Shared hosting is usually the first refuge of many website owners because of its affordable rates which usually do not cross $100/year. Considering the affordable rates, it is not that bad for a beginner, but in the long run you will probably find yourself with a limited and insecure hosting service. Shared hosting is much like sharing a room with more people so as to reduce the cost. If one of them uses a weak password, your security is in question too. Bigger websites in the shared hosting will use more resources and yours may suffer. That’s just the surface, there are a lot more limitations in shared hosting that make it a bad choice for anyone who is serious about their website.
When should you move to a VPS?
So you started your website on a shared hosting plan, your website is up and running fine. Gradually, your site will grow in size and number of visitors. At this point, the resources of a shared hosting service will start limiting your website’s growth. The higher the traffic to your site, higher the bandwidth it needs to work smoothly. The bandwidth of a shared hosting is not sufficient for a website with decent traffic and other websites in the same server will make bottlenecks too. This is the right time to move to a VPS server which is obviously costlier than your old shared hosting plan. However, an affordable VPS server can be found if you do a little research on the internet.
Why VPS hosting is a better option
In VPS hosting, you own everything that makes your website live on the web, all for yourself. Nobody else uses your resources like in case of shared hosting.
You will get more and really good uptime unlike the frequent downtimes you’d have faced in shared hosting. There is a big difference in the cost of shared hosting and VPS, the cost of a decent VPS server is about 5 times that of a shared hosting plan. However you can always find affordable ones if you research well. If your website has grown much in traffic, you will have no problems with the costs of a VPS server and plus, you get exactly the system resources you pay for. Even if there are other websites on the same physical machine, it won’t affect your website as each of them works in a virtual private environment.
Conclusion: Don’t let shared hosting strangulate your growth
Despite being really affordable and cheap, shared hosting has its own limitations and drawbacks which will pull down a growing website. It’s an option only if you are a beginner and low on funds. If your website has started getting decent traffic, the best option is to switch to a VPS server which will give complete freedom and privacy for your web property. It will also make sure that you don’t face frequent downtimes. The right time to move to a VPS server is when your website starts receiving decent traffic which will outrun the capacity of the shared hosting service you are on.
