If you own a web project, you probably know that one of the most important factors when working on the web is flexibility. Your website has to stay online all the time, yet still be flexible enough to be ready for extra high flows of users.
There are three main types of web hosting: shared, VPS and dedicated hosting.
Shared solutions are cheap and good for start-ups. VPS hosting is best for the middle stage of project growth. Finally, dedicated servers are best in terms of providing you with flexibility not only in terms of users flow, but also in terms of server management.
However, it is often hard to define the limit of each stage and when it might be time to upgrade to the next hosting solution. Read on for to learn practical hints that will help you decide if it’s time to purchase a VPS or a dedicated server.
In For a VPS? Explore Our Top VPS Hosting Choices
Dedicated Servers — Choose or Not?
First, let’s start with VPS. These solutions are like the golden mean — you get extended features of shared hosting at quite an adequate price. However, it sometimes makes sense to skip the VPS stage and just move to a Dedicated plan.
It’s pretty easy: you just have to spend a few of hours modeling the growth of your project in the last six months. With that data on your hands, you can approximate the number of users that will visit your website in the next six months. That number will help you understand if VPS will be enough by that time, or if you will need to upgrade.
Moving to a new hosting plan is often time-consuming and even annoying, so it makes sense to spend a bit more in the beginning in order to get more stable work and better server management in the end.
Moving to a Dedicated Hosting Plan? See Our Recommendations
| Provider | Best for | Price | Expert & User Reviews | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Affordability | $19.00/mo | Kamatera Review | Visit Kamatera |
 | Customer Support | $49.00/mo | Knownhost Review | Visit Knownhost |
 | Budget Friendliness | $39.50/mo | Verpex Hosting Review | Visit Verpex Hosting |
 | Managed Server | $81.95/mo | HostArmada Review | Visit HostArmada |
 | Customization | $129.90/mo | Ultahost Review | Visit Ultahost |
The Advantages of Dedicated Servers
The features included with dedicated packages are plentiful. You get a whole server — and you can do anything with it: install the OS you need, lots of add-ons, widgets, any control panel — whatever you want to do. Even more importantly, you get incredible capacity and extensive security.
In fact, not sharing a server with other web projects makes your website(s) more secure, too. You will not get blacklisted or blocked occasionally just because of what your neighbors happen to be doing on their sites. Moreover, most web host companies sell dedicated servers as top solutions , so they include additional features and priority support into dedicated packages.
Finally, dedicated servers give you the luxury of freedom. You have huge server capacity, so you don’t need to think about traffic and disk space all the time. Then, you can make lots of fine adjustments if your web masters have some particular requirements to database management, for example. Finally, you can purchase managed dedicated Hosting and relax. In this case, your web host’s experts will do all dirty work for your–just don’t expect any solutions tailored to your project from a managed pack.
In the end, dedicated servers have the most exciting features and bonuses; however, it all depends on your project’s needs, so you be sure to monitor it from time to time.
Keep in mind that dedicated plans are not the terminal station. At a certain point, when a dedicated plan is also not enough, you can purchase a cloud hosting plan, but that’s another story. The main point is to think big: if your website(s) has good prospects for growth, then why not opt for a solution that will give you the most advantages?
