What is VPS Hosting?
Having a website is critical if you want your business or personal brand to grow online. A strong online presence can help you find new customers or clients while also allowing you to show off your products or services. While simple single-page websites are often enough for many businesses, some websites need more complex options. In these cases, a regular hosting plan won’t always fit the bill. Instead, website owners will often need to upgrade their accounts to get the resources and power they need. VPS hosting allows these upgrades without forcing users to get a fully dedicated server.
What Does VPS Hosting Stand For?
VPS is an acronym for Virtual Private Server. It’s one of the most common online hosting options available, especially for small businesses. The main contribution to its popularity comes from its great mix of cost-effectiveness and resource allocation. Before VPS hosting was around, website owners had to either suffer the slowdowns of shared hosting or pay more for a dedicated server. VPS, however, offers a midline solution that many can take advantage of.
How Does VPS Differ from Other Hosting Options?
There are three main hosting options available: shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated server hosting. Here’s a small breakdown of each to help you fully understand the differences VPS options make.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is one of the cheapest hosting options available. However, it doesn’t allow for a lot of resources that many complex websites need. In a shared hosting plan, many websites share space on a server. This means they are sharing resources as well. Because of this, websites with more traffic or user interaction often suffer slow speeds and even downtimes. This can cause many businesses and brands to lose users and potential sales.
Dedicated Server Hosting
For companies that need more resources, dedicated server hosting offers those and more. With a dedicated server, you have the full server to yourself, meaning you don’t have to share resources with others. However, this option is the most expensive and isn’t often a choice for many smaller businesses. Dedicated servers also require additional time for both setup and maintenance, meaning there’s less time for owners to devote to other parts of their business.
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VPS Hosting
Virtual Private Server hosting is the perfect in-between for shared and dedicated hosting options. With VPS, owners are still sharing server space with others, but only a limited number of websites can be hosted on one server. By limiting the number of websites, each site hosted has a guaranteed number of resources available to them. This means that owners can save money by sharing the cost of a server without having to risk running out of the power they need for their website.
Who Benefits from VPS Hosting?
Nearly anyone can upgrade to a VPS package and start reaping the benefits, but it’s not always appropriate for every website. Moving to VPS when you don’t need it can cost you money you don’t have in your budget. At the same time, remaining in a VPS plan when you need even more resources can damage your online presence. VPS hosting is popular among small businesses with websites that need some extra support for user interaction and web traffic.
What to Consider When Upgrading
If you’re thinking about upgrading to a VPS package, make sure you consider all aspects of your website. Making the move without careful consideration can harm your website more than boost it. Whether you’re upgrading or downgrading to VPS, make sure you consider the following:
Budget
VPS hosting is a great middle ground for hosting options. It’s more expensive than shared hosting, but not nearly as expensive as a dedicated server. If you’re planning to upgrade to a VPS account, make sure you have room in your budget for it. If you’re thinking about downgrading to save costs, consider whether the loss of resources and potential slowdowns will impact your bottom line.
Web Traffic
The more people that visit your website, the more resources you’ll need to keep it running. Each connection takes power, and if you don’t have enough to spare, you may find yourself facing serious connectivity issues. If you’re thinking about moving to a VPS plan, check your web traffic stats to determine if that’s the best move. If you don’t have a lot of traffic, a shared hosting site might work just fine. If you have a bunch of web traffic, you may want to consider moving up to a dedicated hosting plan instead.
User Interaction
While web traffic is a major contributor to resource needs, so too is user interaction. Even if you have a smaller number of visitors, they are using resources each time they interact with your page. If you have user accounts, games, videos, links, or an online shop, you’ll likely need more power to support each user. When considering making the move to VPS, take a look at the complexity of your website. The more opportunities a user has to interact with your website, the better your hosting package needs to be to keep up.
VPS Hosting Options with HostForWeb
At HostForWeb, our business is here to help support your business. With fast, reliable hosting connections and dozens of third-party application integration options, our hosting plans can help you host the website of your dreams. With our available VPS hosting packages, you can take advantage of a shared server space while still maintaining the resources and power you need to support your website. If you’re ready to start hosting or are looking to upgrade to a VPS plan, you can browse our available options online or give us a call at 1-833-201-8322 for help with your account.
