Now you have a shiny new application or website, but where are you going to host it? What is a VPS? What is shared hosting? How do I know what to choose? Let's break it down for you!

Where to start?

So you want to start a new website or find a cost effective solution for hosting your new web app. Perhaps you found a free open source self hosted application that you would want to use such as FireflyIII, Passbolt, or any other awesome free apps on this list. They all require some sort of server that will serve the contents to the internet. If you aren’t sure what a webserver is or does, then check out an article we posted here that explains the layers of web technologies and how they work together.

What is “Shared Hosting”?

Shared hosting is where a company owns a server and installs software on it cPanel or VestaCP that allows them to sell accounts on it. As a website owner, you would pay the server owner a monthly (sometimes annual) fee to use the account. The account often provides features like Wordpress installers, database managers, and even email.

Check out Hostinger if you want cheap reliable hosting. I’ve been using them for a while now and I have 0 compltaints.

These accounts are usually sold by the volume of traffic (or visits) you have to have. These accounts are relatively cheap because the owner can sell many accounts to help spread the cost of the server around to everyone on it. A shared service is awesome because of its price and realitive ease of use, but being shared also means that if another user’s site gets hacked, it is easy for the hacker to hack yours too (even if your site isn’t vulnerable to hacking). To reduce the risk of this happening, the server owner will keep the system updated with the latest security patches and be responsible for any down time.

Well then, what about a “VPS”?

A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is where a company owns a phsyical computer but breaks it up into mutilple “virtual servers” and rents out the virtual server to users. These are by far the most popular servers on the internet and make up a substancial portion of it. They usually still have data limits, but they are much higher than a shared hosting provider.

It still sounds like a shared service, and that is sort of true. The physical computer is shared, but the virtualization split of that server isolates you from other user’s site and applications. The main problem with a VPS is the difficulty in setting up and maintaining them. You typically need a professional to setup the server for you. It is best to have a professional maintain the server for you as well. You will want to keep the server updated with the latest security patches to keep the bad guys out.

So what is right for me?

If you have a simple website (blog site, company site, or even personal site), then a simple shared hosting solution might be good for you. If the server gets hacked and your site goes offline, it is easy and quick to get back online. The costs are cheap and unless you plan on driving 1000s of people to your site a month, it should handle the traffic. Just to be clear, if you are driving 1000s of people a month, you should be able to afford a full time professional to stand up a highly available VPS for you.

Say you have a full web application or an e-commerce site, you will probably want to host it on a VPS. You can ensure your server is updated and secure. This is more important when your application requires a substancial setup process or deals with people’s financial data.

If you would like a professional consultation, reach out to us and will would be happy to help you make the right decision. If you think you already know which solution you want, here our some places to go for the next step.

Shared Hosting Providers: Hostinger, Host Gator, Blue Host, GoDaddy
VPS Providers: Digital Ocean, Linode