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When you're ready to launch a business website or upgrade from a hosting plan that's no longer keeping up, the shared hosting vs. VPS hosting comparison inevitably comes up. Deciding between them is a tough, but important, decision to make. In order to make the right choice, you need to understand the key differences between the two.
To help you, we're going to compare shared hosting and VPS hosting across various factors, including scalability, performance, pricing, flexibility, and security.
Below is a breakdown of how shared and VPS hosting stack up across the features that matter most. It should give you a good high-level overview before we dive deeper into each one.
| Features | Shared hosting | VPS hosting |
| Scalability | Low | High |
| Performance | Medium | High |
| Pricing | Low | Varies* |
| Flexibility | Low | High |
| Reliability | Medium | High |
| Security | Medium | High |
| Support | High | Varies* |
| Use case | Beginners; Low-traffic sites | Growing businesses; High-traffic sites |
Shared hosting is where most websites begin their life on the internet. It’s the most economical form of hosting — where your website lives alongside other websites on the same physical server.
Resources like storage space and RAM are allocated among neighbors, much like humans renting an apartment, where they have common utilities and infrastructure. The hosting provider manages the server and handles all the technical maintenance, which makes shared hosting an extremely beginner-friendly — albeit limiting — option.
VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting divides a physical server into multiple virtual servers, where each website gets its own dedicated portion of resources. In contrast to shared hosting, your allocated resources remain separate from others, even though you share the same physical machine. As a result, you gain more control over your server environment, and you can customize configurations to meet your needs.
VPS hosting wins here. With shared hosting, you’re limited by resource caps. Even if you come across providers advertising “unlimited” bandwidth or storage, these still have restrictions — they’re just buried in fine print under “fair use policies.” On the other hand, VPS hosting lets you comfortably scale up CPU, RAM, and server space as your site grows, and the resource ceilings are higher.
VPS hosting outperforms shared hosting more often than not, but the real advantage is reliability and predictability. With VPS, you get dedicated resources, so your site performs the same on Black Friday as it does on a random Tuesday. On shared hosting, your site splits the same pool of resources with other sites. As a result, your performance can fluctuate depending on what your neighbors are doing at any given moment.
Shared hosting is generally the better budget-friendly hosting choice, with most plans ranging from $3 to $10 per month during promotional periods. VPS hosting splits into two categories: Managed VPS typically starts around $20+ per month, while unmanaged VPS can run as low as $2 per month, since you're handling everything yourself. The catch is that cheap unmanaged plans only make sense if you have the technical aptitude to manage your own server.
VPS hosting offers far more flexibility than shared hosting. With a shared hosting server, you can't install custom software, modify server settings, or choose your operating system. VPS hosting gives you direct access to your virtual server* so you can customize almost every aspect of your server environment to fit your needs.
*Some managed VPS plans restrict this.
VPS hosting is generally more reliable than shared hosting. Since your resources are isolated on a VPS, other users can't impact your site's uptime or performance. On shared hosting, if a neighboring site gets hacked, experiences a traffic surge, or uses excessive resources, it can affect your site's stability.
VPS hosting provides better security through isolation. On shared hosting, you're vulnerable to your neighbors. If one site on the server gets compromised, it can potentially affect others. VPS hosting keeps your environment separate, reducing the risk of cross-contamination, and gives you control over your own security configurations and firewall rules.
Shared hosting typically offers more comprehensive support. Since the hosting provider manages everything, they handle server maintenance, updates, and technical issues. VPS hosting (especially unmanaged plans) puts more responsibility on you, though managed VPS plans can offer similar support levels at a higher price point.
Shared hosting works best for beginners, small blogs, personal websites, and low-traffic sites, where you want a hands-off hosting experience. VPS web hosting is ideal for growing businesses, high-traffic websites, resource-intensive applications, developers who need custom configurations, or anyone who's outgrown the limitations of shared hosting.
We've compared the features of shared and VPS hosting, but choosing the right provider matters just as much as choosing the right hosting type. Below are some of our top picks for shared and VPS hosting services:
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Robust user-friendly AI tools for quick web building
Cheaper than other all-in-one ecommerce web host & builders like Wix and Shopify
All three companies include a free domain name in the first year and 24/7 chat support.
Shared hosting struggles with performance because other websites on your server can slow yours down, and you’ll hit resource limits as your site grows. You also can’t make server-level configurations, which limits what you can build or customize.
The main disadvantages of VPS hosting depend on whether you’re talking about managed or unmanaged VPS. With managed VPS, the drawback is the cost. It can be quite steep compared to shared hosting. With unmanaged VPS, price is less of an issue, but the trade-off is that you need technical knowledge to set up and manage your server. This makes the barrier to entry intimidating for beginners.
It depends on the plan type and timing. Shared hosting is cheaper during promotional periods, and there are even free shared hosting options, but unmanaged VPS can actually cost less long term, since these plans don't include customer support. Managed VPS is typically more expensive than shared hosting.
Choose shared hosting if you’re just starting out, have a simple website with low traffic, and want your hosting company to handle everything. Choose VPS hosting if you have a large existing audience and anticipate getting a lot of traffic, or if you plan to launch a resource-heavy site like a complex eCommerce business.
Shared hosting and VPS hosting serve distinctly different needs. The decision ultimately comes down to your current needs, technical comfort level, and budget.
If you're just starting out or have a simple business site with modest traffic, shared hosting gets you online quickly and affordably. If you need reliable performance, are experiencing growth, or require more control over your server environment, VPS hosting — whether managed or unmanaged — is worth the investment.
Robust user-friendly AI tools for quick web building
Cheaper than other all-in-one ecommerce web host & builders like Wix and Shopify
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