When we start a new venture, business, or company, there is a need that is impossible to avoid: you cannot conceive of a business without an online presence. Otherwise, you are doomed to failure or, at best, you will be losing a significant number of potential new clients.
Getting the right hosting for your website to function smoothly is a crucial step. For small businesses, a shared hosting plan may be sufficient to meet the demands of your project.
However, what happens when your business experiences exponential growth? If you have more and more customers or more products in stock, you will need a bigger space. Similarly, you will need hosting that adapts to your new growth needs. A VPS is an excellent option in this scenario.
What is a VPS?
A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is a virtual partition of a physical server, and on this server, the client has exclusive use of it. The user has control over and manages their own resources such as RAM, CPU, disk space, IP addresses, etc.
A Virtual Private Server is not shared with other clients, and there are a wide variety of high-quality VPS options on the market that offer better performance, security, and reliability for your website.
What distinguishes it from shared hosting or a dedicated server?
There are some key differences between VPS, shared hosting, and dedicated servers. The main difference is based on exclusive resources.
Shared Hosting
This is the most common and widely used form of hosting; however, it is not highly recommended because it creates many security gaps. The reasons? The same IP is used for all the people sharing the server, and aspects like the processor and memory are also shared. This means that when traffic begins to increase, the website may slow down.
Disadvantages of Shared Hosting:
- Sharing the IP address with other websites hosted on the server.
- Limited resources available. There are restrictions on installing applications or programs that require high resource consumption, which can negatively impact the performance of other sites hosted on the server. Additionally, if a site receives a lot of traffic or experiences a DDoS attack, it can cause problems or slowdowns for other websites hosted on the same server. A virus threat on one website can affect all websites on the server.
- When one user consumes too many resources on the server, other users are affected.
- It does not support large amounts of web traffic or visitors.
Dedicated Server
In this case, the server is a physical machine dedicated to a single client, so all resources are exclusive. It offers greater security and speed, among many other benefits, but the cost is very high.
Disadvantages of Dedicated Servers:
- Price: The cost of dedicated servers is typically the highest among all hosting services available.
- Administration: Specialized personnel are usually required to perform installation, management, and optimization tasks for the server. This management can often be contracted separately, depending on the provider, but this will significantly increase the price.
VPS Server
The server is divided into several partitions, each completely individualized. These partitions are virtually transformed into small, dedicated servers, so each client has their own memory and IP address. This greatly improves load times and security.
In general, a VPS server is like a small, dedicated server, as it shares almost the same characteristics, but on a smaller scale. Furthermore, those who use a VPS no longer must deal with the common issues associated with shared hosting. Therefore it is positioned as an excellent alternative among the three available hosting options.
What are its main advantages?
Now that we have clarified what a VPS is, let’s look at some of the main advantages of using one:
Faster Load Times
Since there is no sharing of RAM or storage, the process of loading a website is considerably faster. This is an important factor for service providers, but especially for users. Considering that you have only a few seconds to capture a user's attention, if the page takes too long to load, the user will likely leave.
Privacy
Another important advantage of virtual servers is privacy. The IP address and bandwidth are not shared, which is essential for creating a much safer environment for all users.
Customization of Applications
With exclusive resources, it’s possible to customize applications, install specific software, databases, and many other functions. This freedom facilitates the creation of more powerful and customizable websites.
Scalability
One of the best aspects of VPS is that you can increase its capacity as needed, ensuring that you always have enough space and memory to provide the best user experience possible.
Excellent Value for Money
Of the three hosting options, the VPS undoubtedly offers the best value for money. Dedicated servers are very expensive, and while shared hosting may be fine to start with, it will quickly become insufficient for your needs, not to mention the security gaps, which is also a very important issue.
How does a VPS benefit an SME?
If you are a small or medium-sized business (SME), you can enjoy the following benefits:
1. Customization and Autonomy: Having complete control over the administrative panel to install and run applications, customize DNS settings based on your domain, and manage hosting through the “cPanel” control panel is essential for configuring the server according to your business needs.
2. Superior Performance: The server VPS allows website data stored on SSD drives to run up to 10 times faster than traditional hard disks, thus improving website and application performance.
3. Rapid Expansion: A VPS makes it easy to upgrade to a more robust plan as your website continues to grow. This aligns perfectly with SMEs, as VPS servers are an excellent choice for rapidly expanding websites.
4. Cost-Effective: Although VPS has many features of a dedicated server, it offers an excellent cost-benefit ratio, with prices varying according to the chosen plan. This is where HostGator outshines its competitors.
5. Mayor seguridad: A VPS ofrece altos niveles de seguridad. Además de estar completamente protegido y aislado de otros sitios web que usan el mismo server 5. Greater Security: A VPS offers high levels of security. In addition to being completely protected and isolated from other websites using the same physical server, it is possible to implement your own security protection protocols. This significantly reduces security concerns and provides peace of mind to users, which is always one of the most important factors when selecting such a service.
If after reading this article you believe that your company needs a VPS server to continue its growth, contact our advisors. Write to us, and we will attend to your project.
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