VPS vs Traditional Web hosting – pros and cons

If you want to start a website, then you need a web hosting service. Without the web hosting service your website would be non-existent. All the data that is needed for the website to show online is stored in the host. There are many options available for web hosting, which makes it difficult to choose one. Today is a world of tight budgets, and almost everybody including big companies to personal websites are looking for new and efficient ways to cater to their web hosting needs. There was a considerable amount of change in the web hosting world with the introduction of cloud hosting which opened the door to new possibilities, but people still tend to rely on traditional web hosting and VPS. Making a decision between the two can be quite confusing, so in this article we have compared the pros and cons of VPS and traditional web hosting.


Traditional web hosting

There are mainly two Types of traditional web hosting, which are dedicated and shared. If you decide to use a dedicated type of web hosting you need to pay for the complete resources of one or more servers. In dedicated type, you have full control over the resources of the server. This type of hosting is commonly used by e-commerce websites and big companies. You can choose the specifications of your server yourself including the amount of RAM, the type of processor, the size of the hard disk, etc. When you go for a dedicated server, The connection of your consumers with the website is undisrupted as the resources of the server are not shared with anyone else. Even if the number of visitors on your website spike up when you post a new product or a new article, there will be no disruption with the connection of your website. As The dedicated type of web hosting is more expensive than shared, so choose this type only if you know that the visitors on the website are going to increase rapidly.

In shared type of web hosting, you need to pay for a space on the server which is shared among many other users. This type of web hosting is common among people who have medium or small sized businesses and personal websites or blogs. In this type of web hosting, the resources of the server are shared among the other users on that server. As there are many users for a single server, the cost of maintaining the server can be divided into those number of users. Hence, this type of web hosting is inexpensive than dedicated web hosting. The hosting company is responsible for optimising and maintaining the server.


The pros of traditional web hosting

  • Traditional shared type of web hosting is cheaper than VPS.
  • In a traditional shared type, the company takes care of maintaining the setup
  • If you opt for a dedicated type of Hosting, there will be no disruptions in loading your website whatsoever as there will be no other users on the server to disturb your website activity.


The cons of traditional web hosting

  • In traditional shared web hosting, if another website is using up more resources than it should, then it will cause your website to run into problem too. This is termed as“The bad neighbour effect”.
  • The traditional dedicated web hosting can be a lot more expensive.
  • Dedicated web hosting also needs a technical staff to take care of your server for its maintenance and software updates.


VPS hosting

VPS stands for virtual private server. In this type of web hosting you share the resources of one server with other users. Now you might think, that VPS is similar to traditional shared web hosting, but there is a significant difference. The traditional shared type of web hosting is like living in an apartment, where as VPS is like living in a Townhouse. VPS Hosting has a shared environment too, but in a different way. All the websites on the VPS share one physical server, but the server consists of various separate virtual machines. A virtual machine is an emulation of a computer system. Therefore, the VPS is like having a mini dedicated server.


The pros of VPS

  • Due to different virtual machines for different users the VPS has more stability and reliability than traditional shared hosting.
  • DPS only has 10 to 20 websites per server, which in turn, decreases the resource demand for websites.
  • All the resources of the server are divided equally among the users. No website is allowed to use more resources than it is allotted with. Once your website exceeds the limit, your website may go down but others won’t be affected.
  • The VPS server has more options and customisability because you have a virtual machine and the others won’t get affected by your changes.


The cons of VPS

  • The VPS system costs more than the traditional shared type hosting, so if you have a lower budget you’ll have to make do with shared type of hosting.
  • With more options and customisability comes the risk of not knowing what you’re doing. It can be possible that the system could remove important files or damage the software. So if you are not an expert in the technical know-how, it is probably better for you to select shared type.


Choosing the right web hosting service depends upon your requirements. For example, if you have a small personal website or blog it is suggested that you do not go for VPS or dedicated as your website won’t require large amount of resources and technical knowledge. But if you have a medium-sized E-commerce website then you should probably go for VPS type of web hosting. If you notice that your website is gaining popularity and the visitors on your website are spiking in numbers, then once you generate the amount of revenue required, you can go for a dedicated type of web hosting.