Shared Hosting and VPS Hosting Performance
Many people, when they are faced with the creation of a website for the first time, and the time comes to decide on a hosting to host it, they find that they do not know very well what type of hosting they should hire: a shared hosting or a VPS server hosting.
Choosing a hosting according to your needs is very important since, for a small informative website, you will not need the same requirements as for an online store with thousands of products, for example.
Today I am going to explain the differences between shared hosting and a VPS, and it will be clearer for you which one you should choose according to your current needs.
Shared Hosting
Hosting or shared hosting is a type of service in which, on the same server, different websites from different clients are hosted. All these websites share server resources.
To understand it better, imagine that a server is an office building, in a shared hosting, your website would be in one of the offices of the building, and in the rest of the offices, the websites of the rest of the clients would be.
Although the different websites share a server and its resources, normally, they are usually protected so that they do not see or interfere with each other, so that privacy between clients is guaranteed.
Obviously, the prices of shared hosting are usually the cheapest, since the company can rent the use of the same server to several clients.
The prices between the different hosting companies vary depending on the resources of the server and the quality of the technical support that they offer to their clients. For this reason, it is normal to see shared hosting for €20 per year, and others for €150 per year, to give an example.
Although the recommendation for those who have a serious project in mind, however basic and small it may be, is that they not only look at the cheapest price (see the link I have put before).
What all shared hostings have in common is that they are managed by the company that offers them. In other words, you won’t have to worry about anything technical at the server level, only issues related to your website.
Who is shared hosting for?
A shared server is ideal for anyone who is starting their project, or who has been with it for a while but still does not consume excessive resources to consider a superior option.
In other words, shared hosting is ideal for the vast majority of website owners, in my opinion. As the web grows, receiving more visits, and consuming more resources… it can be migrated to another more powerful server when the shared one falls short.
But first, shared hosting is the option I recommend to everyone.
Within this type of hosting, there are those that can withstand 100,000 monthly visits without problems, so imagine for the vast majority of websites, that they never reach those numbers.
VPS server
The VPS server consists of virtually dividing a server so that each of the divisions acts as a single and independent server.
The name VPS comes from Virtual Private Server, or in Spanish, Virtual Private Server.
Continuing with the previous example, imagine the same office building where each office was a shared hosting. Well, in this case, a VPS would be one of the floors of the building.
When you hire a VPS, you are renting an entire floor, and you have all the offices on that floor at your disposal to store all your websites on each of them, or even host a large website that occupies the entire floor.
The prices of VPS servers, obviously, are more expensive than those of shared servers, since you have more space inside the server, and, for practical purposes, it is as if you had a server for yourself (albeit virtually).
Here you can find yourself in two situations: that the company that offers the hosting is in charge of managing and administering the server, or that it only offers you the server and you have to be in charge of administering it. These seconds are usually cheaper.
To choose the second option it is necessary to have knowledge of server administration or the telephone number of someone who knows. So if you do not have a father, you will have to either look for a managed VPS or hire a system administrator to take care of that task.
Who is VPS hosting for?
VPS hosting is ideal for people who already have projects running and receiving a large number of visits, and, therefore, shared hosting falls short.
Whether it is a large website or many medium / large websites, for these cases, shared hosting is not an option because more resources are needed than any shared hosting offers.
Personally, I would not recommend a VPS server to anyone who is starting their website with little or no traffic, because you would be paying a higher price that you do not really need. It can already be an online store with hundreds of products, and if you’re just starting out, you don’t need a VPS.
As I mentioned before, if your project grows and it turns out that your shared server becomes too small in the future, you can migrate it to a VPS without any problem, and then it would make sense to hire it.
Conclusion
Well, now that you know the differences between shared hosting and a VPS, you will be able to better decide which one is best for you to hire for your projects.
If you have just started, go for a shared one that has a minimum quality, if you do not want to eat a lot of problems to save a few euros a year.
And if you already have a tour and you see that the shared one is falling short, you can consider going for a VPS server, whether it is managed or unmanaged will depend on your technical skills 😉