Should You Opt for VPS or Dedicated Server?

Most businesses or organizations first opt for shared hosting (since it’s the cheapest), but once they see traffic growth, many decide to switch to a more professional hosting type, which leads them to choose between VPS and dedicated hosting. These hosting options are much more powerful and capable of handling a growing community of visitors or customers. However, the question remains: which hosting option is better suited for a specific case scenario?

In this article, we will explore what hosting type — VPS or dedicated server for rent — is suitable for you, and explain the reasoning behind it.

VPS Overview

VPS or a virtual private server implies that you get a portion of a physical server with dedicated resources assigned to you. VPS allows you to have full administrative access and control over the server — something you won’t find with shared hosting. Administrative access means that you can install any software on your server and configure it the way you need.

However, virtual private servers don’t provide the resources of the whole server to just one user; instead, they use a virtual partition to separate multiple environments between users, ensuring that each gets their specific share of resources.

Basically, with VPS, you get the same dedicated resources but only a lesser amount of them. Besides, if you’re looking for a flexible and scalable hosting solution, VPS would be the right fit for you.

Pros of VPSs

• Affordability: VPSs are more affordable than dedicated servers since you pay only for the server capacity that you use.
• Scalability: Virtual private servers make it much easier to increase or decrease the resource capacity, ensuring that you don’t pay for space and power that you don’t need.
• Enough power: VPSs are powerful enough to sustain considerable amounts of traffic and processing.
• Management: In most cases, virtual private servers come in pre-configured packages, which are then managed by a hosting provider.

Cons of VPSs

• Insufficient autonomy: Virtual private servers offer a separate environment but still within a shared physical server.
• Might require upgrading: If a website hosted with VPS has an increasing amount of traffic, an upgrade in server resources might be necessary.
• Limited server control: Considering that VPS still implies sharing the resources of a physical server, the authority over a server given to users is limited.

VPS hosting is usually priced in the range between $5 to $100 a month, depending on the additional services included in the package.

Dedicated Server Overview

Hosting with dedicated servers is considered to be a top-tier hosting option since one gets a whole physical server for themselves. Dedicated servers allow customizing both the software and hardware parts of the server, giving users complete control over server configuration. With that comes the responsibility for managing the server.

Dedicated server hosting is a common choice for businesses of different sizes that need a reliable server infrastructure for their websites, projects, or applications. While a dedicated server can provide power and robust security to the projects it hosts, it is rather expensive. So, evaluating how much you require dedicated server resources and whether you’re going to use all of them is a must.

Pros of Dedicated Servers

• Complete autonomy: You get a whole physical server to yourself.
• Better performance: Dedicated servers offer the best performance possible in the hosting sector.
• Full server control: With dedicated servers, you get full control over the server, both software and hardware parts of it, which allows you to configure the whole server the way you need.
• Stronger security: Since you don’t share a dedicated server with anybody, you get better security by default.

Cons of Dedicated Servers

• Higher cost.
• Technical knowledge is required to manage the server by yourself.

Prices for dedicated server hosting can reach $500 a month, depending on the package.

Differences Between VPS and Dedicated Servers

Scalability

A VPS is highly flexible, due to the virtualization technology it uses. With VPS, you can easily add or reduce resources to match your objectives.

A dedicated server is much less flexible than a VPS. In many cases, to successfully configure the server you need to replace certain hardware components, which is not an easy task for somebody with no knowledge or experience.

Customization

A VPS provides fewer customization options, but the process of customizing the server is easier, and often managed by a hosting provider.

A dedicated server provides almost unlimited customization capacity, which extends to the server hardware; however, a skilled professional is likely to be required to perform customization.

Performance

A VPS offers lower performance metrics compared to a dedicated server, but it often is enough for most tasks.

A dedicated server offers the maximum level of performance on the market. It also provides high loading speed and little to no downtime with proper configuration.

Security

A VPS is a fairly secure hosting option. As far as the software goes, you can install any security software on VPS; however, having to share a server with other users still makes it vulnerable to threats from the outside.

A dedicated server is more secure than VPS because it offers its user a fully isolated environment, with no other users involved.

Which Server to Choose for Hosting?

The choice between a VPS and a dedicated server is a hard one but should be made in consideration of the project you want to host on the server and what it needs.

VPS hosting is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses and organizations that need their website to run smoothly with minimal downtime. With VPS, minimal downtime can be achieved through upgrading the resources on the hosting plan if traffic increases, ensuring that the server can handle the incoming load. Virtual private servers are also suitable for those who want a degree of customization but lack the technical knowledge to handle a server on their own.

Dedicated server hosting is more suitable for enterprise-level websites, e-commerce businesses, and resource-demanding applications. If you already get a lot of traffic and are looking for a better hosting solution, we recommend going with a dedicated server to ensure no irregularities in server functioning and proper load management. Some hosting providers also offer the option of managed dedicated servers if you don’t want to handle server configuration by yourself or don’t have a specialized team for it.