What is VPS Hosting? All You Need to Know About Virtual Servers

VPS is short for a Virtual Private Server. VPS hosting is one of the most popular hosting services you can choose for your website. It uses virtualization technology to provide you with dedicated (private) resources on a server with multiple users.

It’s a more secure and stable solution than shared hosting where you don’t get a dedicated server space. However, it’s smaller-scale and cheaper than renting an entire server.

VPS hosting is usually chosen by website owners who have medium-level traffic that exceeds the limits of shared hosting plans but still don’t need the resources of a dedicated server.

VPS solutions usually offer more than one hosting plan. For instance, at Hostinger, we have six VPS plans to suit different business needs and let you scale your site seamlessly when you need more resources.

How does VPS hosting work?

A server is a computer on which your web host stores the files and databases needed for your website. Whenever an online visitor wants to access your website, their browser sends a request to your server and it transfers the necessary files through the internet. VPS hosting provides you with a virtual server that simulates a physical server, however, in reality, the machine is shared among several users.

Using virtualization technology, your hosting provider installs a virtual layer on top of the operating system (OS) of the server. This layer divides the server into partitions and allows each user to install their own OS and software.

Therefore, a virtual private server (VPS) is both virtual and private because you have complete control. It is separated from other server users on the OS level. In fact, VPS technology is similar to creating partitions on your own computer when you want to run more than one OS (e.g. Windows and Linux) without a reboot.

Running a VPS lets you set up your website within a secure container with guaranteed resources (memory, disk space, CPU cores, etc.) you don’t have to share with other users. With VPS hosting, you have the same root-level access as if you had a dedicated server, but at a much lower cost.

Comparing VPS to other web hosting types

Different types of web hosting allow you to perform different levels of customization on your server. They vary in pricing, performance (e.g. page load time), and the availability of the service (e.g. uptime) as well. Below, you can read about how VPS hosting compares to other hosting solutions.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the solution for website owners with lower traffic sites. It is the starting point of most small businesses and bloggers. With shared hosting, you split the same physical server with a number of other clients of the hosting company. You don’t get dedicated resources allocated to you, as your site runs on the same operating system as everyone else’s.

Therefore, the memory and computing power your site can use is affected by the needs of other service users. For instance, if there’s a sudden traffic spike on a website hosted on the same server your page load time may increase. You can’t choose your operating system and other server software either, as all users use the same configuration. All in all, it’s your hosting provider who takes care of every aspect of your shared hosting environment.

You can think of shared hosting as a rental where you share the same apartment with a number of roommates. VPS hosting is still a kind of flatshare, however, everyone has their own room where they can customize the space according to their needs. For instance, they get to choose the painting, furniture, decoration, etc.

Cloud Hosting

With cloud hosting, you don’t use a single server but rather a cluster that runs in the cloud. Each server in the cluster stores an up-to-date copy of your website. When one of the servers is too busy, the cluster automatically redirects the traffic to a server that is less busy. As a result, cloud hosting comes with no downtime, as there’s always a server in the cluster that can serve the requests of your website visitors.

Cloud hosting and VPS hosting are not exclusive to each other. Instead, many hosting companies offer VPS hosting on a cloud infrastructure. This is also the solution we have chosen at Hostinger, as we found that combining VPS and cloud technologies leads to the highest possible performance and reliability in the virtual server environment.

WordPress Hosting

WordPress hosting is a service specifically offered to WordPress site owners. It comes with several WordPress-related features that you can only use if you have a WordPress site, such as one-click installation, pre-installed plugins, or a WP command-line interface. Servers are configured for the needs of WordPress. Therefore, hosting providers offer WordPress hosting as a part of their shared hosting service.

Although it’s also possible to set up a WordPress site on a virtual private server, you can’t get access to the custom-built servers that have been configured with WordPress in mind. However, if you still choose VPS for your WordPress site you are able to set up and configure your hosting environment according to your business needs.

