The two conventional web hosting solutions – Shared Hosting and Dedicated Servers, dominated the web hosting industry for a while. For new websites, affordable Shared Hosting was the ideal choice. However, for websites that experienced traffic spikes, the only available upgrade was a Dedicated Server Hosting plan. From a basic Shared plan, they had to directly upgrade to an expensive Dedicated Server.

What is VPS Hosting?

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server and it’s a method of hosting where a number of websites share the resources of a single server. While this might sound a lot like Shared Hosting, there’s one key difference. 

In the VPS Hosting architecture, each website gets a fixed amount of server resources that aren’t shared with other websites on the server. For example, if a website has a plan that offers 4GB RAM, 100GB storage, and 2 CPU cores, the website will have exclusive and continuous, uninterrupted access to these resources at all times. 

The resources, once allocated to a website, aren’t shared with other websites. In fact, each website essentially behaves like a completely independent server. Hence the name, Virtual ‘Private’ Server. Websites in a VPS environment cannot communicate with other websites and are completely isolated as if they were an independent server. 

This architecture enables web hosting companies to offer a whole range of features to VPS plans, such as customizability, full root access, etc., which are traditionally reserved only for Dedicated Hosting plans. 

Why is VPS so Cost-Effective?

To understand what makes VPS Hosting a cost-effective method of hosting, it’s important to understand where VPS sits in the pricing hierarchy of web hosting plans. 

The most popular web hosting method is Shared Hosting where, similar to VPS, multiple websites share the resources of a single server. However, there is no fixed allotment of resources. So, the performance of a website, in a way, depends on how much resources are being used by other websites at that moment. There’s no website isolation either. 

None of this is to say Shared Hosting is inefficient. In fact, it’s a great way to host a website if you have a new, small, website that doesn’t generate a whole lot of traffic. However, security and performance concerns usually dissuade business website owners or even small business owners who actually want to sell some products or services online. 

Then there’s Dedicated Hosting. It is, put simply, the most robust platform for website hosting. It offers all the resources and storage of a server exclusively to one website. This is great for reliability, security, and speed. However, the only downside is that it’s quite expensive, meaning that most small businesses cannot afford it, making Dedicated Hosting a viable choice only for huge, successful websites with lots of traffic and revenue. 

VPS Hosting sits in between Shared Hosting and Dedicated Hosting, both in terms of price and features. The unique selling point of VPS is that it offers Dedicated Hosting-like features at a fraction of the price. This is true when you consider that VPS is marginally more expensive than Shared Hosting, but is pretty inexpensive compared to Dedicated Hosting. 

The bottom line – VPS Hosting offers privacy, isolation, customizability and security similar to a Dedicated Server setup. However, as the virtual server is a part of a single physical server, the costs are still shared between the multiple tenants. Thus, the power of the isolated virtual server, but the shared costs of the multi-tenancy of a shared server make VPS Hosting an extremely cost-effective solution.

To further emphasize our point, let us look at the winning benefits that VPS Hosting offers.

Advantages of VPS Hosting that Make it Worth the Money

• Predictable and Consistent Performance

As mentioned above, VPS offers a fixed allotment of resources to each website. These resources are always at your disposal, meaning that you know exactly how fast your website will be at all times. 

If you find your website to be slower than you’d want, you can simply add more dedicated resources to your website. These resources are often instantly provisioned (varies from company to company) and easy to add in the first place. 

Easy scaling and fixed resources ensure that your website performs the same at all times. 

• VPS Hosting  Security

Complete isolation of a website in a server is often a huge selling point for VPS. When there’s no isolation between websites within a server, the mistakes of one website can potentially affect other websites. A hacker who has access to one website can easily target all the other websites on a server if there’s no isolation. 

However, in VPS, this problem is solved completely. All VPS Servers have a piece of software that’s called the hypervisor which completely isolates each website. This way, you won’t ever have to worry about other websites on your server causing you trouble. 

Additionally, you can opt for a Managed VPS Hosting plan, wherein the hosting provider takes care of all server maintenance and upkeep, including managing the security settings, timely updates, installation of security patches, etc.

• VPS Hosting Root Access

Root access is perhaps the biggest selling point for VPS. ‘Root’ is essentially a username in Linux. A ‘Root’ user has access to everything on a server. You can modify files, install applications, delete them, change security configurations — pretty much do whatever you want. 

Again, this is made possible by the hypervisor. Given that each website is isolated, the hypervisor treats each website as a single, small server. 

This means that, within your server, you can do anything that you wish to. System admins have tremendous use for root access. They can install important third party security software to better protect your website, they can modify system configurations to improve the speed of your website, and in general, they can modify your website to the exact standards that you want. 

Root access is usually reserved only for Dedicated Hosting and isn’t offered with Shared Hosting plans. When multiple websites are sharing a single server, it’s important to set a few basic rules to ensure that everyone has a smooth experience. 

However, with VPS, you essentially have a server of your own, which means that all limiting factors are completely removed, which is why web hosting companies are able to offer root access with VPS. 

Conclusion

There are many advantages of VPS. Speed, security, reliability, freedom to construct your website exactly the way you want to — these are just a few of them. 

However, what makes VPS really popular is the fact that it is cost-effective. With VPS, you get most of the features that Dedicated Hosting offers, but you just pay slightly more than a standard Shared Hosting plan. 

Further, a Linux VPS Hosting plan is more affordable than a Windows VPS plan.  Linux VPS is a VPS Server powered by the affordable and open-source Linux Operating System. 

So, if you’re considering buying a VPS plan for your website, it’s not only going to improve your website’s performance, it’s also going to be economical. 

When buying VPS, it’s usually best to go with one of the more reputed VPS Hosting companies as they pay close attention to the quality of the server hardware and the overall security of the server setup. 

HostGator India offers a range of VPS Hosting plans that come pre-integrated with a control panel and a free SSL certificate. 

Additionally, we offer powerful Solid State Drive (SSD) storage, quick server provisioning, powerful KVM hypervisor, integrated DDoS protection and dedicated 24×7 support. 

In the long run, these are the factors that are going to matter the most.