You need a home to live in. Similarly, your website too needs a place to live, or to be specific, it needs web hosting. Without it, your website will not work.
Choosing the right web hosting solution may seem a little difficult since there are several choices available like shared hosting, cloud hosting, Virtual Private Server (VPS) and Dedicated Server.
If you are an established business with decent traffic on your website and have concerns for security, and uptime, then you should go with either VPS or dedicated server. These hosting options vary in terms of performance level, scalability, as well as cost – but how are they exactly different?
To get the wisdom in your choice, you need to understand the main differences between VPS and dedicated server so that you can determine which option suits best for your business.
Read on.
Virtual Private Server and Dedicated Server: Model Explanation
Before diving deep into the hosting comparison, let us know a bit about each of them.
Solution 1: Virtual Private Server
A virtual private server (VPS) is a multi-tenant architecture in which a hosting provider offers you virtualized server resources over the internet.
Here, the VPS customers get a share of a physical machine that runs multiple virtual private servers, managed by the hosting provider. These virtual private servers run on a hypervisor (virtual machine monitor or VMM) where each VPS runs its own operating system independently. And, therefore, you get full access to the system which is completely dedicated to your website.
VPS Pros
- Adequate performance
- Less expensive
VPS Cons
- Limited features
- Restricted control
Solution 2: Dedicated Server
A dedicated server is a form of single-tenant cloud architecture in which a provider gives access to a physical machine (or a private server) and all the hardware resources to its end users, which is not shared with other tenants. As the customers here get full control over the physical machine, they should know how to independently use and manage the server.
Dedicated servers, sometimes, offer close to the bare metal-like implementation that have typically more cloud-like features, such as fast provisioning, higher-end hardware, and minimum billing increments.
Dedicated Server Pros
- High performance and huge resource availability
- Full control for direct access
Dedicated Server Cons
- Technical expertise needed
- Relatively more expensive
VPS Server or Dedicated Server: Which is Right for Your Business?
Here are key differences you should read before purchasing one of them.
Performance:
The performance of web hosting is mainly related to the hardware specifications of a server. If we assume that they both have the same specifications, then a dedicated server will likely have better performance.
How?
We know that the VPS server provides you with a separate virtual environment, but you can only access a portion of the total system resources here because you share the same physical machine, and therefore, the overall performance here is slightly lesser.
On the other hand, a dedicated server provides you with all the system resources by default. Having full access to these resources increases the performance of the website and its loading speed. Note that the smoother and faster a website page loads, the more a visitor stays on the website.
Scalability:
As a website grows, you need a scalable hosting environment to deal with the increased load on the server.
Between the two, a VPS is often considered a superior solution when it comes to expanding site storage. A VPS is managed virtually, in which your provider can easily upgrade your storage by providing additional resources from the existing ones.
In dedicated hosting, you need to manually add additional resources to the server. This process is time-consuming, expensive, and might cause downtime as you expand the resources.
Configuration:
Both VPS and the dedicated servers provide the option of managed and unmanaged services. In VPS, you do not get direct access to the hardware as most of the part is managed by your hosting provider. This restricts you from managing the maintenance and upkeep of your server.
Comparatively, dedicated servers can be configured easily as per your business needs, or you may choose to get it managed by the hosting provider.
You can also install third-party software in both VPS and a dedicated server. This means that you can install any software that is specifically designed for your business.
Source: Pixabay
Security:
In VPS, you have full access and control over your virtual server, but don’t think that they are secure enough because your physical machine is shared with many other VPS users, and this might increase the probability of a cyber-attack via the hypervisor layer.
A dedicated server is more secure because you have complete control over your server, without sharing hardware resources with other users.
If you want complete peace of mind, then you should opt for dedicated server hosting. Its single-tenant architecture assures security as well as confidentiality.
Cost:
In general, a VPS is less expensive than any dedicated plan. The less cost is mainly due to the multi-tenant nature of VPS hosting. In contrast, a dedicated server is quite expensive due to data centre operations and hardware costs.
Keep your web hosting budget in mind before you choose one of them.
Should you choose a VPS or dedicated server for your business?
Most people will find VPS a better solution than a dedicated server due to the easy implementation, great support, and low-cost options from reliable web hosting providers. In most cases, a VPS can get you the same or better support, performance, and flexibility as a dedicated server in a much less expensive package.
To help you better, here is a summary comparison:
| VPS | Dedicated Server | |
| Implementation Requirement | Moderate level technical knowledge is required when choosing an unmanaged VPS solution. | Generally, high technical knowledge is required due to full control and management requirement of the resources. |
| System Control | High | High |
| Server Resources | Partitioned from other VPS users. | Separate machine for each dedicated server user. |
| Price | Low | High |
| Security | Comparatively less than dedicated server. | More secure than VPS. |
| Resource Allocation | Flexible resource limits. | Massive resource limits. |
Use VPS hosting if:
- You have a small business or large personal website.
- Your blog traffic is growing, you need a better hosting solution, but you have a low budget.
- You need flexibility and resources to scale but don’t plan to purchase a complete server.
Use a dedicated server if:
- You have a medium to large business, or large business website.
- You need high-performance hardware and software and have the expertise to set this up.
- Security is your highest priority.
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