Dedicated Hosting

With dedicated hosting, you rent an entire physical server for your business. If you have a high-traffic website, dedicated hosting can be the best solution for you, as dedicated servers are fast, flexible, and fully customizable. However, the service definitely comes with a price tag as well, so they are not worth for everyone, especially if you have a small or medium website.

While VPS hosting allows you to choose and configure your operating system and server applications, dedicated hosting goes one step further. It doesn’t only let you configure the software but also the hardware, as the entire server is yours and no one has any say in the setup. You can also run a dedicated server on-site (for instance, in your office), however you lose the support of a professional hosting team in that case.

VPS pros and cons

VPS hosting can be an ideal solution for you if that’s the service you really need. Below, you can read the pros and cons of running a virtual private server.

1. It’s faster and more reliable than a shared hosting server.
2. As server resources such as memory or processing power are guaranteed, there’s zero to minimal fluctuation in available resources.
3. Issues and traffic surges of other server users don’t affect your site.
4. You get superuser (root) access to your server.
5. You have better privacy, as your files and databases are locked from other server users.
6. It’s an easy-to-scale service. As your website grows, you can easily upgrade your server resources (RAM, CPU, disk space, bandwidth, etc.).

1. It’s more expensive than shared hosting.
2. It requires more technical knowledge to manage your server.
3. Improperly configured servers may lead to security vulnerabilities.

When to use VPS and how to decide it is time to upgrade?

VPS hosting is usually seen as the next step after your website grows out of the resource limits of shared hosting. If the most advanced shared hosting plan is not enough anymore to run your website smoothly, it’s worth upgrading to a VPS plan. In such cases, VPS hosting can provide you with the best of two worlds: shared and dedicated hosting.

However, there are other use cases when it can be a good idea to start with a VPS plan right from the beginning. For example, eCommerce websites where you need to ensure secure payments with a fast and stable environment can benefit a lot from a virtual private server. In fact, if you store any kind of sensitive data or have to process online payments VPS can help you reduce the risk of security breaches and identity theft.

If you expect traffic spikes at certain times on your site, for instance, in case of an event planning or ticket-selling website, a VPS hosting plan can be a godsend as well. Game servers and other resource-heavy sites also run with much better performance on a virtual private server.

Are there any VPS alternatives? What is a managed VPS?

One of the biggest pitfalls of VPS hosting is having to manage your entire server environment by yourself. If your virtual server is not configured and maintained well, you may face serious security risks and performance loss. Managed VPS hosting services have appeared on the market as a viable solution to this problem. You can think of it as an enhanced alternative of VPS hosting, that comes with full technical support.

Managed VPS is still a new thing on the market, however more and more hosting providers offer it to their customers. For instance, at Hostinger, we aim to provide a fully managed hosting environment with all of our cloud hosting plans. We get your server up and running according to your needs, handle server uptime and monitoring, take care of backups and caching, and provide a 24/7 dedicated support for all of our managed VPS customers.

All in all, What is VPS hosting?

VPS hosting gives you access to guaranteed resources and full control without having to run your own server. It’s an excellent solution for medium to high traffic, resource-heavy, and eCommerce websites. However, businesses who expect rapid growth can also benefit from the stability of the service. If you want a reliable, business-scale hosting environment at a friendly price, it’s definitely worth considering VPS hosting for your website.

We hope this article helped you understand what is VPS hosting and how it works. In case you have any additional questions, feel free to submit them in the comment section below!

Domantas leads the content and SEO teams forward with fresh ideas and out of the box approaches. Armed with extensive SEO and marketing knowledge, he aims to spread the word of Hostinger to every corner of the world. During his free time, Domantas likes to hone his web development skills and travel to exotic places.

What Is VPS Hosting? How Virtual Private Server Works?

When it comes to website hosting there are many different options available. Each has their own merits, differing in features and price points. Today we’re going to be taking a closer look at Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting.

