other hand, for MySQL and PHP based sites, a Linux VPS hosting is an excellent option.
Some of you may think that this is a no-brainer category, but it’s relatively significant. Be sure to get a hosting plan that’s compatible and applicable to your operating system.
Reliability and Uptime
The virtual private server hosting plan that you have chosen should have an uptime rating of at least 99.5 percent. Take note that anything lower is undesirable and unsatisfactory. Check your preferred provider’s uptime records before. Or any reviews on other authoritative websites.
Hardware
When buying a virtual private server hosting plan, be sure that the services offered are the best and the latest in hardware. It should include the fastest storage technology – the solid-state drives. Solid-State Drives (SSD) can make your applications run in high-speed.
Customer Support
For the most part, no one can know or anticipate when you will encounter a website meltdown. For that reason, make sure that you buy a virtual private server hosting plan from a company that provides continuous and always available customer support.
Price
Find out or decide the VPS resources that your website needs and then look for a host who can provide you with the best and reasonable price. Make sure that your chosen host can offer you a money back agreement so that you can evaluate and determine the quality of VPS performance and support during the guarantee period.
Backup Service
What if your VPS hosting is, like it or not, infected and contaminated with bugs and you do not have a backup file on your local computer? Imagine you’re upgrading your website and then something goes amiss, and you waste all of your data because you did not think of backing up your site?
Just the thought of it may scare you right? Forgetting to back up your site is a common problem for some, which can cost you tons of time, money, and effort. With that in mind, be sure to buy a virtual private server hosting package that makes backing up your website accessible.
what is vps hosting used for
VPS Offers Control and Customization
In shared hosting environments, users typically have relatively limited control over the features and functions of the sites they own. A host’s individual hosting packages can establish which aspects of a site can be changed or reconfigured but, in general parameters, are set by the host, and users typically are not given the level of access needed to configure core aspects of a site’s appearance and functions.
As in all other hosting environments, the VPS hosting provider is responsible for the maintenance of the physical server, as well as for upgrading server software and managing its core resources of memory, bandwidth, and computing power. But, users can take control of all other aspects of configuring and managing their sites.
In VPS hosting, users have full access to the site’s operating system, including unrestricted root access and administrator permissions. That allows site owners with experience in web development and design to configure their sites from the ground up, with the ability to configure the site’s infrastructure and install any software or applications that are relevant to the company’s operations. That might include installing industry-specific security features, payment gateways or apps for protecting consumer information. For those without this level of technical expertise, though, VPS hosting providers typically offer support and assistance for setting up and maintaining sites on the virtual server.
VPS Improves Performance
Sites in a shared hosting environment can be affected by issues involving neighboring sites on the server. Surges in traffic, security breaches, and other events affecting other sites can cause a site to experience slow speeds or downtime – or even crash because of sudden demand placed on a shared server’s resources spread among hundreds or thousands of sites.
VPS hosting improves site performance because it reduces the risk of problems like this, although it doesn’t eliminate them entirely. Because each VPS site is isolated from others on the server, users face a lower risk of “contamination” from a compromised neighboring site. But VPS users still share a single server, even if it hosts fewer sites than a typical shared server would. That means that each account has an allocation of overall server resources, just as in a shared hosting environment. And, in the same way, when another site on the VPS server happens to draw more than its allotted share, that can affect the performance of other sites around it.
VPS Enhances Security
VPS hosting can be significantly more secure than shared hosting, thanks to the virtual partitioning that keeps sites separate. It also has the ability for users to install the kind of security features that are relevant to the site’s specific needs.
VPS hosting providers are responsible for installing and maintaining the essential security features of the server itself, which provides protection against a wide range of web-based cyber threats or prevents cybercriminals from attacking. But, because sites on those servers maintain their separateness, the risk of infections by malware and viruses from an adjacent site is greatly reduced. Users are also able to directly install any type of security and monitoring applications they need within the site itself so that security measures can be customized to suit individual needs.
For extra added security, when you choose Bluehost as your web hosting provider, we include a free SSL certificate.
VPS Can Be Scalable
For users looking for more room to grow, VPS offers a level of scalability that’s beyond the scope of most shared hosting and offers users a smaller slice of a server’s shared resources. With fewer accounts drawing from the resources of a VPS server, users typically have access to more bandwidth and memory. But, those resources are still finite, so a site that experiences rapid growth and a significant increase in traffic may still need to upgrade to another service tier or find another hosting solution, such as a VPS host with larger allocations or even a dedicated hosting provider.
An Economical Solution for Growing Businesses
VPS hosting plans offer an economical hosting alternative for small but growing businesses. With basic VPS plans that can rival the higher tiers of shared hosting packages, VPS offers many of the benefits of much higher priced dedicated hosting services. Within the VPS hosting environment, users can also choose from a variety of tiered plans with varying service options ranging from completely unmanaged to managed services that handle most aspects of a site’s setup and daily maintenance. Within the parameters of the shared physical server, VPS hosting can be upgraded as needed, at predictable monthly rates.
Best VPS
1. VPS.NET
Another UK VPS provider is VPS.NET with a price point that starts at $20 for a VPS with 376MB RAM and 10GB of storage. They have UK and US datacentres, and their cloud storage allows automatic failover and scaling.
2. Prgmr
Prgmr is a VPS provider that doesn’t “assume you are stupid,” implying that their services are geared towards developers that know what they are doing (or have the desire to learn on their own). Their 64MB instances start at $5 a month, and a 256MB instance will only set you back $8. Debian, Ubuntu or CentOS are the only officially supported OSs, but they’ll let you install your own, if you want. They even let you build your own kernel, which isn’t something you can do with most of the other VPS providers.
3. Linode
Linode is a popular VPS provider, and they’ve recently added a UK-based datacentre so users now have the option of a US or European-situated server. The cheapest plan starts at just under $20 a month and includes 360MB of RAM and 16GB storage. There are no setup fees, no contracts, and a slew of 32 and 64-bit Linux operating systems are offered.
4. Slicehost
Built for developers, Slicehost has no contract period or setup fees. “Slices” start from $20 with 256MB of RAM and 10GB of storage. You can upgrade or downgrade your hardware at any point with minimal downtime.
They currently only offer US datacentres.
5. RIMU Hosting
A truly global VPS provider with datacentres in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand is RIMU Hosting. Prices start at around $20, and you can opt for billing in the local currency of the datacentre you chose. If you’re an open source developer, RIMU Hosting will discount your subscription as a way of giving back to the community.
They also offer a discount of 10% if you require multiple servers.
6. Bytemark
Bytemark is a UK-based VPS provider with datacentres in London. Prices start at £15 (around $22, American) for 256MB and 10GB of storage. Bytemark boast some impressive features that come as standard, such as redundant disks for fault tolerance, free server monitoring and IPv6 connectivity.
7. XLS hosting
A cloud VPS provider, XLS hosting is based in the Netherlands. They have an extremely good value with their entry level VPS offering that starts at about $15 a month for 128MB RAM and 10GB storage.
8. Gandi
Self-described as “hosting for geeks”, Gandi gives you great bang for your buck, and even offers a free trial. Prices start at $13 for 256MB RAM and 8GB storage. Hardware upgrades are automatic, and they provide emergency support services.
Conclusion
VPS Hosting is a great way to get started with online marketing. There are many different types of VPS hosting, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. It’s important to consider the needs of your business before choosing the right provider, as well as compare prices to find the best deal.