Why is it Worth Choosing a VPS?

With the technology advance and the variety of hosting types on the market sometimes it’s hard to make the right decision. Starting with the easiest options – drag-and-drop builders, moving to Shared Hosting, the VPS server is in the middle between basic options and the most advanced such as Dedicated servers. The VPS servers are considered to be a more high-end product competing with the Dedicated servers and Cloud offering similar advanced management options at a reasonable price. For those who feel that they need something more substantial than Shared hosting, the VPS is a great option to grow their capacity and try managing a more complex solution.

So let’s take a look at what’s inside of VPS technology and how one can benefit from using this type of hosting.

VPS as a technology

The VPS abbreviation stands for a Virtual Private Server. Sometimes, it’s also possible to meet the term Virtual Dedicated server that means the same thing. Talking about its structure, there is one physical machine that with the help of virtualization techniques can divide it into smaller independent instances isolated from one another. Since the hardware is shared, it’s called a virtual server but it performs the same functions as a dedicated server offering full access to the system. Compared to the other types of hosting we can outline the following VPS advantages:

Extended Flexibility

When your business is expanding, you may feel the lack of resources such as disk space, RAM, and CPU. Plus, this type of hosting usually has the bandwidth or traffic limitations. This may bring your website down during the most crucial moments such as promo, holidays, or other important events.  It’s possible to get transferred to a more powerful plan. With the Dedicated server, it takes much more time as usually scaling means purchasing a new server or additional hardware, which is reflected indeed in high prices. With the VPS scaling is easy since from a master node the resize or adding additional server capacity is performed in several clicks when you notice in statistics usage that it’s time to upgrade and initiate it. Often VPS comes with the resource reserves known as server burst that allocates a definite amount of resources to your server.  Unlike with Cloud where the resources are provided automatically and there’s no limit, however, the final monthly bills may be an unpleasant surprise, with the VPS you always know and control the resources you are paying for.

All Power Is In Your Hands

The great VPS feature is full server access. With the root-level access, you unlock all the server power and control everything. Starting from installing your own monitoring tools, setting up core system features such as MySQL and PHP versions, web-server and custom software, creating separate virtual environments for your customers, and providing them with the different access levels ( i.e. giving them sudo rights that are not possible on shared hosting).  In addition, you can change your OS, and install other add-ons that are available to you at any time and you don’t need to wait for the server maintenance for the updates initiated by your hosting provider that sometimes may happen in the wrong time, you decide when to upgrade the components with the minimum impact on your end-users. VPS empowers you to perform specific customizations for your website, install additional non-standard modules, and increase the protection levels of the server that leads us to the next point.

Increased Server Security and reliability

Having their own isolated virtual environment Even cheap VPS plans owners can breathe easy since they do not depend on their virtual neighbors. With the shared hosting, it’s not the case, since despite having your own ‘cage’ other users who share the server with you can get into troubles that translate into poor website reputation, a negative impact on SEO results if the same IP address is used for not very trustworthy websites, email blacklists and even the unexpected downtimes in case of abusive activity of your neighbors. You can also manage the default ports state and close the most vulnerable to strengthen your security.  Moreover, having the root access, it’s possible to install custom Firewalls and Anti-Malware software to make the server more protected and not limit the server to the default measures offered on shared hosting.

Backup options

While there exist a lot of external backup solutions offered by your provider and usually backup services are applicable for all the hosting types, when it comes to the VPS, it’s the most common case to use it for your backup storage. You can save more when it comes to storing big-size projects compared to external cloud solutions. Even if you plan to use your VPS for the website, not the backups, with this type of hosting it becomes easier to set up an automatic backup. You can store them locally as the VPS possesses higher disk capacities than shared hosting or set up the transfer to your third party storage if you prefer not to keep all the eggs in one basket. And the process is simplified by the fact that you control the opened ports required for the incoming and outgoing connection to ensure the security of your data.

Server management

VPS hosting may seem to be difficult to manage for non-tech-savvy people. Here’s where the hosting provider steps in. Almost all the providers offer a certain level of management provided to the server. It involves the setup and monitoring of the core services by the professionals who know the system from the inside and are able to provide the best solutions based on the given physical server capacity and network setup. Besides, it’s a great choice for small businesses and solopreneurs who are not ready to invest in a dedicated external specialist who would manage the server operations. Some providers also offer the initial setup, one-time server optimization per request, and emergency assistance when the hosting specialists are ready to step in to recover the server and give the support advice even if you are not ordering the management on the regular basis.  Depending on the nature of your operations though, it may be necessary to hire an external person to manage your server and update your website. However, in most cases, the management options suit the most common scenarios when you need someone to look after your server.

Takeaways

That being said, there are a lot of reasons for choosing VPS hosting. The balance of price and the resources you get with it makes it a really attractive offer when you need to host a website or an application since with this type it’s easy to plan future growth of your business before you are ready to move further. In some cases when you are developing your capacity it’s not clear whether it makes sense to invest more into a dedicated server and whether it’s necessary overall.

VPS Hosting allows you to try enjoying all the benefits of your own server including the advanced security, isolated environment, and the highest level of control without breaking the bank. It’s also possible to scale when there’s a need.

So if you are looking for the balance of cost and resources, the VPS is definitely your choice.