How is VPS Hosting in Comparison to Dedicated Servers?

by Mihir Thakur Web Master

There are a lot of similarities between dedicated servers and VPS hosting. Both options offer you better control over your hosting environment, especially with respect to the software that is installed. In simplified terms, you can think of a VPS plan as a lighter version of a dedicated server. A VPS plan behaves like a dedicated server but is set up like a shared plan. A VPS plan offers you a chance to try out the most premium of hosting options without the cost of a dedicated server.

Cost

It is no surprise that VPS plans are cheaper than dedicated servers. When a web host can put numerous clients on a single server, they can charge less to each client.

We’ve seen VPS hosting plans as low as a $10 a month up to high-end options over $175 per month.

Extremely low-end dedicated servers might set you back about $30 or $40 per month, but a dedicated server at USA will be offering around $100/month (with the sky being the limit).

Operating Systems

As we have mentioned that one of the perks of upgrading from a shared hosting plan is to get full control over the software involved. One of the biggest decisions you will have to make is with regards to the OS that is installed. Though you have choices, the number of choices you have are still somewhat limited —Windows and Linux options are common, while Macintosh is unheard of.

Security

We’ve spent a lot of time in this article talking about the performance and flexibility offered by VPS and dedicated plans, but there’s another reason why you should consider these options: security.

In short, having your site hosted in its own space means that you do not have to worry about what the other users are doing or what others are doing to your neighbors. For example, if you are on a shared hosting plan and your neighbors (other users) are the recipient of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, well, that attack will likely affect your site as well.

However, if you have a heightened need for security, dedicated servers have the upper hand since client has the whole server for themselves.

Dedicated an VPS plans are likely to come with dedicated IP addresses. This makes it less likely that your site is misidentified with another site, offers security for payments handling if you have an e-commerce site advantages for email marketing.

Summary

Since you’re probably already familiar with shared hosting plans, here’s a summary of how Dedicated and VPS hosting plans compare to them.

You Should Choose a Dedicated Server If…

· You need the best of the best for your site — you want to max out on storage, RAM, support tons of visitors, server up a resource-heavy site (think lots of videos and high-resolution images).

· You need more security features to protect your data hosting.

· You have different needs that would be best met with a hosting environment that you configure — like app development or other (non-blogging) situations.

You Should Choose a VPS Hosting Plan If…

· When your blog is growing and the price is a major concern but you need a better hosting solution.

· You’re technically proficient, but not overly so (and managed services aren’t really in the budget).

· You need added resources, but not to the extent of purchasing a full server.

Conclusion

For most bloggers, we would advise to use VPS as it is probably the best value to upgrade from shared hosting.

Dedicated and VPS hosting options are expensive, but for bloggers who have outgrown their shared hosting plans, they offer unparalleled value. You get what you pay for, and when opting for more expensive plans, you will see increases in performance and security.