You can never start an online business without your online web host that offers you a number of different features. There are many web hosting service providers offering several versatile services as per their customer’s needs.
You get anything in the market nowadays from a cheap web host to something extremely expensive costing you a fortune but offering you a whole package.
There are many plans you can choose to satisfy your online business’s needs but the top three best choices are shared hosting, VPS hosting, and a good old dedicated hosting server.
However, the performance, speed, and many other important factors vary in all these three plans and even in any other plans. Choosing one hosting plan when all of them seem to satisfy all your website’s needs makes it almost impossible.
So, to help you with it, I am here, explaining the differences, similarities, and what these VPS and Dedicated hosting offers you which will help you choose one.
What is VPS Hosting?
VPS or Virtual Private Server hosting is a hosting service where multiple websites or users share the same server but unlike shared hosting each user has their own set of resources.
The resources include RAM, processing units, bandwidth, disk space, and many more. Even if their arises any problem of using the maximum of your server resources, then VPS hosting is equipped with specialist software, hypervisor.
This software allows you to borrow resources from other sites operating on the same server if they aren’t using their full allocation. Also, the hypervisor is responsible to follow the technique of virtualization to ensure a virtual server to each user.
VPS hosting has known to be very versatile offering its services that are suitable to medium-sized to large organizations. No one, especially when your website gets a lot of traffic wants to work with a slow loading website or even worse when it constantly crashes.
Although VPS is extremely flexible with its plans, it is not much expensive but sure will cost you more than a simple shared hosting plan.
Key features
- Cloud Infrastructure
- Solid-State Drives
- Free VPS Management
- SSH and Root Access
- Resource Monitoring Dashboard
- India & US Datacenter
- Free VPS Migration
- Host Multiple Sites
- Instant Provisioning
- No Setup Fee
- Robust Infrastructure
- Instant Upgrade
Pros
- Inexpensive
- Faster and easy setup
- Flexibility
- Root access
- Powerful
- Secured hosting
- Easily upgradable
Cons
- Less powerful than dedicated servers
- Limited resources
- Require more technical knowledge
- Support will be slower
Top web host offering VPS Hosting
Bluehost
Although the Bluehost web hosting service provider is mostly common for beginners, the VPS hosting service it offers is amazing equipped with a number of features.
The VPS hosting offered by Bluehost is a feature-rich server hosting offering for the first-time site owners. The server space offered by the web hosting server is versatile with a rock-solid reputation and flexible enough to grow your online business. The guaranteed server resources with SSD powered hardware storage make it lighting fast web hosting plans.
Liquid Web
Liquid web’s VPS hosting provides its users with the power of dedicated servers and the flexibility of a cloud hosting service. No wonder Liquid web is one of the best in business for providing a virtual private server service for your website.
It is an ideal solution for those who are looking for the control of a dedicated server with a slightly tight budget. Equipped with features such as monitoring your servers, optimizing performance, providing 24/7 support with an expert team, and mitigating risk, Liquid web VPS hosting leads the way in the market of web hosting.
DreamHost
DreamHost offers managed VPS hosting service where all of the VPS hosting services are managed by the web host itself. It is way easy for beginners than just a VPS hosting as if you are a beginner managing your own virtual servers might be difficult without a technical resource person.
With features like managed performance, easy to use control panel, unmetered resources, expandable ram, and many more, DreamHost VPS hosting has many more to offer.
What is a Dedicated Hosting?
Dedicated hosting is the most complex as well as the most expensive in the world of web hosting. You are signing up for a whole server that is dedicated to working only for your online business.
How many websites or how many businesses you host on your dedicated server truly depends upon you and you have all the control over the management of all those websites.
With dedicated hosting, you can even choose your own resource and their limits, and hence, it is never recommended to a beginner as you would have no idea how to operate a server.
Only if your site has high traffic and you have enough technical resources or knowledge then a dedicated server is considered the best.
In simple words, you are basically given an empty server and you are allowed to put anything on that server. Some web hosts also allow you to build a server that matches the specifications for your online business perfectly.
A dedicated server plan varies greatly with that of a VPS hosting plan where you have limited control as well as limited resources to host your website.
Key features
- Server Management
- Scalability
- Security
- Administrative Access and Server Configuration
- High Availability
- Operating System Choices
- Hardware Choices
- Control Panel Option
Pros
- Reliable
- Extensive control
- Flexible
- Powerful
- Highly Secured
- Dedicated support
- Easy Customization
Cons
- Expensive hosting plan
- It is not for everyone
- Scalability issues
- Requires technical knowledge
- Overload of work
Top web host offering Dedicated Hosting
Hostgator
Hostgator provides three plans for its dedicated hosting that is equipped with maximum performance, world-class support, and advanced management such as cPanel, Windows dedicated hosting, etc. starting at $89.99 per month and going up to $139.99 per month.
You can get a lot of options under Hostgator dedicated hosting plans. Each of these plans is equipped with different features with a different price range and also comes with two operating systems.
Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the most popular web host that is hosting over 2 million websites. It’s dedicated service provides control, privacy, and guaranteed resources with the benefit of both VPS as well as dedicated hosting.
Customers with high traffic websites are often best fitted to use the dedicated servers for their online business. Offering also three plans that start with $79.99 per month and ends at $119.99 per month.
InMotion
It is by far the most expensive web hosts offering the dedicated hosting service. Along with hefty price tag, the InMotion hosting covers one of the most jam-packed features in among all the web hosting service providers.
The dedicated servers of InMotion is equipped with custom managed server with the integration of several apps, SSDs, software RAID storage, and critical business functions. The services starts at $299.99 and ends at $508.49 per month.
VPS Vs. Dedicated Hosting – Differences
| Parameters | VPS Hosting | Dedicated Hosting |
| Resource Allocation | Resources are shared among the same server through the process of virtualization, hence a limited amount of resources. | As you are given a whole server dedicated to your business, the massive resource is allocated as per your needs. |
| Security | Although you can install several security software to secure your website, as your server works with multiple users, a security breach on one may affect your website as well. | You are in charge of your own security. You can install multiple software on your website to ensure ultimate security. |
| Performance | VPS hosting offers fast loading websites as long as other websites on the same server do not have high traffic urges | Depending upon the resources used on your website, the performance is extremely high with lighting fast loading speed |
| Configuration | If you choose a managed VPS plan then all the technical setups would be done by the expert of the web host as well as the resources and performance depends on the server. | You can also set up a dedicated hosting environment with managed plans where all the technical setup is done by the web host itself. |
| Scalability | VPS hosting allows you to grow your online business even more with new plans and upgrading to dedicated hosting can also be an option. | As dedicated hosting is the peak of every hosting plan, so even if you get to upgrade dedicated plans, you won’t have enough room to grow. |
| Price | VPS hosting is cheaper than a dedicated hosting plan that ranges from around $20 – $120 per month, which is quite affordable. | It is the most expensive and the most powerful hosting plan that ranges around $100 – $500 per month. |
Final Say
There are a number of criteria and requirements you should look for before choosing one web hosting plans among these two. In short, I have listed the reasons to choose one below:
You should choose VPS hosting if:
- Your online business is growing but you are in a tight budget
- You are technically qualified but not much to manage everything
- You need additional resources as compared to just shared hosting plan
You should choose dedicated hosting if:
- You need maximum resources for your website
- The number of visitors in your website is quite high
- You need more secure hosting plan
- You need best hosting environment and are technically proficient to manage your own website.