Vps and Dedicated: Which hosting solution is best for your site?

You have been writing for a while and your blog is gaining attention. Each post takes a lot of time, and creating images to support your written content is not trivial. You expect a fairly high number of unique visits every time you post something new, and you get even more traffic from search engines that index your old content.

Everything we just mentioned adds to the increased load on your server, and as time goes on, you (and your visitors) will likely notice its performance drop.

What shall we do?

Is It Time To Upgrade Your Hosting Plan?
One of the first things to consider is upgrading the type of hosting you are using. If you're working with the shared hosting plan you had when you just started, it's probably time to consider switching to a VPS plan (or even a dedicated server).

In this article, we will take a closer look at both VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting. We'll cover their similarities and differences so you can decide which option is best for you when upgrading.

Determine Your Baseline
Before we dive into the differences between VPS hosting and dedicated servers, we wanted to talk about the basics of choosing a plan. In general, you will choose based on:

CPU core count (the more = faster)
How much RAM do you want
How much storage / disk space do you need (whether you want a faster SSD or a cheaper traditional option)
However, resource allocation on a server is only one consideration. You will also need to consider how many websites and blogs are allowed to use the server's resources.

Option 1: VPS Hosting Is Almost Exclusive
VPS is similar to shared hosting in that multiple websites share resources available on a single physical server. However, the difference between VDS and VPS hosting is the restrictions on who can use the resources.

The web host uses software designed to create separate virtual machines on a hypervisor or server. This strict separation protects you from your neighbors, but you may all be accessing a "shared" pool of resources (still remember that the server will be more powerful and less "populated" than the one used for shared hosting).

Also, the resource allocation is equally divided and one website cannot take advantage of the resources of the other (and vice versa). Think like an apartment owner. Everyone can decorate their home voluntarily, but they cannot tear down the walls and take over their neighbor's living room.

Option 2: (dedicated) Servers are All Yours
Dedicated servers, as the name suggests, are servers dedicated entirely to serving your blog (and your blog only). Basically you are given a free server and you can put whatever you want on it.

Generally speaking, web servers will offer several physical server configurations to choose from, but some will allow you to build a server that fits your specifications perfectly.

A dedicated server, with a shared plan (you have little or no control over your server environment) and a VPS option (you have some control over your environment, but there are still limitations imposed by your web hosting provider) just like you choose the hardware you buy , you have 100% control over the software installed on your server.

How Does VPS Hosting Compare to Dedicated Servers?
There are many similarities between VPS hosting options and dedicated servers.

Both options give you more control over your hosting environment, especially with regard to the software installed. Both options give you the option to purchase the features you need when it comes to hardware.

While this analogy is extremely simple, you can think of a VPS plan as a lightweight version of a dedicated server. A VPS plan is a shared plan but acts like a dedicated server. A VPS plan gives you the most premium hosting options, the chance to try a dedicated server for free.

Cost
Don't be surprised that VPS plans are cheaper than dedicated servers. When a web server can put multiple clients on a single server, it becomes less costly for each client.

We've seen VPS hosting packages as low as $ 70 per month to high-end options over $ 400 per month.

Extremely low quality dedicated servers will get you around 30 or 40 Turkish Liras per month, but a more realistic price for a quality offer is around £ 70 / month.

Managed and Unmanaged Options
One thing we haven't covered in the above description of VPS plans and dedicated servers is the work you need to do to set up, configure, manage and maintain your web hosting environment.

At one end of the spectrum, you are responsible for most things related to the server's software, the fully managed

There are plans that run (in case of a VPS plan, the host will provision your virtual machine and leave the rest to you).

At the other end of the spectrum are fully managed plans where the web host handles pretty much everything for you, you decide what you need or want, and the web hosting staff is responsible for setting up, configuring and maintaining everything.

Most web hosts tend to fall somewhere between these two extremes. You will need to talk to the web hosts you are interested in to see exactly what they offer (and what they don't offer). Managed hosts do not all operate the same or provide the same services.

