Shared Hosting or Virtual Private Server? As emphasized before, the choice is dependent on the hosting needs for your business or personal requirement. The big organization’s needs or heavy traffic sites wouldn’t be accommodated in the shared hosting. There are differences between the Shared Hosting and VPS in certain areas which influence the decision of choosing the best hosting package. There are some common traits between them as well. Shared hosting and VPS allow a single server to provide services to multiple users. Both hosting services have some level compartmentalization for the different users’ usage. And more highlighted these are the economical alternative for the dedicated server.

The differences can be rectified by six focal criteria. The criteria are customization, resources, performance, scalability, limitation of email, website and security. Firstly, the software customization for shared hosting is not allowed but it is allowable for the VPS. The client can choose an operating systems, control panels, software based on their convenient. This is includes with the root access to the server for the clients. They can reboot at any time. Secondly, the total resources for the VPS is higher compare to the shared hosting. As the consequences, the performance of the VPS is greater.

Thirdly, the scalability or users per server for shared hosting are roughly 250 users or can be more than that if it is oversold by web hosting providers.  Meanwhile for VPS are only 20 users. In the Virtual Private Server environment, a user will not be affected by other users since the user is isolated from each other in the server. The security level is lower for shared hosting and higher for VPS.  For an example, an account in the shared hosting is hacked by a hacker and the possibilities other accounts in the same server affected is higher. But if an account hacked in VPS, the other accounts won’t be affected.

The limitations of sending emails or host website differ too. In the VPS, there is no limitation. The clients can send unlimited emails and host unlimited websites. As reverse, the clients are allowed to send 250 emails only per hour (differ depends on different web hosting providers) and a certain figures to host websites in an account for shared hosting.

The differences of Shared Hosting and VPS have been simplified in the table below:

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