Shared hosting vs VPS: which one do you need?

Shared hosting and a VPS solve the same problem — keeping your site online — but they divide the responsibility in completely different ways. Choosing between them is not "cheaper or more powerful", it is "who administers the server". WHAT SHARED HOSTING IS One physical server divided among many customers. Each has their own folder, their own databases, their own control panel, but the operating system is shared and we maintain it: we apply updates, watch security, fix hardware. You get a ready environment. Upload the files and the site works. There is nothing to configure, and that is the main advantage rather than a shortcoming. The limits follow from the same fact. You cannot install arbitrary software or change system settings. And resources are capped: how much processor time and how many disk operations your account may take without crowding its neighbours. WHAT A VPS IS A virtual machine with dedicated resources and root access. The processor, memory and disk are yours and not shared. You install anything and change anything. And you are responsible for all of it. System updates, firewall configuration, backups, certificates — your work. If the server stops answering at three in the morning, that is your night. The provider answers for the machine being powered and connected; what happens on it is your side of the line. WHEN SHARED HOSTING IS ENOUGH The honest answer: most of the time. A business-card site, a blog, a corporate site, a shop with a few hundred products, a landing page for advertising — all of these live on shared hosting for years without meeting its limits. If your site runs on WordPress, OpenCart or another common CMS, if you get up to a few thousand visitors a day, and if you do not intend to administer a server yourself — take shared hosting and do not complicate things. WHEN IT IS TIME FOR A VPS People usually move not because of traffic but because of a specific obstacle. It helps to be able to name it. You need your own software. A non-standard version of something, your own background service, queues, a custom build. None of that can be installed on shared hosting. You need Node.js or Python. Shared hosting has PHP on every plan; Node.js and Python only on the largest. If your project runs on those and the top plan is not enough, there is one road. You are hitting the limits. Not "it feels slow", but seeing in the panel that you reach the CPU or I/O ceiling regularly, and not only on sale day. Isolation requirements. Sometimes this comes from a client or a regulator rather than from engineering. If none of those is about you, you do not need a VPS. Paying extra for root you never use is a common and useless expense. WHAT IT COSTS Shared hosting at Orax starts at $0.88 a month, a VPS at $7.06 a month. A dedicated server, for when a virtual machine is not enough, starts at $105.90 a month — and that is a live auction, so the line-up and the prices move. Billing is in US dollars; the so'm figure is calculated at the rate at the moment of payment. HOW TO MOVE, AND HOW THESE MOVES DIFFER Within shared hosting it is simple. Changing plan happens on the same account: data, sites, mail and databases stay where they are. You pay only the difference for the remaining term, and moving down returns what you have not used. This really is a couple of clicks. From shared hosting to a VPS it is different, and worth understanding in advance. A VPS is a separate machine, not another plan. We hand it over personally: after payment it takes up to one business day to prepare, and we send you the credentials. The site has to be moved there — it does not migrate by itself. We have a tool that moves a site over SSH, but that is a separate action, not a consequence of the purchase. Plan a move like that for a quiet day, not the evening before an advertising campaign starts. WHAT TO CHOOSE IF YOU ARE UNSURE Start with shared hosting. It is cheaper, switches on immediately after payment, and asks no system administration of you. If you hit a wall you will see it, and the move will then be a deliberate decision with a reason you can name, rather than a guess made at the start. The road back exists too, and is travelled more often than people expect: someone takes a VPS "to grow into", does not update the system for six months, and returns to hosting where the updates are applied for them. Shared hosting and VPS plans with their specifications are in the Store, and they sit side by side on the comparison page.