Web hosting is an intangible service. It’s the polar opposite of a car, where you can easily compare an old Toyota Corolla to a shiny new Ferrari. You can look at each car, touch them and even smell the difference. With web hosting, the benefit of a higher performing hosting package can be hard to convey for web hosts, mainly because it’s difficult to demonstrate the benefits your website gets from choosing the premium option.
Just because you can’t see a difference between Shared hosting and VPS, it doesn’t mean they are equally capable.
Most website owners will be faced with two options when choosing web hosting: Shared web hosting or a Virtual Private Server (VPS). At Host Geek, Shared hosting starts at $5.50 whereas VPS plans start at $77. When faced with these prices, Shared hosting is the most popular option for obvious reasons. But is it really the best option for your business?
When is VPS a better option for your website?
There are numerous reasons for choosing the premium option of VPS over Shared hosting. We’ll discuss two or these today as they’re the most compelling reasons to go for VPS.
- If your website has extreme spikes in visitors then a VPS is a must if you don’t want your website to capitulate. For example, you could be planning on running a TV advertisement resulting in a lot of visitors. Don’t be confident that your website will run smoothly if you’re on a shared plan. With a VPS, you have your own virtual slice of a server so you can have all the website spikes you like, so long as you have sufficient bandwidth to deal with it.
- If security is crucial to your website then a VPS is a good option as you aren’t on the same server as lots of other websites. How many websites are on the internet that haven’t been updated for many years – lots, that’s how many. These websites pose a security risk and if their site gets hacked, so too can yours.
Further information about different hosting types.
To get a better understanding of the difference between Shared hosting and a VPS we suggest you take a look at this infographic that the Geeks produced. It’s a fairly simple way to get the facts without getting bogged down with too many geeky details.
Good luck with choosing your web hosting and remember, it’s not all about price. Choosing the cheapest option now could cost you a lot more money further down the track.
