Is A VPS Right for You?

We get many questions about when the “right time” is to upgrade to a VPS (Virtual Private Server.) There are many cases when a VPS may be better than a shared server, and when the time is right for you and your site is will vary from someone else’s.

Here, however, is a bit of a primer on things to consider when contemplating whether you want to stay on shared hosting or upgrade to a VPS.

One of the most important elements in this decision will be server resources. Our shared servers are very powerful machines with a lot of CPU and RAM; however, a lot of customers share those resources and they can impact your site’s performance. Having your own VPS (as we run and configure them here at BCH) means you won’t have “noisy neighbors” consuming resources you need – your resources are your own with a VPS.

Server resource over-utilization is one of the most common reasons people need to move to a VPS. If one site is extremely resource-heavy, it is unfair to the other customers on a shared server; one busy site can cause slowness or outright downtime for the other sites. In those situations, upgrading is seldom optional (unless we are able to help optimize the busy site to use fewer resources – something we’re always happy to work with!)

If you have tweaked and tweaked your site, removed a bunch of plugins, reduced the size and complexity of the page, implemented a caching plugin, et cetera, and your site is still causing load or other troubles upon your shared server, we will very likely ask you to upgrade to our Developer Class hosting or to a VPS.

Another important item which comes up frequently with our customers is email deliverability. Deliverability refers to whether email sent from your server is able to reach its destination without errors, being marked as spam, or outright rejected. On a shared server, everyone sends their mail from the main IP address. As you can imagine, that’s a lot of mail going to the third-party mail providers, such as gMail, AOL, and AT&T. Sometimes, the sheer volume of legitimate email causes the IP to become blocked for no other reason.

Most importantly, though: If any customer’s account on a shared server becomes compromised and begins relaying spam, that will adversely affect everyone on the server when the spammer gets the server’s IP blocked at AT&T, gMail, AOL, or Yahoo. 

With a VPS, the only email being sent from your IP address is yours; the only account you have to worry about being secure is your own.

The next element to consider is customizability. Within a shared server environment, there are only so many changes we can make to the server, because many people share it, and a change that works for you might break someone else’s site. If you have special needs for PHP, MySQL, or other server-side aspects, a VPS may be the best way to meet them, as we can tailor the VPS environment to suit your use case.

Traffic is another point to consider. If you’re expecting a huge increase in your traffic, it will almost assuredly be best to move to a VPS ahead of the time you’re expecting the surge. There are two main reasons for this:

1.) Protecting your site – If your site suddenly becomes very busy on a shared server, it may cause server instability and load, which adversely affect all other customers on that server. If the instability becomes unsustainable, we will have no choice but to temporarily suspend your account.

2.) Performance – As I’ve mentioned many times thus far in this post, a shared server environment means you are sharing resources – memory, CPU, disk, everything. The other sites on that server are consuming portions of those resources – portions you may really want (or even need) to handle your incoming visitors. Your own server means only you are using those resources.

Lastly, we have to discuss cost. A VPS server is going to be significantly more expensive than a shared hosting account, because it is for your use only – there are no other customers sharing the expense of maintaining the server.

Most of our VPS customers pay between $6 and $10 per day for their VPS’s. Many of them upgraded “temporarily” to make sure their expected traffic spike went smoothly – and never looked back to shared hosting. It’s very nice to have your own environment!

It is possible for customers to split a VPS between themselves; we call this our Semi-VPS package. Having a VPS “roommate” or two can really help defray the costs of the VPS while maintaining most of the same benefits.

Our VPS servers are charged by the day, so you only pay for the time you need. In 99% of all cases, upgrading and downgrading is free of charge.

Additional benefits of VPS hosting

  • Nightly, full-server-image backups, as well as individual cPanel backups
  • Solid State Drives
  • Easy up/downgrades to different VPS sizes
  • Core-managed and Self-Managed options available at a reduced cost (no cPanel)
  • 5 TB included outbound bandwidth (inbound is always free)
  • Real-time monitoring of your specific server
  • Additional off-server firewall for increased security available at no charge
  • RAID configurations available
  • Load-balanced VPS’s available
  • Virtual Dedicated Servers available

If you’re interested in learning more, please send us a support ticket, and we’ll be happy to help!