These days, web hosts are like mushrooms sprouting everywhere, all of them claiming to be the best. As such, it will be very hard for you to determine which one can really keep up to its promises. If finding the right host is not a big problem yet, wait until you get to the part where you have to choose among the different hosting types. You have to know the attributes of each hosting type and learn how everything works.
If you plan to launch an e-commerce website, then the free and shared types of hosting are automatically ruled out. These hosting types do not have enough power to handle heavy web traffic and an overwhelming amount of user requests. If your business is like a corporation as big as Microsoft, then you may want to buy your own server and opt for colocation instead. For small to medium-sized online businesses, the two best hosting options are VPS (Virtual Private Server) and dedicated. Which of the two is more fitting for the project you have in mind? To find out, let’s compare the features and capabilities of Dedicated hosting and VPS hosting.
Dedicated Hosting: The No-Holds-Barred Kind of Hosting
If there is only one user taking control over and utilizing the power of a single server, then that is dedicated hosting. In dedicated hosting, your host will give you one of the servers kept in their datacenters. There are two kinds of dedicated hosting, unmanaged and managed. If you choose to hire an authorized personnel from your hosting company to apply upgrades and maintain your server, then that is managed hosting. Meanwhile, if you wish to be the one to take care of your server to save some money, then unmanaged dedicated hosting is for you.
A website that expects heavy traffic and promises an interactive experience to its users need a dedicated server to survive. Dedicated hosting can provide very large amount of disk space, bandwidth, and a long list of web features that you can’t find in lower hosting account types. Since you don’t have to share valuable web resources with anyone, uptime performance is 100% guaranteed. Dedicated hosting even has a custom firewall that acts as a barrier for unauthorized access, giving hackers no opportunity to mess up with your website. For webmasters whose top priority are security, reliability, and stability but do not have the budget for a colocation service, then they should choose dedicated hosting.
VPS Hosting: The Hybrid of Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Let the truth be known: dedicated hosting is costly. However, this doesn’t make shared hosting a better option because its cheapness entails a list of undesirable characteristics. Hence, VPS is the best option.
VPS hosting is like the combination of shared and dedicated hosting. It has a quality of shared hosting since the server is shared by multiple users. However, it also has the characteristic of a dedicated hosting — it can provide the same features and perks found in dedicated hosting. This is because in VPS hosting, a single server has been partitioned using a specially designed software. The computer software makes it possible for each portion of a single server to supply power equal to the power a dedicated server can supply. This is called virtualization. Simply put, VPS hosting allows you to use dedicated hosting-like service at a lower price.
