Virtual Private Server Or Dedicated Server: What Does Your Website Need?

Today, a business that’s planning to setup a website has many web hosting options ranging from shared hosting to VPS and dedicated server hosting. But if a website is having heavy traffic and is expected to have more in future, then a shared web hosting plan might not be sufficient to fulfill the demands of that site.

Virtual private server and dedicated server are considered the best for medium to large sites with high resource needs and high volume of traffic.

virtual private server or dedicated server

But which hosting environment to choose -virtual private server vs dedicated server? As they both offer some common hosting benefits like-scalability of resources, root access, advanced security and more, it’s a bit daunting task to pick one. But still there exists some differences between dedicated server and VPS.

Learn about these two hosting solutions to know which one might be suitable to meet all your website requirements:

What is a Virtual Private Server?

There is a ‘mother server’ that’s divided into multiple virtual compartments, and server software is setup on each server distinctly in order that each server can function individually.

Every VPS has its own operating system (OS) and dedicated server resources that are only accessible by its owner.

In short, a VPS is just like an apartment with many flats where you share a building with other people but not your living space and resources allotted in it.

Virtual Private Server hosting is available for both Operating Systems–Linux VPS hosting and Windows VPS hosting

VPS is best for your site if it needs-

  1. A web hosting plan which is more than a shared hosting plan with minimal investment than a dedicated server.
  2. Better control over hosting environment to execute more advanced actions like server configuration and installing custom software.
  3. Stable stream of server resources–RAM, web space and CPU devoted for your site only, but at low costs.
  4. Ability to assist high or additional amount of traffic that requires website speed.
  5. Security that grants ability to install your own anti-virus or malware detection software and implementation of better backups too.
  6. Advanced server monitoring.
  7. SEO requirements such as dedicated IPs, private name servers and fast loading of pages.
  8. Cloud VPS for your hosting needs.

(It comes with self-healing hardware; centralized and scalable storage; and pre-defined templates for instant server provisioning and a lot more.)
Thus, if you’re running a small to medium scale business or a gaming site/e-commerce site with highly informational data that draws medium traffic, or your website has the above demands then, VPS is the most suitable hosting solution for your site.

But, on the other hand, if you feel that your website needs are not being fulfilled by VPS hosting solution than go for a low cost dedicated server.

What is a Dedicated Server?

A server dedicated exclusively for your website. It makes you the sole owner of the server by offering you access to all the server resources. Web hosting provider leases the space to the client.

The non- shared environment of dedicated server offers various benefits such as high performance, resources, control, scalability, freedom and many more.

We can say, dedicated server is like a bungalow where you do not have to share anything with anyone and enjoy your space unconditionally.

Dedicated server is best for your website if it needs-

  1. Complete control over the server– The server is used only by your website/business with much greater access and more control over the server.
  2. Allotment of more amounts of resources and space– More memory, bandwidth and hard drive space in comparison to VPS.
  3. Greater security level– As all the resources belong to you, it makes it more secure than a server shared by several businesses. This hosting solution offers strong protection for your files and website by combining it with regular updates and security patches.
  4. Greater reliability– One can expect the best possible level of uptime by dedicated server, which means your website will be available and accessible at all times.
  5. High performance and server management.

Thus, websites  which demand ability to install heavy software-necessary  for ecommerce, gaming sites; application heavy pages, super-fast load times, secure storage options for  sensitive information/ data details, better performance rate when handling a high traffic should choose the fully managed dedicated server hosting.