Shared hosting is where websites share a single web server. It could be a single physical server being shared amongst a number of users with each user identifying by their domain name. On a shared hosting plan, users are allocated these resources depending on their needs and or price and one user cannot exceed the processing power, disk storage, RAM and bandwidth allocated to their account.
In a Virtual Private Server (VPS), there are virtual servers on a single physical server that is each allocated resource dependent on the overall power of the server. Say you have a server with 400gb storage, 32gb RAM and 16 cores processor, you can create 8 virtual servers each allocated 50gb of storage, 4gb RAM and 2 core processor. Once partitioned, each partition behaves like an independent server. Thus, each user is entitled to their own computing server that is independent.This ensures issues in one of the nodes/virtual servers do not affect the others.
In a VPS hosting, one dedicated server (suppose a dedicated server with 64 GB RAM and resources) is partitioned into multiple servers. All these partitions are virtualized further and each of them works as a dedicated server, hence called Virtual dedicated server (VDS) or VPS.
Reasons to adopt a VPS
- Management
Users have complete control over their VPS and can install and configure the software to suit their own needs. This makes it more suitable for users who need to run their businesses with more control over their hosting environment.
- Scalability
Virtual servers are better at scaling as opposed to shared hosting plans. That simply means that as the needs of the user grow, the resources on a VPS are be increased to accommodate the growing needs of the user and their infrastructure.
- Flexibility.
A VPS allows for more flexible options since the server is configured to suit a specific user needs, unlike shared hosting where multiple users inhabit the same hosting environment that is not possible to modify.
- Reliability
When too much traffic is flowing into a shared hosting server, users may experience downtime or slow connection speed to their websites due to the users’ overload. Virtual private servers are optimized to handle heavy user influx into a single server without impacting the immediate users of the server.