Anyone who has an internet business, starting from people with a simple web page to a larger company such as a virtual store needs a web hosting service, regardless of how many times is your domain accessed.
The question that needs to be asked is whether your website needs shared hosting, a VPS or a dedicated server, depending on the resource usage.
In terms of architecture, there are not a lot of differences between a VPS and a dedicated server, only the size of the resources allocated and the way they are assigned (directly or virtualized), but the same can’t be said about a shared web hosting package.
Shared hosting is a very cheap and ideal solution for small entrepreneurs. It’s cheap because unlike a single VPS or a dedicated server, shared hosting accounts are shared, meaning resources are shared also. The problem with shared hosting is that resources cannot be divided evenly, and this is what the hosting provider deals with, to a lesser or greater extent. A shared host does not guarantee that your site will run under all conditions if you have too many visitors, because it is shared and everyone has to share the same server, which implies CPU consumption and memory ram. This applies everywhere: no matter how much traffic and unlimited space you have, it does not mean you have unlimited resources.
On a VPS things are entirely different. The advantage of a VPS server is the exact distribution of server resources to a single VPS. Which means you know exactly what you bought, how many visitors can you have on your website and what are its limitations.
The main features of a VPS are:
1. Container isolation (HDD).
With a VPS, even if you do not have hundreds of GBs as on a dedicated server, absolutely all free space and current files are entirely isolated from other users. Isolation is done either at software level or using Xen technology, which is more advanced and secure. What should be mentioned is that, on a VPS, your space will be entirely disconnected from the “neighbors” and access can only be made by the user. This feature prevents the risk of spreading viruses or breaches by hackers through poorly designed software.
2. Root access (full access to the server).
Whether you are talking about a virtual private server (VPS) or a dedicated server, your access to the machine is unlimited, which means you can install applications, run applications, and even browse the Internet through the server. It’s like staying on your home computer only that the assigned role for the server is serving potential customers and visitors to your sites. In addition, some more demanding scripts require specific server settings, and in the case of shared hosting you might not have enough privileges, because you are in a common container with other clients.
3. CPU (processor) cores.
On a dedicated server, we can install virtualization software that splits the server resources into a group of VPS. We can create as many VPS as we want, as long as the total resources do not surpass the physical capacity of the dedicated server. Meaning that if you want, you can always upgrade the resources on your VPS without needing a team to upgrade your VPS physically.
4. Random-access memory (RAM).
Ram memory plays another critical role when choosing a quality VPS. All web applications such as WordPress, Joomla, PhpBB require a lot of RAM memory. The more websites you have (or web apps) installed, the more memory will be needed. In addition, a KVM VPS also offers swap memory (additional memory that increases RAM memory in case of overload).
5. Reinstall the operating system at any time.
This is another advantage on a dedicated server or a Virtual Private Server. Because sometimes we need to reinstall the operating system for various reasons, this task is done automatically or by communicating with the technical department.