Shared hosting vs. VPS hosting; which is a better type of website hosting?

1 comment Published on April 11th, 2016

In choosing a website hosting service, most website owners usually consider several website hosting features such as affordability, scalability, reliability, security and level of restrictions website-hosting service providers offer to their users. Web owners should also consider their website inherent features and needs. Shared website hosting services are perceived to be most suitable for establishments whose websites generate low to medium range of traffic and who are comfortable with the level of control exercised by the hosting provider. On the other hand, institutions whose websites generate heavy traffics and support custom applications mostly welcome VPS hosting.

In order to understand shared and VPS hosting, we shall be discussing the advantages, disadvantages and comparison between these website-hosting packages. This will also help to mold your decisions and give you a better insight on which is a better website hosting package.

Shared website hosting

The following are the advantages and disadvantages of shared website hosting.

Advantages:

  • It is the cheapest available web hosting service.
  • It is very convenient for individuals who are not competent in setting up their own servers.
  • It is easy to share resources within this platform.
  • The service provider conducts all technical maintenances on the server.
  • It is a good choice for personal and small-business websites.

Disadvantages:

  • There are restrictions on what you can do in your account.
  • If the module or program needed to run your site is not available among the shared resources, you may be unable to install such program.

VPS website hosting

The following are the advantages and disadvantages of VPS website hosting.

Advantages:

  • It is most suitable for institutions that have technical skills in site management.
  • It gives organizations control over the allocation of hosting resources.
  • It is highly recommended for websites with large amount of traffics.

Disadvantages:

  • It is costly to run.
  • It requires high-tech experts to operate and maintain.

In order to make the right choice between shared hosting and VPS hosting, we have compared the striking features of the above types of webhosting:

Features Shared hosting VPS hosting
Platform Shared hosting platforms offer Linux or Windows users a basic level of file system management and compartmentalization. VPS hosting platforms offers its subscribers Open-VZ and Xen-Linux virtualization.
Resources All resources especially hardware are been shared by different server users, and limit to software usage and installations are being imposed and monitored by the admin. Virtual Private Server’s resources such as disk space and memory are allocated to users independent of other allocations on the same hardware.
Scalability The level of resource allocations within shared hosting services range from minimal to unlimited resources. However, all users are subject to restrictions. VPS has an extensive scalability features. If you intent to acquire a small space just for your e-mail server or a huge space to support huge data applications, programs or manage huge traffic, VPS can easily provide for that.
Choice The service provider is making most choices within this service such as operating system choice and software installation choice. Users are free to choose from over 30 Linux operating system templates and can install any software of their choice.
Security Shared hosting users face several security issues and vulnerability threats from malicious users and hackers. VPS has better security features since it offer independent file systems and better surety configurations.

 

From all indications, it is evident that VPS web hosting is a better fit for organizations, institutions or business establishment, and Shared web hosting for most personal or small-business websites with a low budget.