Shared hosting is great for small websites with low traffic volumes but once your needs or ambitions begin to grow, its limitations can hold you back. The next logical step, both in terms of capability and cost, is a virtual private server (VPS).
Offering the same benefits as a mini dedicated server but significantly less expensive, it’s the affordable solution to take your services to the next level. Here are 10 reasons to consider VPS hosting.
- Far more resources, dedicated to you
VPS provides a significant hike in the amount of disk space, CPU and RAM when compared to a shared hosting account. This means you can undertake more processes, run more applications and handle far more traffic.
What’s more, a VPS acts like a dedicated server: all the resources are only for your use – they are not pooled among a group of customers as happens with a shared hosting plan. - Exceptional reliability
As your VPS is totally separate from and doesn’t share resources with any other virtual servers housed on the same hardware, It’s more reliable than shared hosting. The processes carried out by other customers cannot affect your own. Your website won’t slow down, therefore, if other customers are experiencing traffic hikes or running resource-hungry apps of their own. - Better performance
A VPS provides you with much improved performance. The increase in processing power and capacity enables your website to load quicker on browsers, something which has been shown to enhance user-friendliness, increase conversions and help your site rank higher in search engine results.
It also means you’ll be able to carry out more processes, perhaps running new apps that you’ve not had the capacity to run before. These will also run quicker and impact less on your other operations. For example, your website won’t go sluggish while you are backing up large quantities of data. - Application freedom
One of the biggest restrictions of shared hosting is that you are stuck with the operating system the web host decides to use. This is not the case with VPS where you can use the OS that is most suitable for the operations you need to carry out.
That freedom extends to other applications too. To ensure fair use on shared hosting plans, many hosts prevent users from deploying resource-hungry apps that can affect other customers. As your VPS is an independent server, you can run any applications you want. - Managed services
While a VPS offers a step up in terms of capability, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to learn all the technical skills required to manage the server. The majority of hosting providers will offer a managed VPS where they will carry out the technical aspects for you. This will include maintaining and updating hardware, virtualisation software and the operating system, as well as applying security patches. - Server monitoring
Moving from shared hosting to an isolated VPS server offers a far more secure form of hosting. However, vigilance against cybercriminals remains essential no matter what form of hosting you use. A good VPS provider will monitor your virtual server and its physical hardware to ensure any threats are detected and stopped before they can inflict damage, this includes threats like hacking, malware, ransomware and DDoS attacks. - Root access
For obvious reasons, you can’t have root access to a shared server as it needs to be configured and maintained for the use of all the customers who share it. As the VPS isn’t shared, you can have root access, enabling you to configure your server in the way you need and have increased control over all your application installations. What’s more, all these actions can be carried out easily using your control panel. - Host multiple domains
Hosting multiple domains on a shared hosting account can cause issues. Running several domains on one account dilutes the resources you have; while opening a separate account for each domain is more expensive and makes managing the domains more complicated. VPS gives you significantly more resources, making it far more suitable to host multiple domains on a single account. - Secure and reliable cloud backups
Regularly backing up your server and data is essential if your business wants to recover quickly from a disaster. Your VPS hosting provider should offer a flexible backup solution where you can schedule automated backups as often as your business requires. It will also ensure that the backups are reliable and secure. Solutions, such as R1Soft, will let you back up your entire VPS server to the cloud for easy and quick disaster recovery. - Expert technical support
Whatever type of hosting you use, having 24/7 technical support on tap is essential to ensure you have an expert on hand to deal with any issues. This is particularly important when upgrading to VPS, not because VPS is technically challenging but simply because it will be unfamiliar to start with and you will be using it to do things that you’ve never been able to do before.
Conclusion
If shared hosting is holding back your business, VPS is the affordable way to upgrade. Providing many features of a dedicated server, together with managed services, cloud backups and technical support, it’s the ideal next step for companies wanting to expand their IT capabilities.
If you are considering VPS, take a look at our Linux VPS and Windows VPS packages.