Dedicated or VPS, what is the best option?

[Grover]

I am looking for some hosting package for my website and need to know whether I need to go for Dedicated Server or VPS.

Here are some of my requirement I need to have in my website.

1. Create wildcard sub-domains
2. Unlimited domains hosted
3. Run a forum with more than around 5 thousand members

The server load should not be too high and my other host did not support wildcard sub-domains that made me think to switchover the services.

What do you people suggest? Waiting for some good suggestions.

[Pete]

In my opinion Dedicated Server will suit you perfectly, VPS will breakdown with so much of load and you will not get the desired performance.If you want the best performance, go for the best i. e Dedicated Servers. Lets see what Web Hosting UK people advice you?

[Dan]

Hi Grover,

Will the 5,000 members be on at one time? If so I would recommend a dedicated server. A semi-dedicated server would be your better option for anything lower than around 1,000 on at one time.

[nickgrnt]

According to your requirements, i think a linux vps package will work fine. As all the vps servers are as good as dedicated servers with a cost effective solutions as compare to dedicated hosting. Linux VPS offers a superior connectivity to make sure that your heavy load websites functions properly without any server issues.

however, if your realize that your visitors and members are increasing and going beyond limits then you can easily upgrade to a dedicated server.

[IanSmithISA]

Good afternoon

Unfortunately generic words like VPS and dedicated server can be very misleading, most hosts don't simply have one model of pc and offer it as a dedicated server or have it running n VPSs.

You might getter better performance with a VPS rather than a dedicated server, the reason being that the VPS server will probably be more powerful than the dedicated server that you would buy. Generally the hard disc is the weakest point of a VPS as it is the most shared item, so a VPS server may have a better spec drive than the cheapest dedicated server.

If site disc bound and your load occurs at a different time to the other users of that VPS then you will be able to take advantage of this power, of course the reverse is true and your VPS could suffer.

If you forum usage is typical then I would expect a 1GB VPS, Linux or Windows according to your preference would be fine. Most of the forums work will be serving up simple pages and reading the same few posts out of a database. With 1GB it is very likely that pretty much all the posts will be able to be cached in RAM, so the disks only use is to store the new posts.

Now for a nice controversial question, if the event of problems whose server gets fixed first, yours because its dedicated to you or the VPS because its hosting multiple customers?

Bye

Ian

[Wilby]

I don’t think that VPS will give you the performance that is needed for the kind of service you are planning to provide on your site. Because when the traffic increases then there will be a connection issue or may be a big problem. I would suggest you to go for a fully managed dedicated system with at least 1gb ram and quad core processors.

[Pongers]

Originally Posted by IanSmithISA

Good afternoon

Now for a nice controversial question, if the event of problems whose server gets fixed first, yours because its dedicated to you or the VPS because its hosting multiple customers?

Bye
Ian

Well, it all depends on your webhost how fast they can reply to your hosting issues no matter whether you have a high specification server or a cheap shared hosting package, some webhost may give higher priority for dedicated servers owners as compare to other hosting account owners lol

[Wright]

Originally Posted by IanSmithISA

Good afternoon

Now for a nice controversial question, if the event of problems whose server gets fixed first, yours because its dedicated to you or the VPS because its hosting multiple customers?

Ian

I somewhat agree to you Ian.But this is a scenario when you land up choosing an unprofessional web hosting provider. Most of the reputed web hosts give equal importance to customer issues,no matter if he owns a shared or a dedicated server.
Also,the time taken to rectify issues vary according to the severity of the problem.
So this would be unjust to state about whose problem gets more preference to solve.

[WH-Garry9]

WHUK has separate departments when it comes to Support. Hence, if you are on a shared hosting package, you can contact the Linux or Windows technical support department according to the hosting platform you have for the hosting package

There is a separate department for customers of Dedicated servers i.e. Linux dedicated server department and Windows Dedicated server department and you can contact a specific department according to the hosting platform you have for your server.

Hope this helps...

[Grover]

OK, we are going to offer our users the ability to use their domains with a website builder that we are developing. Max to max, there will be around 900 domains.

We get around 1500 unique visitors a day, currently the database it just 83mb.

[WH-Garry9]

Originally Posted by Grover

OK, we are going to offer our users the ability to use their domains with a website builder that we are developing. Max to max, there will be around 900 domains.

We get around 1500 unique visitors a day, currently the database it just 83mb.

Well, as you are looking to host 900 domains and you will get approximately 1500 unique visitors a day on your website, I would suggest you to consider a higher configuration dedicated server.

Otherwise, you can consider a dedicated server for hosting the domains and a VPS or a Semi-dedicated server for your website.

If your requirements increase in future, you always have an option to upgrade your server at any point of time

[Roger]

A VPS can easily bare this load and is fine for the requirement you have listed, going for the dedicated server is not a good choice at the first, in between if you feel that your VPS is breaking down you can upgrade to the dedicated server by paying the difference

[WH-Garry9]

Originally Posted by Roger

A VPS can easily bare this load and is fine for the requirement you have listed, going for the dedicated server is not a good choice at the first, in between if you feel that your VPS is breaking down you can upgrade to the dedicated server by paying the difference

Well, I don't think a VPS would be able to bear the load of 900 domains and another domain which gets 1500 hits per day. However, this also depends on the resources used by 900 domains.

If the domains will be added one by one then you can surely consider a VPS and check if it is fine for your requirements. When your requirements increase in future, you can upgrade your VPS at any point of time and choose a Semi-dedicated server or a dedicated server as per your requirements.

[LeifNisaan]

900 domains are not possible on a VPS. It might not even be possible on just 1 dedicated server depending on the performance/coding of the web-builder applications.

Only you will know the "track" of your application, but IMO online web-builders in PHP with MySQL backends tend to "need" around 1Gb of ram in order to perform, so a decent high-end VPS *may* meet the requirements but you will outgrow it soon enough - so a dedicated server suits your requirement.

[Katie]

It actually depends on the resource usage of each domain. However, as you are looking to have a sitebuilder and there are some other applications also, I would suggest you to choose a Semi-dedicated server or a dedicated server for better performance.