VPS or Dedicated – Comparing The Two Hosting Options
One of the continuing debates in regards to hosting is in regards to VPS or Dedicated hosting solutions. No matter how you look at it, the two are different, and yet they can provide similar outputs to the general public. You see, the average individual is not going to know what type of hosting you have. The experience that they will have is not going to get interrupted. However, your back-end will look a lot different. There are a few things that you have to do in order to understand whether you need VPS hosting or Dedicated hosting options. If you don’t know the difference, or you’re on the fence, then perhaps the following will shine light on the issue and help you move along.
Have you outgrown Shared Hosting?
The long time standard in regards to web hosting has been the shared hosting plan. You may not immediately know what this is, but it’s essentially a digital apartment building. Think about this in terms of a large building. As you purchase hosting, you will essentially be renting out an apartment within the complex. That’s how you can define shared hosting. It’s economical, it allows you to set up a website, and it helps you set up a small business as well. It’s a digital landscape that fits many smaller websites.
Why move away from this type of hosting? Well, you need to consider whether or not your page will get a massive amount of traffic. For instance, if your page goes viral, will the flood of hits crash your site? If you think that your page is going to get to a place where traffic will rival large corporations, then you may not want to stay on shared hosting accounts.
Defining VPS Hosting
If you’re not fully aware of hosting solutions, consider VPS as one of the alternatives to shared options. This is a solution that will offer you unparalleled support. The acronym stands for virtual private server hosting. It allows you to have a server that is all to yourself, or perhaps split it to align several different websites to get booted. It’s a dedicated solution that is between larger hosting options and shared solutions. Now, this is something that is for experts in tech, and not just the average web user. Often times, you will have this “unmanaged”, which means that you’ll need to do the management yourself, and set limitations. In theory, you will be a landlord rather than a tenant.
The quick benefits of this type of hosting is in regards to traffic. There’s flexibility, larger bandwidth allotments, and even a bit more freedom to install certain software options on your hosting account. You get a bit more control with this solution.
So what is VPS Hosting?
A VPS is a physical server that has been segmented so that it can run multiple operating systems in there own virtual containers. Each customer gets a piece of the server with their own OS and root access. With a VPS you get your own dedicated CPU and Memory at a fraction of the price of a dedicated server.
VPS Hosting in Canada
Since we focus on Canadian Web Hosting providers I thought it would make sense to recommend the most popular Canadian VPS companies with the best reviews and uptime.
HostUpon offers VPS Hosting in Canada. Their data center is located in downtown Toronto. The support team is in-house which is always a plus. They offer 5 VPS plans for Canadians which you can see in the screenshot below:
HostUpon Canadian VPS Plans
Dedicated Servers and Hosting
Let’s say that you need something large, a huge commercial real estate listing. Dedicated server hosting can be just that. Dedicated solutions are going to allow you to manage your website or even launch large gaming options. This is a solution that is dedicated to those that need a large space, with as much bandwidth as possible. You’re going to find that this comes with a great deal freedom. It’s not recommended for the average web user, again, as it is a lot of space. Now, you can get it fully managed if you’d like, but unless you have a very large website or have plans on launching a web based RPG or something along those lines, you may not use this properly.
The quick benefits of this solution include unparalleled control. You will be able to install software, stream gaming in real time, load pages faster, get better performance, and get a lot more storage space. You will be able to have free reign of the space that you are given, including root access in many instances. You get a giant warehouse, so to speak, to roam, build, and create anything you’d like.
VPS or Dedicated?
This is a tough thing to really answer. Should you switch what that you have? Consider a few things first. For instance, what type of site are you trying to build? Do you plan on having a gaming stream connected? If you’re on the fence, perhaps the best thing to do is set up shared solutions first. If that is too small of a site, make sure that you look into VPS as a second step up, and then finally dedicated solutions if your site becomes very large. The largest of sites are on dedicated servers to ensure that they can take on the flood of traffic that comes through on a daily basis. Without that, your page could go down at any given viral moment.
