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VPS Vs. Shared Hosting, Which is better?


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Hey all,

I tend to give my friend advice about his website and the like, and he has asked me about VPS vs shared hosting and im not familiar with VPS.

He is currently on shared hosting, and is paying around ?10 a month, his host is offering a base package VPS for ?15 a month, so hes asked me if its worth upgrading, and what the implications are.

As with any problem i face, i head over to google to find information, but i also head to my trusty Neowin :D

Im sure someone here has experience with using VPS, could you please give me a brief breakdown of your experience and the real world advantages and disadvantages of using it rather than shared.

http://www.webfusion.co.uk/virtual-private-servers/starter/ this is the package he is looking at.

I will continue searching google for answers, but some opinions would be greatly appreciated :D

Thanks in advance

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What are the stats on his current site?

To be honest with you, unless he has outgrown shared hosting or needs the flexibility of a VPS (i.e. the ability to install custom software), I'd just stick with shared hosting. If anything goes wrong with his VPS it's usually down to you to fix (or pay someone to fix). If your host screws something up on their shared servers they'll fix it for free.

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What are the stats on his current site?

To be honest with you, unless he has outgrown shared hosting or needs the flexibility of a VPS (i.e. the ability to install custom software), I'd just stick with shared hosting. If anything goes wrong with his VPS it's usually down to you to fix (or pay someone to fix). If your host screws something up on their shared servers they'll fix it for free.

Hey, thanks for the reply.

They are my thoughts as well. Currently, he has only just launched his website, but he is expecting high levels of daily traffic when he starts his marketing.

the only real requirement is that the hosting plays nice with drupal, as thats what powers his website. I think he really only wants it for so his site is running as fast as it can.

security was one of my main concerns. If he went down the VPS route, would he need to apply security patches and change the config so its secure? or is that something that is normally done for you?

I've been reading some lovely stories i found on google that are saying how people have had their sites hacked due to port security set ups on their VPS, which is making me a bit scared as i dont have the knowledge to run a VPS, and neither does he.

does anyone else have nay insights to using a VPS?

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Does your friend know anything at all about managing a VPS(/server)? Does his host offer managed support or is it unmanaged? If it's unmanaged than anything he breaks, he will only have himself to rely on to resolve that problem. If it's managed, then sure why not get a VPS.

But for that $5 more (err, your currency, too lazy to c/p) is there really a NEED to upgrade? Is he getting warning messages from his host that he's using too much CPU? Too many MySQL connections? If he's sitting pretty with his shared hosting account and is fine with managing his site(s) like that then don't upgrade.

I would only get the VPS for him to use as a development server so he can get used to it. Play around with it, get used to it and then put his website on it after he's confident with it.

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Does your friend know anything at all about managing a VPS(/server)? Does his host offer managed support or is it unmanaged? If it's unmanaged than anything he breaks, he will only have himself to rely on to resolve that problem. If it's managed, then sure why not get a VPS.

But for that $5 more (err, your currency, too lazy to c/p) is there really a NEED to upgrade? Is he getting warning messages from his host that he's using too much CPU? Too many MySQL connections? If he's sitting pretty with his shared hosting account and is fine with managing his site(s) like that then don't upgrade.

I would only get the VPS for him to use as a development server so he can get used to it. Play around with it, get used to it and then put his website on it after he's confident with it.

Thanks for the reply Cupcakes.

the site has literally just launched, about a month ago, so its only getting a small amount of traffic currently.

neither he or me has experience with managing a web server other than shared hosting (which pretty much anyone can do :D)

If the site grows to the site he is expecting i think he will deffo need either a VPS or a dedicated server, so your suggestion of getting the VPS as a development server is a very good idea and i will deffo suggest it to him.

From looking at the hosting company, i cant see anything that says its managed, so i can only assume everything would be down to me and him, which scares me a lot (Y)

Is managing a VPS difficult?

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I run a Centos VPS for mail, web, mysql, svn and various other bits and bobs that I manage myself. There are various guides on the web to set up and secure each part which I have found useful (check out www.webhostingtalk.com) - but if your first experience of setting up a VPS is for a popular production environment, I'd advise against getting an unmanaged VPS. If you outgrow the shared hosting, get a managed VPS or dedicated server. Whoever's managing it will guarantee some level of service, which you would be unlikely to be able to guarantee if you did it yourself.

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Don't use Webfusion, read into it. To get out of a contract when canceling they demand large amounts of money ?100+ to cancel.

Also VPS if you want to manage your sites yourself in terms of security etc. Shared Hosting if you want your provider to manage the security etc and you just want to host your sites.

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