Shared Hosting Versus VPS?

[Golddisk]

Shared hosting and VPS hosting are two of the most popular hosting options that I usually see people talking about. But obviously each has there pros and cons. It seems to me that shared hosting is generally used by smaller sites while VPS is used for larger sites.

I understand some of the key differences, but what are be benefits for each? What are the drawbacks for each type?

 

[UncensoredHosting]

Shared hosting means just that. Your website is hosted on a server shared by other websites. The advantage of this setup is the shared cost. You can pay as little as $5-$10 per month for sharing a super server with (probably) hundreds of other websites.

The biggest disadvantage of a shared hosting account is that you're at the mercy of the other sites on your server. A really popular site may adversely affect the performance of your own site. On the other hand, if you're the most popular site on the server, you get to use a super server for a very low price.

Virtual private servers share one physical server but acts like multiple, separate servers. A VPS is a stepping stone between shared hosting and getting your own dedicated machine. Even though each VPS instance shares hardware resources, they are allocated a dedicated slice of the computing resources.

 

[RH-Calvin]

A shared hosting plan hosts multiple accounts on a single dedicated IP address. They are usually used to save costs and space for hosting. Shared hosting is not very recommendable as they do not provide data security as the same space and IP address is shared between multiple clients.

 

[test-user]

I don't think shared hosting is as bad as the above posters are saying. Note, most people on shared hosting don't have a problem most of the time. However, though, if they do run into a problem, then they're likely to accept it as a minor inconvenience, mainly cause they don't want to pay more. It's sort of like people toughing out an occasional big snow during the winter.