Shared Web Hosting and VPS Hosting Compared

By Web Hosting Help Guy

When choosing a web hosting plan, one important decision you must make is whether to go with shared web hosting, VPS hosting, or a dedicated server. This article will focus on the differences between shared web hosting and VPS hosting. We’ll compare VPS hosting and dedicated servers in our next article.

VPS hosting, or virtual private server hosting, is like having a dedicated server with its own operating system, software, and resources. However, multiple VPS accounts share physical resources, which are separated by virtual partitions.

In shared hosting, many websites reside on the same server. They are not partitioned in the same way as a VPS, and generally use a common IP address. A shared server recognizes each site that uses a common IP address by a unique hostname.

On a VPS hosting plan, each account holder typically has guaranteed access to a minimum specified level of resources, including RAM, disk space, bandwidth, and CPU time. On a shared server, each account holder can use available resources, but there isn’t any software system to guarantee that resources will be available at any given time or distributed in any particular way. However, if a user exceeds certain usage limits frequently or for a sustained period of time, a good system administrator can detect this and the account owner will be asked to fix the issue, or to upgrade to a “bigger” plan, VPS hosting plan, or dedicated server.

Although there are many variations among both shared and VPS hosting plans, there are a number of basic differences between these two types of hosting as configured by most web hosting providers.

Email Server

With VPS hosting, you have your own email server that handles only email from your domain. This allows greater control, increased performance and additional security. Since the email will be coming from a unique IP address, it also helps ensure proper delivery. In addition, because you can install and configure software on a VPS, you can integrate your email with sophisticated mailing and tracking applications.

Furthermore, for shared hosting, all accounts use the same mail server, and bad behavior by one account can potentially cause problems for all the accounts that share that IP address. If you are considering shared hosting, make sure your web hosting provider has policies in place to help eliminate that risk and manage the situation if it does occur.

Platform Control

You have your own operating system and software on a VPS. You can install, configure and upgrade any software compatible with the operating system on your VPS – something you cannot do on a shared server. However, your hosting provider may provide limited or no support for non-standard software that you have installed on your VPS.

Good hosting providers will not upgrade the software on shared servers to the latest version until that version has been out for some time and is firmly established as bug-free and stable. If you want to have the latest version of software on your server, or if you have customized an existing version of software to your needs and want to continue running that customized version, VPS hosting may be more suitable.

Security

On a shared server, the firewall is configured by the hosting company; with a VPS from a good hosting company, you have full control over the firewall and can customize it to your needs. You dictate what services are accessible by what IP addresses. For example, you can restrict access to sensitive areas (such as the control panel) to specific IP addresses, so that only someone in your office can get access to these areas.

With shared web hosting, email (POP/SMTP/IMAP/Web Mail) must be accessible through both secure and non-secure connections. VPS hosting allows you to require that your employees access their email through a secure socket layer (SSL) connection. This helps ensure that logins and passwords are encrypted and can help prevent hackers from obtaining that information while in transit.
Shared servers also generally do not scan all incoming emails for viruses, as this is a resource-intensive process that can degrade the performance and reliability of the server. On a VPS, you can decide whether or not to enable server-side virus scanning.

Performance

Other things (such as server capacity and processing speed) being equal, VPS hosting generally performs better than shared hosting for resource-intensive applications. With VPS hosting, you have much more control, and can therefore optimize your settings and usage patterns for your specific needs. If you have heavy website or email traffic requirements, or if you will be running applications such as podcasting, streaming video, social networking, etc., VPS hosting is most likely the better choice.

Of course, any server can be overloaded, and VPS hosting has a very unique solution to this.

With shared hosting, moving your website, database and files can be very time consuming and error prone. Email settings usually have to be changed. It can be painful. Transitioning from one VPS to a larger (or smaller) VPS can usually be done instantly without any downtime, simply by changing a configuration setting to accommodate your needs. This instant scalability of VPS hosting is something you should consider if you anticipate growth.

Conclusion

Thus, it is clear that VPS hosting offers many advantages: greater control, a higher level of security, and superior performance for resource-intensive websites. It is generally an affordable option for small and medium-sized businesses, and provides excellent value for a relatively small investment.

The biggest advantage of a shared server is that it is even more economical. It may be the best choice for your small business if cutting expenses is a top priority. A shared server may be a good option if your hosting requirements are simple and you don’t need the ability to control and customize your server.

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