There are many factors you must consider before you choose a hosting plan for your website. As you seek an online presence for your business, you must select the right hosting solution that can be tailored to your website needs. The different features you can enjoy from a hosting plan should be prioritized.
However, with the wide range of hosting plans that are available in the market, choosing the right package can be challenging, as well as an essential decision to make. A type of hosting plan you must have heard of, which is cost-effective is virtual private server hosting.
The multiple benefits that are offered by this hosting solution make it a popular choice among web owners. As you begin managing a website, shared hosting is a good choice. However, as your business grows – which every business owners hope – you need advanced features that can help your site perform well, even with growing demands.
This is what VPS offers: it provides features that have grown beyond the limitations of a shared hosting plan. In this comprehensive guide, we will take a deep look into what a VPS hosting plan is, as well as the reasons why many users choose this form of hosting. So, don’t stop reading!
Table Of Contents
What is a Virtual Private Server?
A Virtual Private Server is a hosting plan that adopts the use of virtualization technology to split a physical server into multiple virtual servers. These are now distributed among users.
This implies that the virtual aspect remains an important feature of a VPS, which relies on virtualization technology. With the use of a hypervisor, virtual servers can be created – as a virtual layer – on top of the physical server. With this in mind, you have one single physical server, which is then split into various virtual servers.
These virtual servers run completely separately from one another. What this implies is that users of shared hosting are not forced to share CPU, disk space, and other resources with other users. After all, the resources are uniquely allocated to you based on the specific needs of your server.
When compared to a shared hosting package, which involves sharing one physical server with multiple websites, a VPS offers privacy (as its name implies) in the use of resources. Besides, the use of shared hosting may expose you to website issues, particularly when other websites on the same server are facing certain challenges.
Essentially, a VPS is a dedicated server that operates on a shared hosting environment. Yet, it is much cheaper than a dedicated hosting plan. This makes it accessible to a wide range of web owners.
You can think of a shared hosting plan like having a store in a market. All stores in the market share utilities. As a result, every store is affected when an issue occurs with utilities. On the other hand, a VPS hosting plan is like a high-rise apartment complex.
The entire structure is analogous to the single physical server. This building is shared among renters and each person has an apartment that is completely isolated from one another. Each apartment pays its bills differently. An issue with utilities in an apartment does not affect the utilities in another apartment.
The division of this entire building into unique apartments is what virtualization achieves in a VPS hosting plan. You can customize your server anyhow you want and other servers won’t have any issues with what you have done with yours.
How a VPS Hosting Plan Works
It is worth noting that virtual private server hosting is similar to a traditional physical server. However, when virtualization technology is adopted, as mentioned earlier, the single physical server is divided into different virtual servers.
These separate virtual servers run differently while offering users a high level of control since they can install their software, operating system, and more. This is an important feature organizations look for in a dedicated server.
While virtualization in a VPS appears new, these servers operate in the same way as regular physical servers. For this reason, they are very reliable. Besides this, you can also get a great number of resources when you host your website on a virtual private server. These resources are yours to make use of alone. So, you don’t have to share them with other users.
Why Choose VPS?
The various reasons why many organizations and website owners choose VPS are related to the different benefits it provides. You can learn more in this section.
A VPS is Cheaper Than a Dedicated Hosting Plan
While dedicated hosting offers the best customization possible, the level of control you can get from a VPS should not be taken for granted. Besides, a VPS will essentially offer similar features, but at a cheaper price. After all, dedicated hosting represents the most expensive hosting plan.
This is why many organizations find it rather difficult to access such plans. With a VPS, such a substantial investment is not required. Again, while these features in a VPS may not be as advanced as those in dedicated hosting, the resources a VPS provides are more than enough for most web owners.
Regardless of the fraction of the server resources you are using, dedicated hosting may ensure that you pay for the entire server. On the other hand, VPS hosting involves a specific allocation of the exact resources you need. This particular number of resources is what you pay for.
As a result, a VPS offers a more cost-effective solution to explore than dedicated hosting. This represents one of the most common reasons why users opt for VPS hosting solutions.
VPS Offers Greater Storage and Bandwidth
As your website grows, you will need access to a high level of storage and bandwidth. This is what you can enjoy with VPS hosting. With this, you can enjoy improved reliability and performance.
This is especially very obvious and true when you upgrade from shared hosting to a VPS. The amount of server space and bandwidth will support a high volume of traffic without any issues. Content-rich websites can be easily supported with the additional space and bandwidth that are offered by a VPS hosting plan.
RAM, disk space, and CPU are some of the resources offered by VPS hosting.
Ability to Scale Your Server Setup
VPS hosting plans are scalable. This implies that your VPS hosting can grow with you even if the level of traffic on your website is growing. On the other hand, shared hosting will only allow users to upgrade to a new type of hosting once they reach the limits of their plan.
By choosing a VPS hosting solution, users can easily add more resources to their server. You can also choose to either scale your server resources up or down. For instance, during the holiday season when your website is very busy, you can scale up. When the traffic levels are down, you can scale down.
As the level of traffic on your site keeps growing, the scalability of VPS hosting makes it the right choice for you.
Managed VPS
With a managed VPS, you can allow your web hosts to take care of the system and software update – as well as other server maintenance – for you. This is the ideal plan for users with little or no experience in running a server.
Pros of a Managed VPS
- With a managed plan, you have fewer maintenance duties to think of.
- System and software updates, among other essential website management duties, are taken care of for you.
- CDN, Backups, and some other features will be pre-configured.
Cons of a Managed VPS
- The recurring cost is higher
- A managed VPS offers a lower level of flexibility with respect to software and plugin versions.
- The access to options related to account configuration is limited.
Unmanaged VPS
Unmanaged VPS hosting ensures that you are responsible for everything. This represents the best option for you if you’re tech-savvy.
Pros of an Unmanaged VPS
- The cost is lower.
- With respect to software and plugin updates, you can enjoy more flexibility.
- For an account level configuration option, you can enjoy complete access to cPanel.
Cons of an Unmanaged VPS
- A high level of technical know-how is required.
- The support you get is limited.
- This is more susceptible to human and installability errors.
Conclusion
A VPS hosting plan is a very popular hosting solution among website owners and numerous organizations. After all, the various benefits and features of a VPS are enough for most organizations. From better performance to greater storage and bandwidth, VPS hosting is the right option for you as your business grows. VPS also allows you to manage the maintenance of your website by yourself, especially if you have a competent team at your disposal. However, if you have little experience in running or maintaining a server, then a managed VPS hosting solution takes some of the burdens off you. The various benefits and drawbacks of using managed and unmanaged hosting have been listed above.