VPS hosting allows you to store your web assets on space that has been configured to look and feel like a standalone dedicated server.

Table of Content

What is a VPS?

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. A VPS is a siloed space on a server that has the characteristics of an entire server itself. A virtual server hosting has its own Operating System (OS), applications, resources, and configurations. All of this is contained within a single powerful server. Each server can have multiple VPS accounts on it.

Looking for a VPS hosting? ScalaHosting is now powered by Digital Ocean and offers Managed Cloud VPS at discounted rate. Entry plan starts at $9.95/mo – Click here to order.

How Does VPS Hosting Work?

As the name implies, the entire premise of VPS hosting revolves around virtualization. With this technology, entire servers can be ‘split up’ and allocated to different people.

Virtual servers share a single physical server, but each gain the benefits of being able to set up and configure their space as if it were wholly belonging to them. This gives them a high degree of flexibility along with an added element of privacy – for a fraction of the cost of a dedicated server.

Virtualization technology assesses the server as a whole and then divides resources up among different accounts based on what those account holders paid for.

For example, if the server has 128GB of RAM, it may split that up in 2 or more parts.

Each account holder will then be assigned the amount of RAM as specified in their hosting contract. The resources allocated to each account are only for that account and will not be tapped into even if other accounts need or use more.

From a user point of view, hosting a website on VPS host means:

• Guaranteed resources – Memory, Processing time, storage, etc will never be shared.
• Better site security – Your website(s) will be hosted in an isolated environment. If anything untoward happens to your neighbour’s account,it will not affect you; and
• High degree of agility – You gain server-level administrative powers such as root access, choice of OS, and more.

Advantages of VPS Web Hosting

VPS hosting is the perfect balance of price, performance, security, affordability, and privacy. Some of the amazing benefits you will get by using the services are;

1. Shared cost of services
2. Quick server setup
3. Better server access with more control
4. Private contained environment
5. Similar level of services as with a dedicated server
6. Scalability for better long term use

Shared, VPS, and Dedicated Server Hosting

Some might get a little confused because of the multitude of choices when it comes to shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting. Let’s do a short analysis and comparison to better understand the key differences.

Shared Server Hosting

What’s Shared Hosting Environment Like?

Shared hosting is like you are living in a room with a lot of friends. It means you must fit in the same room and you must split the cost of several things because it is affordable and cheap.

However, having several individuals sharing the same space means there must be some degree of give and take. Resources need to be shared (e.g. 5 people rotating to use a washroom).

It also means that what affects one friend may affect you as well. If one of the people sharing that space has the flu – you might get infected as well. Everything that is in that room is to be shared among all of you (sounds a little unhygienic, right?).

There are many website owners who prefer to use shared hosting services for the simple reason that it is easy to manage and affordable. Hosting service providers will take care of server maintenance, so the web owners only need to focus on building and operating their site.

Having shared resources sometimes can have unforeseen circumstances. For example, if one website were to be very busy and using up a lot of resources, your website might get stuck waiting. This will affect the performance of your site through no fault of your own. Your only hope of resolution is if the resource hog releases resources it is using, or if your web host intervenes.

Shared Hosting Providers to Consider

Here are some shared hosting providers we have tested and recommend: Hostinger, Interserver, GreenGeeks. You can check out our reviews here, here, and here.

Virtual Private Server Hosting

Virtual Server Hosting Environment

VPS hosting is like you are living in an apartment complex. It means that other people are living in the same building, but you have your own secure apartment. You may have more space and definately fewer restrictions as compared to living in a shared space. It also means that if your neighbour is misbehaving, it is the problem of owner of building, not yours.

Similarly, in the case of VPS, there are several users that are using the same server but they are isolated from each other. It means that no one will be affected by how much resources another is using.

You will get the speed and security that you need without compromise. It is almost a perfect scenario because you gain the benefits of a private server but in a way still share the cost of services.

