In web hosting industry, the main types of web hosting including shared web hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated server. Among the 3 types, VPS hosting plays an important role between shared web hosting and dedicated server. Some people may get confused whether VPS hosting can meet their needs. Thus, to make a wise choice, it is necessary to understand the pros and cons of VPS hosting.

What is VPS Hosting?

VPS hosting is a kind of web hosting that uses Virtual Private Server.  It comes with certain amount of disk space, memory, processing power and bandwidth. Besides, your account is able to acquire dedicated chunk of resources.

VPS hosting is always divided into managed VPS and unmanaged VPS. Managed VPS is generally more expensive because the web hosting company handles everything like setup system and install control panel so that customers just need to manage their basic web hosting account. As for unmanaged VPS, customers need to do everything from command line.  If you are familiar with Linux and server side, unmanaged VPS server is a good option, because it is more affordable than managed VPS hosting.

When to Move to VPS?

VPS hosting is widely used by some small businesses, whose requirements are out grown of the shared web hosting resources, but cannot afford a dedicated server. For example, some customers just need to run Java or Tomcat that most shared web hosts do not allow it, thus VPS hosting can be a good option for them.

Pros of VPS Hosting

People who choose VPS hosting consider the various priorities of it. There are some advantages of VPS hosting, including:

• A VPS hosting account is less expensive than a dedicated one;
• Many VPS plans are customizable and you just need to pay for the features you need;
• Using VPS means partitioned resources such as CPU and bandwidth, so you won’t be affected much by your sharers;
• Fewer users share the same server – compared with shared web hosting, your website can be allocated more resources;
• You can get more control to configure your server with virtualization software;

Also, you are likely to have root access and the ability to use scripts that may not be allowed in a shared hosting.

Cons of VPS Hosting

In theory, VPS hosting makes it possible to have the services of a dedicated server without the cost associated with it. However, some potential issues are inevitable with the VPS hosting.

• More expensive than shared hosting: while fewer users share the same server, you have to pay more. This is the main disadvantage from a financial standpoint.
• Configuring server demands more technical experience. Compared with dedicated hosting, VPS hosting is less demanding for users, but it still requires some technical experience to control your server.
• Having no complete control over your server. Compared with dedicated hosting, VPS hosting users do not have full control over their environment.
• Your resources are not allocated appropriately. This is because your web host may have over sold its space. It may cause server issues that will affect all other sites on that server. So you should be aware of how many virtual accounts are hosted on your server at one time.

Conclusion

In a VPS hosting environment, you are able to get in a dedicated package without paying such a high price, which is a superiority of VPS. However, if the hosts handle the VPS in an incorrect way, you may encounter some issues. As you can see, there is a lot to think whether the VPS is tight for you and make a choice on the basis of your research.