In addition to thinking about how much of these administrative tasks you want to do on your own (and what you are comfortable doing), you will also need to consider your budget. No rule of thumb says how long managed services are running, but they do cost a lot (sometimes quite a lot).

Operating systems
We have mentioned that one of the advantages of upgrading from a shared hosting plan is having full control over the respective software. One of the biggest decisions you have to make concerns the operating system installed. Although you have options, the number of options you have is still somewhat limited. Linux and Windows options are common, but Macintosh is something unheard of.

Generally speaking, the Windows hosting choice will result in higher hosting fees. This is because Linux is open source and free to use, but Windows must be licensed from Microsoft for use.

Security
We've spent a lot of time talking about the flexibility and performance offered by VPS and custom plans in this article, but there is another reason you should consider these options: security.

In short, having your website hosted on its own means you don't have to worry about what your neighbors are doing (or what others are doing to your neighbors). For example, if you are on a shared hosting plan and your neighbors are the recipients of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, this attack will likely affect your site as well. With VPS or custom plans, your neighbors are unlikely to get you in any trouble.

However, if you need a high level of security, dedicated servers have the advantage as they are physically unique to you.

VPS and dedicated plans likely come with dedicated IP addresses (one is standard, but some hosts offer more). This makes your site less likely to be misidentified with another site, offers benefits for email marketing, and (along with an SSL certificate) offers security for payment processing when you open an e-commerce site.

Customer Service and Technical Support
Thanks to the overall higher costs of both plan types, you can expect to receive first-class customer service and technical support when it comes to VPS and dedicated hosting. Features will differ between hosts, but as a premium customer, you will have no trouble finding a hosting company willing to work with you with your questions, comments or concerns.

Good customer service is so common with this type of hosting that if you find a company that does not offer such services, we recommend that you do not go ahead and look elsewhere.

Don't Confuse With Other Hosting Types
You may notice that some hosts offer alternative types of hosting. Although they look similar to VPS or custom plans, they are quite different.

Cloud hosting is the practice of hosting your website on a set of linked servers instead of a single server. While this is costly, it includes multiple redundancy and easy scalability if anything happens to a single server. These plans are mostly preferred by large businesses and web applications rather than bloggers or e-commerce sites.
Semi-dedicated hosting, as the name suggests, is a shared hosting plan that is probably located on a much more powerful server than the cheapest option. But don't get confused, this is not a dedicated hosting option.
Which Option Is Best For You?
Now that we've covered the similarities and differences between VPS and dedicated hosting plans, which option should you choose?

Summary Comparison
Since you're probably already familiar with shared hosting plans, here is a summary of how VPS and dedicated hosting plans compare to them.

Shared Linux Hosting VPS Hosting Dedicated Hosting
Cost Lowest
(~ 30-40 TL / month) Wide Range
(~ 70-100 TL / month) Highest
(~ 2000 TL / month)
Technical Knowledge Required Lowest Low (managed) to High (unmanaged) Low (managed) to High (unmanaged)
System check Low High High
Server Sources

Shared with other customers Separated from other customers Separate machine for each customer
You Should Choose a VPS Hosting Plan if ...
Your blog is growing and you need better hosting, but price is a big concern.
If you cannot get sufficient technical support.
If you are not satisfied with the service.
If your server is slow and lazy opening pages.
If You Should Choose a Dedicated Server ...
You need the best of the best for your website, maximize RAM, support tons of visitors, build a resource-heavy website (think lots of videos and high resolution images).
You need the most secure type of hosting possible.
Special needs such as application development or other (non-blogging) situations.
Conclusion: Most Bloggers Choose VPS
For most bloggers, we can say and recommend VPS is probably the best value to upgrade from shared hosting. (However, we recommend you to check Affordable SSD Hosting.)

VPS and dedicated hosting options are expensive, but they offer unparalleled value for bloggers who exceed their dedicated hosting plans. You get what you pay for, and when you choose more expensive plans, you'll see improvements in performance and security.