What is VPS Hosting?

Basically, VPS hosting (Virtual Private Server hosting) is a service that gives you a web server’s hardware to share with others without sharing the software. This means that you can have complete root control over the server as if it was your own dedicated server but you will still share the CPU, RAM, and bandwidth with other users. You can still have guaranteed CPU, disk space, and memory. This means you can install whatever you want.

VPS hosting is more expensive than shared web hosting but it can be far less expensive than dedicated hosting while giving you some of the same benefits. Wikipedia says this about "what is shared VPS hosting?": "A virtual private server (VPS, also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server or VDS) is a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers such that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, and each server can be independently rebooted."

What is VPS hosting good for? VPS hosting is great for hosting many web sites in an environment where you have almost complete control while still keeping your costs down. You can install a custom Apache module or try out a new programming language. You can get in a and make detailed changes using the command line or remote desktop but your hosting company still usually makes it easy to administer your site using a Virtualization control panel such as Virtuozzo Power Panel.

What is VPS hosting not good for? The disadvantages of VPS hosting include:

    More responsibility. You have to keep the system up to date and running. If the web server software comes out with a new version to fix a security problem, you have to update it so your server doesn’t get hacked. If the web server software crashes over the weekend, guess who gets to fix it? That would be you, my friend, not the friendly administrator who handles the shared web hosting servers.
    Fewer resources than dedicated. Though you get a certain portion of the server’s hardware, there are far fewer resources than if you had your own dedicated server.

You can get VPS hosting with Windows or Linux and you usually get at least one dedicated IP address.

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