VPS Hosting Providers to Consider

Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated server hosting is like being the owner of a house. You are free to move anywhere within your property that you like. however, you will have to pay for the mortgage and bills that can be expensive.

Similarly, in a real dedicated server, you will pay for the entire server that is not shared with anyone else. You will get complete control over all services. Unfortunately, it is also the most expensive hosting option and needs some technical expertise to manage.

It is commonly used by those who have websites with specific requirements. THis can include the ability to handle high levels of web traffic or increased security requirements.

Dedicated Hosting Providers to Consider

When to Switch? What is VPS Hosting Used For

There are a number of factors that make VPS hosting the best option for specific websites. Generally, it’s time to upgrade to VPS from a shared web host when…

1. You Need More Speed

When you add more content to your website, its speed will likely slow down after some time. This is especially true for websites that rely on database-intensive operations (like WordPress!).

If you notice increasingly long process times, it’s time to contemplate an upgrade in hosting type or plan.

Further, most websites will see increased traffic over time. Popular websites mean much higher traffic rates, which is fantastic for you. However, it means that your existing plans will likely not be able to manage that volume of traffic. Upgrading to VPS hosting is the next logical step for you at this point.

2. Your Current Hosting Performance Degrades

Continuously getting 503-server errors most probably means that your website services are not being made available to your visitors and customers in a timely manner. This is often caused by a lack of resources such as memory. If it happens frequently, your site visitors may stop coming, so again, it may be time to move to VPS hosting.

3. You Have Increased Security Concerns

If you’ve become unlucky enough to have gotten onto a server which is facing multiple attacks against another site hosted there, things can get tough.

Under this scenario, you’ll have to rely on the good graces of your host to manage the situation; or alternatively, switch to VPS hosting and avoid the situation altogether.

4. Special Operating System Needs

With full root access (that usually comes with unmanaged VPS hosting plans), you are able to install and customize any software that you need to optimize your hosting experience. This is flexibility is especially valuable when you need to install a custom OS.

Buying a Virtual Hosting

Scala Managed VPS Hosting starts at just $9.95/mo with 1 CPU Core, 2 GB RAM, and 20 GB SSD storage. You can also opt for Digital Ocean or Amazon AWS infrastructure to have more server locations to choose from – Click here to learn more.

A great VPS hosting often give users the perfect balance of performance at affordable pricing – fast speeds, strong uptime, dependable customer support, and sufficient resources.

They are often the perfect option for sites with high traffic volume.

At the top of our Best VPS Hosting list sit InMotion Hosting and ScalaHosting.

At its basic plan, InMotion offers single processor along with 4GB memory and a generous 75GB of storage rests nicely on a 4TB data bandwidth pipeline – all for as little as $22.99/mo. ScalaHosting offers their own SPanel WHCP and wide server location selections. Basic plan starts at just $9.95/mo at Scala – which is great value for money.

What About Free VPS Hosting?

Instafree – the only free VPS we recommend – offers 10GB storage and 100GB bandwidth with cPanel and Softaculous support. A few other providers we used to list here no longer exist or that they don’t offer VPS hosting for $0 these days.

Searching for free VPS hosting may not be as elusive as the dodo bird, but you might be disappointed at what you find. Most free VPS are simply not as powerful and robust as paid ones.

Security is usually a major issue when you are using a free platform. Imagine hosting your sites alongside with spammy / outdated / unmanaged sites – you never know when these neighbors are going to cause troubles (even though you are on VPS).

So are customer support and performance. You can’t ask for high level support and topnotch server performance when you are not paying any amount of money, right?

The bottomline is that hardware, software, and bandwidth all costs money. If service providers are giving you all of this for free, they have to earn money from somewhere else – most likely from your data.

But then again, these VPS plans are FREE. They fit the needs of certain web owners – especially for users who are developing a web application or users who want a taste of VPS hosting before going for the paid options.

