The difference between Shared and VPS hosting

Yet another popular question from customers and webmasters, what is the difference between Shared and VPS hosting? Whilst we discussed the advantages of shared web hosting and the difference between virtual and dedicated servers, it is time to go through a “crash test” between shared and vps hosting.

The goal of this article is to introduce the Shared and VPS hosting to the “hosting newcomers” and then depict each hosting type’s pros and cons. In that way you will have a solid picture of these two services and hopefully you will be able to decide by your own why and when you should consider purchasing a Shared or VPS hosting service.

Shared Web Hosting allows multiple customers to share the resources of one server, so it is a very affordable solution to hosting websites. In most cases all accounts/websites on the server share the same IP. This has several drawbacks already because if a customer (that you don’t even know) on the same server sends out spam, the IP will become blacklisted and therefore all your emails will be blacklisted as well. Additionally, in the case that the single IP is the target of a DDOS attack, all websites hosted on that IP may be offline until the attack is blocked.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting is a method of hosting where multiple servers are running on a single hardware installation. This is achieved with some virtualization software that runs on top of the machines operating system. Other operating systems are then run on top of the virtualization software. Although a VPS will not guarantee you 100% resources on the machine, you will still have a higher degree of privacy and insulation than you would with a Shared Web hosting account.

So, lets go through the crash test between Shared and VPS Hosting. I am listing some factors that most people consider before purchasing a service. The winner of each factor is marked in bold.

Price (most affordable): Shared

Setup Lead Time: Shared (but depends on each company’s workflow and service level agreements)

Higher control of the server: VPS

More Resources (CPU, RAM): VPS

Good Server Administration without special knowledge: Shared

Best for low-traffic/simple sites and blogs: Shared

Best for e-Commerce, high traffic and sites requiring high-load scripts to run: VPS

Scalability: VPS

SSH/Root Access: VPS

Hi,

This "Good Server Administration without special knowledge" is not correct when it comes to managing servers...

I agree with you here, managed servers deny this statement

But managed service cost more and not provided by any host

Hm, disagree Injuction. A good hosting provider will provide Managed service as part of the SLA without any extra charges. Ofcourse this is dependent to the human resources and expertise of the support team of each hosting company.

There are many hosts offering Fully Managed Hosting services.

Shared Hosting comes with the required resources, however, if you need to install any 3rd party application, you must have VPS or a Dedicated Server. You also get remote access on VPS.

I would also like to add that if someone is hosting a site which is resource intensive, then I guess VPS would be a better choice as it would give you more flexibility on resource usages.

I agree with Matt. However, if it is resource intensive website, you must take care of not being suspended by the host. If your site uses more resources than expected, it is obvious to get suspended.

VPS - Virtual Private Server technology presents multiple isolated server environments on a single physical server. It uses its own disk space, RAM, CPU, IP addresses and it can be rebooted independently. Each VPS performs and executes exactly like a stand-alone server. In nearly every perspective you can see a VPS as if it?s a dedicated server.
Shared hosting - There are many clients on a single server and they share the resources of a web server.

Great guide for starters. Thank you for sharing it.

Thanks for the information. Good description.

So i think Shared hosting is good for static websites and VPS is best for interactive/dynamic websites.

Shared hosting is good for static websites and if you don't have to handle much traffic then its fine but If your site is quite big and u need to handle traffic then VPS is better than shared hosting.

great review very briefed detail thanks for shearing........

Shared hosting is used to host a new or basic website project with few visitors/ resources per month. As with the time the website expands and attracts many thousand visitors per month then a vps hosting comes in scene.