Shared Hosting vs VPS Hosting: Which One Should You Choose?

With so many hosting options out there, choosing the best hosting plan for your website is a real challenge. Especially, when it comes to shared hosting vs VPS hosting.

So, which is the ideal hosting solution?

Well, that depends upon what kind of a website you’re running.

Both of these hosting plans can lead to successful results depending upon the nature of your website. However, you might get stuck in the overwhelming hosting options out there.

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

Luckily you have arrived at the right place- this complete guide would provide you with everything you need to understand before choosing VPS or shared hosting.

So, let’s start…

Shared Hosting vs VPS Hosting

Both types of hosting plans provide performance, security, and good value for money.

But the question is, to what extent are these features categorized?   

So, let's dig deeper to the core differences, so you can easily choose the hosting plan you want.

1. Reliability and Scalability

How can a customer buy your product if your website is not even accessible?

To stay connected to your customers it is necessary to stay online!

This sheds light on the uptime consistency of your servers. No matter which server you’re purchasing, they should be up most of the time.

99.9% or above is considered the ideal uptime consistency. For your website, this percentage highly matters because it determines whether your webpage would be available for the users whenever they try to access your services, or not.

Let’s take an example:

If you’re running an e-commerce website in Pakistan or elsewhere with a poor uptime consistency your product would not even appear when the users search for it.

No doubt, both the servers can cause problems. However, with VPS hosting, although you would be sharing server space, you’d be provided with a dedicated virtual compartment for your website.

In VPS, each partition is customized as per the client’s requirements in a highly secure environment. As per your need, you can get plans for both Windows VPS hosting and Linux VPS hosting.

On the other hand, shared hosting’s overwhelming environment could overload the server, that may result in increased server downtime and slow loading speed. This is not the case in VPS hosting!

2. Server Security and Data Protection

In a shared hosting environment, there exists a higher risk of malicious attacks because multiple websites are hosted on a single server. And, you never know who’s running those websites out there!

Websites act as doors for hackers and attackers, and more doors mean a higher risk of security breaches!

Further, all the customers on shared hosting are interconnected. In case another website on the shared server gets hacked, your website’s data would become vulnerable to attacks as well.

Much of the security depends on whether your hosting company is serious about security criteria or not! The best hosting provider would make sure their servers are protected against hackers and malware.

Plus, to make online transactions secure and enhance your website’s user experience, you can also buy an SSL certificate along with bundle of additional features.

You know why security matters? Because 87% of the customers abandon their purchase decision on an unsecure platform!

No matter whether you run a business in Pakistan or in any other corner of the globe… if you don’t buy a reliable web hosting plan with highly-secure servers, you would soon regret it! Because only dependable hosting providers can help keep your business data safe, secure and protected against cyber-attacks.

3. Pricing and Affordability 

Generally, shared web hosting’s price is typically lower as compared to VPS hosting because the cost of a single server is divided amongst multiple website owners. VPS hosting tends to provide premium features and is more reliable, so it usually costs more!

As per the pricing criteria, shared hosting stands out to be the most economical option depending upon the payment cycle you choose. 

On the other hand, VPS hosting is enriched with exclusive features i.e. powerful CPU, SSD disk drives, enhanced server security, and a guarantee of maximum uptime with a fast loading speed.. 

If you’re a Pakistani business owner, you can easily target your customers online by investing in a reliable  VPS hosting plan and getting .pk domain registration at affordable prices from one single hosting provider. 

Depending upon the nature of your business you can choose any of these servers and then upgrade whenever you want. 

​​​​​​​4. Website Performance and Speed  

Let's say that you have a very fancy website with super-fantastic features.

But still, your site’s sales and revenues heavily depend on its loading speed and performance. One of the researches proved that around 80% of the users won’t return to your website if it could not load within 2 to 3 seconds. In a sense, you might lose such a massive amount of audience.

This means, choosing the hosting plan decides the future of your business! Because every millisecond matters!

Shared hosting runs smoothly unless your site receives a substantial amount of audience. This means if you’re a starter then staying on shared servers sounds good. Not only because they’re affordable but they provide reliable features as well.

Meanwhile, your business keeps on growing! And once you start receiving a heavy number of visitors… it’s better to switch to a different hosting plan or upgrade your package!  

Your webpage might start loading painfully slow on a shared server when a substantial number of users try to access your website. In this case, your website may have to endure server downtime as well.

In contrast, VPS hosting is always going to win over the speed of shared hosting, where users don’t have to wait longer than a few seconds for your webpage to load . Moreover, it comes up with additional processing power, which helps your site to work smoothly and incredibly fast.

If you go for an SSD VPS, its strong processing system has the power to uplift your site’s performance which would likely bring you more customers!

5. Administration and Customization

Your server updates and maintenance are taken care of in a shared hosting environment where you don’t need to worry about the regular updates or installations. This is why you would find shared hosting easier to manage than VPS hosting that comes with a few technical responsibilities if you haven’t purchased a managed VPS hosting plan.

Shared hosting lowers the chances of accidental deletion of data because your hosting company is up there taking care of your data!

However, sometimes you might want to install any software that suits your business. Even you would want to customize your website. But shared hosting does not allow you to make certain installations.

But when it comes to VPS hosting you are given more power to administer and customize your server. If you want full-time control over the software, then VPS hosting is the best option for you! 

6. Flexibility of Hosting Packages

If you’re running a small business with just a handful of visitors, then jumping to VPS hosting does not sound cool. Shared hosting offers reliable features for starters and it's okay for you to stay there!

Over time, your website might reach a point where it starts receiving a hive of web visitors. This is where the problems related to increased server downtime and slow loading speed creep in!  

Such a rush of the audience would abruptly hang your website on a shared server and instead of grabbing those users, you would start losing them.

Bang!

Right at this critical stage… greater bandwidth can help to run your website at a blazing-fast speed. VPS hosting offers you greater bandwidth which means your website can adjust according to your traffic.

For instance, the e-commerce store owners in Pakistan might require more bandwidth to handle the increased flux of customers during special occasions.

Which One Should You Choose?

Remember the decision of choosing a hosting plan can make or break your business’s online presence. Selecting the wrong option might lead you to a complete mess!

Thus, before making any decision you need to analyze your website’s requirements and then decide which plan is perfect for your business. 

Whether you choose shared hosting or VPS hosting, all the crucial points mentioned above should be the center of your decision-making approach.