VPS Hosting Frequent Asked Questions

For Managed VPS hosting – the boarding process is similar to shared hosting these days – You’ll point your domain to the hosting DNS and manage it via a user-friendly control panel. For self-managed VPS – you’ll need (at minimum) basic server OS and computer networking knowledge. Most good VPS web hosts will offer comprehensive knowledge base articles on how to manage your VPS host. This should be your first stop in familiarizing yourself with the environment if you’re new to the self-managed VPS environment.

Cloud computing is where the resources of several networked computers are pooled together. This gives far more potential in terms of scalability than many other types of web hosting.

The term “Cloud” and “VPS” are often used interchangeably but there are distinct differences between each. True cloud hosting providers are (usually) IaaS players who offer extensive resources since they pool a large number of computing resources together – Because of this elasticity (or scalability), true cloud hosting is basically “limitless”. On the other hand VPS is limited to single servers – thus limiting its scalability.

VPS hosting is typically for websites that need to handle larger amounts of traffic. In these cases, the host would be able to guarantee resource availability and increased security.

VPS hosting will typically cost more than shared hosting but less than a dedicated server. Prices are usually set depending on the amount of resources required and other features such as managed accounts, ranging from as little as $6 to as much as a few hundred dollars per month.

There are many reputable web hosting companies offering solid VPS plans. Some of these include InMotion Hosting, A2 Hosting, InterServer, and ScalaHosting.

If you’ve ever used a computer on your own (yes, this might sound strange, but there’s a reason for it) then you’ll probably know what it’s like to use unmanaged VPS hosting. In both situations, you’re responsible for the setup and maintenance of all applications which run on the system.

Unmanaged VPS:-
With an Unmanaged VPS, your hosting provider has only two responsibilities – making sure your VPS is running and that it’s connected to the network. As you can imagine, this may take a little technical expertise on your part to handle.

Managed VPS:-
In a Managed VPS environment, you can sit back, relax and let your host know whatever you’d like done. There are no security issues to be concerned about, not function-specific tasks you’ll need to handle. Your host will manage everything for you and resolve any issues that crop up.

To be honest, there is not much of a similarity.

What is a VPN?
A VPN is a private network (ie. ExpressVPN and NordVPN) which most people use to keep secure and private on the Internet.

What is a VPS?
A VPS on the other hand is a virtual server you can use like a dedicated server to host your website or manage other web-related tasks, such as setting up Cloud Storage, hosting email or such. The two are similar in acronym only.

Here comes the but – I include this segment because you can use a VPN to connect to a VPS server and manage it. The VPN will keep your connection private and untraceable, so you can sign in to the VPS without anybody knowing otherwise.

More importantly, when using a VPN connection, any data which is sent to and from your device is all encrypted. This means that if you’re sending sensitive information like passwords, using a VPN service is recommended.

Some good VPN providers offer fixed IP addresses and that gives many users another advantage since almost all ISPs make use of dynamic IPs for most customers. By using a VPN with a fixed IP, you can choose to only whitelist your IP to allow it to connect to your VPS. This increases security by a very high degree.

Bottom Line

The average VPS is more expensive than shared hosting, but this is not always true. Because of the scalability that VPS accounts offer, prices can vary a lot. When considering whether you need to move to a VPS host, I would rather you focus on whether you’re able to manage a VPS account.

There are some that come managed, but the level of technical knowledge needed is different from regular shared hosting. It’s not insurmountable but wouldn’t your efforts be better expended on managing your key asset – your website? Do you want to spend the extra time learning to manage your VPS account instead?

The flip side is scalability. Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, users of VPS hosting have an easier time in two ways:

1. It’s easier to scale up and there are multiple tranches, so your cost of running a website increase slowly, and
2. It’ll give you a technical edge when your site has grown so large you need to move to a dedicated server.

More Reading Resources

We have also published a number of actionable guide and helpful hosting reviews for those who are searching for a web host.