VPS Server

What is VPS Hosting

Web hosting has come a long way since it first started with the basic shared hosting and dedicated hosting plans available in the 1990s. In the new era, virtual machines have begun to take a hold on the world, and therefore you can opt now for one of the most popular forms of web hosting available – a VPS host. But what is VPS hosting? And what exactly does it entail? In this detailed guide, we’re going to give you a rundown on the ins and outs on virtual private server hosting and let you decide if it’s an option that you may want to consider.

The Way Virtual Private Hosting Works in a Nutshell

A VPS host is known as a virtual private server. It’s growing in popularity these days because they have a slew of benefits associated with them, and one of them is security – which is essential for any business trying to get their website going and online. The biggest difference though, is that it’s much cheaper than a business dedicated hosting plan because you’re not actually renting your own server. You are essentially renting a virtual machine server.

When your business starts to get off of the ground and your website begins to get more traffic, you’ll notice that if you’re on a shared host that your site speeds may start to slow down a bit, and you’ll also have to rely on the freedom of bandwidth if other sites on the same server are more than yours due to traffic. With a virtual private server, you are generally going to utilize the increased traffic at the medium level , and you are probably exceeding what bandwidth limits that shared hosting plans. However, you may not necessarily need all of the things that a dedicated server will provide, or it may be outside of your budget (dedicated servers are mostly used by larger corporations).

Is a Virtual Private Server Shared?

The correct answer to this is yes and no. Although you’re going to have your own dedicated server running that you can log into, it is running on a mainframe that other users have virtual private servers on. You’re just essentially running on a copy of the OS that you’re needing. Basically, a VPS is like hosting your files on a partition of the computer you’re running. You can set up your website securely and guarantee that all of your memory that you’re going to need is there, as well as the storage space, CPU, and even network traffic is optimized to suit your website’s needs. Most importantly though, your account on your own virtual machine makes you the owner of it – meaning that you can log into your machine as root, just as you would with a dedicated server.

What is VPS Hosting

Web hosting has come a long way since it first started with the basic shared hosting and dedicated hosting plans available in the 1990s. In the new era, virtual machines have begun to take a hold on the world, and therefore you can opt now for one of the most popular forms of web hosting available – a VPS host. But what is VPS hosting? And what exactly does it entail? In this detailed guide, we’re going to give you a rundown on the ins and outs on virtual private server hosting and let you decide if it’s an option that you may want to consider.

Is VPS Hosting Better Than Cloud Hosting?

When you’re running on the cloud with other users, you are essentially getting a cluster that will run on the cloud. Every user’s cloud server acts like a VPS, but you get more optimized connectivity and uptime. The only difference is that you’re not actually getting a VPS cloud host (although there are some hosting providers that offer a VPS that is run on the cloud, which is like a mix of the two services).

Comparing VPS to WordPress Hosting

When you host through WordPress, you’re paying for a shared hosting plan to have your own WordPress blog on it. With a virtual private server, you’re not getting the actual WordPress benefits that their owners receive, but you do get a bit more freedom. One of the biggest complaints against many website building platforms (including WordPress.com) is that you’re limited to what they allow you to do. If you have a VPS hosting plan, it is your server, and you can do what you want with it.

Benefits and Drawbacks of a Virtual Private Server Host

As mentioned earlier, there are some Pros and cons when it comes to having a VPS hosting plan, but the benefits generally far outweigh the negative. Some benefits include:

1. You get a faster server than the typical shared server. VPS’s are also more reliable and have better uptime.
2. You can operate with your website and have a little more flexibility in terms of memory usage. As you operate sites like WordPress and use more plugins, your website’s going to use more memory. Shared hosting plans don’t give you the higher memory usage that your website may need, so this is a viable solution because your virtual machine operates with a swap file for memory just like it would on a regular virtual machine platform.
3. When other users have traffic surges, or other issues like a DDoS attack on their site, it doesn’t affect you. Because their site is getting attacked on their VPS, not yours, and not the mainframe server.
4. You are the superuser to your server, so everything is under your control. You can even use a VPS host for development, hosting games that can execute on your own VPS and more.
5. The service scales up and down as needed, and you can simply upgrade your services to increase all of the resources you need for a lower cost than other hosting plans.

Of course, nothing is perfect, and there are some downsides to virtual private servers compared to other hosting types, such as:

1. You’ll pay a little more than shared hosting on a regular basis, and more as your site uses more resources.
2. You need to know your stuff a lot more than you would with other services. You’re basically getting a Linux or Windows virtual server – meaning that you need to know the ins and outs, and have some technical experience using these platforms.
3. If you don’t have your server configured properly (which is on you and not your hosting provider), then things like DDoS (denial of service) and other vulnerabilities can happen a bit easier (such as malware being installed to your server, site, or other areas).

How to Know Exactly When to Upgrade to VPS Hosting

The main reason as mentioned earlier is that you’ll probably want to bump up to a VPS plan as you exceed your limits that your hosting provider’s shared hosting plans can offer. This can be traffic (bandwidth), memory, or even storage space. There are other things to consider too though. For example, since they’re more secure (when configured the right way) than a shared hosting plan, you may want to use VPS hosting if you process payments from customers, have extensive customer bases, and need to guarantee the security of privacy of visitors to your site (such as members areas, etc.). Also, if you’re running games or a media-heavy site, you’re going to get more out of this server in uptime, speed, memory, and flexibility for your users compared to shared hosting without having to pay the larger amount for dedicated hosting.

Can I Get a Managed VPS Hosting Package?

Some hosting providers do offer its users a managed VPS hosting plan. This means that for things like server maintenance, you’re going to have the hosting provider take care of things, rather than take care of yourself. This can actually be a bit more expensive than if you’re using a virtual private server for your website and doing all of the work yourself. Therefore, even though VPS hosting services have been around for a while, having a managed VPS is also a bit newer. One thing you may be able to benefit from to avoid the higher fees is simply hire a contracted web server admin to do all of the server work you may need, but still have your website hosted on the virtual private server so you can access things as needed. Both managed VPS hosting and regular VPS hosting do guarantee a better uptime and all of the same benefits – you just don’t have to do all of the backend work on a managed VPS service that you would if you were paying for your very own regular VPS, offering a bit more in terms of uptime, monitoring, and security.

Conclusion

So there you have it! All of the things that you can see is that overall, VPS hosting is better than shared hosting, and it’s a lot cheaper than the more expensive business packages. This makes VPS hosting services great for people such as digital marketers, eCommerce businesses who are selling goods, and even freelancers who need to utilize more data and memory than a regular shared hosting plan would offer – without the hefty price tag of exceeding your resources attached to it. The biggest drawback is that with a VPS, you’re the one that has to keep a good eye on security, and all of the rest of the backend stuff in order to keep everything running smoothly, but this is a small price to pay when you’re saving so much on larger servers. Almost all of the most popular web hosting providers offer virtual private server hosting along with their other plans so you can get more bang for your buck at a pretty reasonable price.