Some clients tend to get the wrong idea about virtual private servers (VPS). They believe that spending more means getting better speed. However, this is not the whole idea of VPS. VPS is a standalone server more suitable for administration level and customisation of an application. Therefore, having VPS does not necessarily mean that you will automatically speed up your website.

When Do You Need VPS?

• Some applications and websites require personalised features to be enabled on the server. In such cases, VPS is a great solution to isolate and customise the server based on your website needs. If you require your application or website to be specially made, you need to upgrade to VPS.
• Some content management systems (CMS) require specific Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) versions. While some plugins or themes may also require specific versions to function correctly.
• If you are looking to design your email solution based on the requirements of your organisation, VPS is for you. VPS is also suitable for corporate websites.

However, if you are running an e-commerce website you might not get the performance that you require. Although you can always boost your website performance by adding an optimised webserver to your Linux VPS “LiteSpeed”, this, unfortunately, might not be enough for your website in the long run.

If your website performance is slow and you want to move to a better server, a proper analysis should be performed on the website itself. The analysis can help identify the root cause of latency and suggest corrective actions to enhance the website speed. Based on the findings, you can decide which hosting option you should move to.

Why do Shared Hosting, at times, provide better website speed compared to VPS?

The key difference depends on how resources are divided. With shared hosts, it’s essentially a type of a free-for-all kind of service: Whoever grabs the resources first gets to use them. For example, if the server has 16GB of memory, then a single website out of 100 websites hosted on the same server could potentially end up using almost all of it.

• On VPS servers, the quota is divided for clients in advance. For example, lower-end VPS plans might allocate 2GB for each VPS. Each of these users would then be able to use as much of that 2GB as they need, but none would be able to overstep their own individual 2GB allowance.
• Shared Hosting is virtualised based on Kernel level where certain resources can still be overused by customers. However, action will only be taken to rectify any issues when its overloading the server.
• With Shared Hosting, all the resources provided to the customer is reserved only for website usage and not to be used by other server services. For example, all the webservers, database, email and DNS has their own allocated resources - unlike VPS where all services running on the server are shared with the customer’s website or application.

If you are still unsure, you can always seek advice from us before deciding to upgrade your plan by contacting our sales team.