VPS Web Hosting
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server and is essentially the ‘next step up’ from standard ‘Shared’ Web Hosting. VPS Hosting differs in that your account resides on a specific dedicated server, which happens to be virtualized. This means it is not physical server hardware running your site(s), rather server hardware that has been virtualized using software – examples of virtualization software is VMWare, Microsoft Virtual Server etc.
VPS Hosting has some advantages over Shared Web Hosting in that it is ‘kind of private’ – whilst you do have your own dedicated server operating system running your web server there are generally multiple virtual servers running off of one single physical server hardware, meaning the physical server resources are still being shared between the virtual host servers.
To get a truly non-shared resourcing model of hosting you need to pay for a Dedicated Server Hosting plan, which is massively more expensive than VPS Hosting.
VPS Hosting allows for minute customizations, including PHP server-side applications, PERL scripting, custom installations, custom configurations, root access, SSH (Secure Shell) access and more, giving you much more flexibility in what you can do compared with Shared Hosting where the server is ‘locked down’ to only allow you access via the Control Panel where your administration tasks are somewhat limited.
Usually several times more expensive than Shared Hosting, VPS is only recommended if you are a professional developer or have a serious business project in mind for your website(s).
If you need the absolute highest level of Web Hosting available, providing more resources and security than VPS Hosting then you should consider Dedicated Server Hosting.
Pros:
High availability
More private than shared hosting
Less expensive than Dedicated Server Hosting
Can handle moderate levels of traffic (suitable for professional sites)
Cons:
More expensive than Shared Hosting plans be a considerable amount
Not recommended for beginners
Less bandwidth and storage offered compared to Shared Hosting
Top Recommended VPS Hosting Plans
Here are Setup Web Hosting.com’s top recommended VPS Web Hosting Companies:
