Do you want to upgrade your web hosting provider? When it comes to VPS vs dedicated server, which do you choose?
Your current hosting plan may not be sufficient for your growing business or creative ventures. As your business expands and your traffic grows, you’ll need a faster, more powerful server with more storage, memory, and processing power.
Perhaps your e-commerce website is so popular that you need more server resources than your shared hosting provider offers. Perhaps your web design company needs more space to test websites for clients. Perhaps your hosting reseller business has grown rapidly, and you are ready to take it to the next level.
No matter what reason, your business may need to upgrade to a virtual private server or dedicated server to keep it growing and keep customers happy.
But how do you know which one is right for you? This post will talk about the differences between VPS vs dedicated server options and how you can know which is the ideal one for your website.
What is VPS hosting?
VPS hosting allows you to customize your server and have root access. This makes VPS hosting an excellent sandbox environment to test new themes and designs and create test sites before moving them to a dedicated, shared or reseller server.
If the sites require specialized software and don’t consume many resources, you can host them on a VPS. The RAM limit that most VPS hosting providers allow is 8GB. This is plenty of memory to test and host low-resource sites. However, it does not mean that people can use a VPS to host large online stores or sites containing audio and video files.
A VPS also has a lower limit on inodes than dedicated servers. What is an inode? And why is it important? Inodes are file data structures that store metadata. One inode is for every Linux file on your server. You will encounter inode limits if your site has many files and keeps adding new ones—e.g., if your business receives, sends, and stores tons of emails—this could lead to you running into inode limitations on your VPS.
When do you need VPS hosting?
You need VPS hosting if you require the following:
- Shared hosting plans do not include special software
- Sandbox environment for testing and design
- Root access is possible without the need for a dedicated server
What is a dedicated server?
A dedicated server is an entire server that is reserved just for you. A dedicated server gives you all the resources on the machine, and in most cases, it’s a lot. A dedicated hosting plan will give you more disk space and inodes than shared hosting. You will have root access and can set up the hosting environment in any way that you like.
This freedom that comes with dedicated hosting brings with it some responsibility. You will need a web admin to keep an eye on your websites and ensure they are secure, up-to-date, backed up, and updated properly.
When do you need dedicated hosting?
A dedicated server is a perfect choice for you in the following cases:
- Shared hosting plans do not provide enough resources. If you have a large eCommerce site and tons of media to load, you will need to access more resources.
- Storage space is essential for your business if you have a lot to store, such as a lawyer or a customer service company.
- You are ready to grow your reseller business to host many sites and manage their resources.
- You have the funds to buy a dedicated server.
What’s the Difference: VPS vs Dedicated Server
To know which is the one for you, we’ll need to look at the pros and cons of each web hosting option.
Pros of VPS Hosting
- Pricing – VPS hosting is cheaper than dedicated hosting.
- Scalability – If your business is expanding, you can scale your resources quickly for your dedicated server by asking for more storage or memory from your host.
Cons of VPS Hosting
- Security – A virus that infects one virtual private server will normally only affect the site(s) it is hitting. However, in rare cases, a clever virus could bypass the hypervisor and spread to all virtual servers on the physical server.
- Configuration – If you select an unmanaged virtual private server, it might not be easy to configure and take longer to get your website online.
Pros of Dedicated Servers
- Resources – You have all the dedicated server resources, so your website loads quickly.
- Security – You don’t need to worry about “bad websites” because you are the only one on the server.
- Performance – You have more dedicated hosting resources so that your site can handle huge traffic spikes while still loading quickly.
- Configuration – You have complete access to all server settings so that you can personalize the server to your needs.
Cons of Dedicated Servers
- Price – This is the most expensive type of web hosting.
- Scalability – It is more difficult to scale a dedicated server because it is already large. It may be necessary to upgrade your server if your business expands.
- Technical skills – To maintain and optimize a dedicated server under an unmanaged plan, you need skilled technicians.
Conclusion
Now that you know all the important details about the differences between a dedicated server and VPS hosting, you’ll need to make a move.
Are you ready to make a decision? Check out our dedicated server and VPS hosting plans.