Whether you are going to build your website for the first time or looking to redesign it with the latest tools and features, you need to have a hosting plan with advanced options and features to help you in developing a state-of-the-art website. In this pursuit of finding suitable web hosting options, you will come across various web hosting options, but one of the most common ones are Shared hosting and VPS hosting. Overall, one cannot give a sweeping statement like one hosting option is better than the other because there are various things to consider. In this guide, the next sections will explain the major differences between shared hosting and VPS hosting.
What is the difference between VPS Hosting and Shared Hosting?
- Shared Hosting:
A physical server is the one that is shared between sites, and this is called shared hosting. It is the same as having an apartment in the building. It means that the physical server is the building, and apartments are given to different owners which means that the building is shared with different people. Similarly, the physical server is shared between different sites. So, the owners of these sites use this shared hosting server to build and run their websites.
One may think that shared hosting means a question mark on their privacy, but it is important to know that shared hosting does not mean that others on the server can see your data or information. The major element of shared hosting is that all users will be equally using a few physical resources provided by the server. The primary reason for sites to choose shared hosting is the affordability of the shared hosting plans. Shared hosting is much cheaper as compared to any other hosting plan. The shared hosting service providers tend to provide cheaper plans because they use a single shared server for different sites.
- VPS Hosting:
It is a kind of hosting service which is associated with the use of virtualization technology to provide a private resource for a site on a given server. It also gives access to multiple users, but all of them get dedicated and private server hosting. It is now commonly used by site owners, especially by the ones who run online stores, as well as the ones who deal with more website traffic.
Major Differences:
If you are developing your website for the very first time, it is always a difficult decision to make to choose suitable and affordable web hosting plans. If you are also looking for a suitable option, and want to know what are the major differences between shared hosting and VPS hosting, then look at the following differences:
- Reliability
Reliability is one of the major features of a hosting server that every website owner would love to have. Reliability is the thing that helps sites to work properly and with great efficiency. You won’t like to have a hosting plan, where your site may have network or loading issues. It is a great sigh of relief when the server is up and running smoothly. If the reliability of the server is not there, then it won’t have stability too, which you would never want with your site. It is important to know that both shared and VPS hosting can come up with these issues. However, a shared server has so many users on the same server, which means that the chances of having these issues increase. On the other hand, a VPS server is given to a few numbers of site users, and various features are also private and customized, which means that the VPS hosting server will be more reliable than the shared hosting server.
- Performance and Security
Security is the most critical feature for every website regardless of what kind of website is, and what purpose served by the website. So, when you would look for security, you would like to know how shared hosting and VPS hosting perform. As far as shared hosting is concerned, the security is less reliable when compared with VPS hosting because many users are on the same shared server, and one mistake from a user can put all other users at a security risk. Moreover, if one user is eating up too much bandwidth for their website, it may slow down the performance of your website. This can lead to more issues if your site has a high ratio of user traffic. On the other hand, when VPS hosting is much better in terms of performance and security. The bandwidth and resources are not shared between users, rather every user has dedicated resources, so they can optimize performance without facing any particular issues.
- Control
The control of your site is quite critical because if you would lose control, it would mean that your site will have various bugs and issues, which is never a good sign for the user experience of your valued customers. In this regard, shared hosting is not a considerable option, as you don’t have great control over the shared hosting plan. However, VPS hosting is quite dependable in having great control as you do have root access to the given hosting server. It means that you are not only able to install your software, and control panel but an operating system as well. So, you would have more optimization and control in managing your site with more efficiency and enhanced performance. The shared hosting has certain standard setups and plans, and you have to remain within those limitations.
- Pricing and Cost
Here is one major difference between shared hosting and VPS hosting, where shared hosting wins the competition by a great margin. It is vital to know that VPS hosting plans are quite expensive when compared with shared hosting plans. In a VPS hosting plan, a user will get more resources, dedicated server access, as well as, customization, which means that price will be up, costing more money. On the other hand, shared hosting comes with cheaper pricing plans because a single server is shared between so many users, and the burden is divided among all, so it is not costly at all. Therefore, it can be said that shared hosting is better in terms of pricing, and it is the most economical option if you are price sensitive.
What is the difference between Container VPS hosting and Linux VPS?
Earlier, we discussed the difference between VPS hosting and shared hosting, here we would be focusing on two types of VPS hosting, one is called Container VPS and the other is called Linux VPS. The major difference between Linux VPS and Container VPS is the software environment, which is used to start as well as run the entire system. When a user will be using a Linux VPS hosting, he will have a completely isolated software environment that helps him to manage OS kernel settings independently, as each user will get his own copy of the OS. The good thing about a Linux VPS is that you can get high performance because it is scalable so you can adjust it as per your needs and requirements. The performance of the site is also increased because Linux VPS provides a dedicated environment with given VPS hardware resources. The data backup is also available with the Linux VPS.
However, when a user will be using a Container VPS, it means that the major resources of the kernel are shared, and the containers are used to run the system. The entire virtualization package is arranged in a ‘container” on the host OS. The best thing about container VPS is that it has effortless and smooth operations as compared to Linux VPS. The next great thing about container VPS is that it is more flexible, which helps to use resources more effectively. In addition, the environment construction is also easy and simple so users don’t face any considerable issues. When you look for more bandwidth, and storage for your site, container VPS would be an ideal option to go with. The level of reliability and security is also dependable with container VPS.
What is a Storage server?
An organization may have a lot of data and files to store and manage, and this purpose is very much served by the storage server. The storage server is a kind of server that is used to store, manage, secure, as well as, access digital data and documents of an entity. The primary purpose of a storage server is to store small and large data files by using a shared network so that stored data can also be accessed later. It is not as powerful as a standard server can be, however, it is certainly a useful server having management utilities, data retrieval abilities, and more space for the storage of data.