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Businesses today face many tough decisions. One of those decisions is whether or not dedicated hosting is a truly cost-effective decision for the way they do business. Times are tough in the world of commerce today, and most businesses are looking for ways to limit their expenses while still delivering superior goods and products to customers. But when it comes to hosting, there are many other factors in addition to the actual price tag that should come into play.
Cost
While the price should never be the sole deciding factor, it’s an important one to keep in mind. With VPS (Virtual Private Servers) you’re going to pay considerably less, though you will give up some of the perks that come along with dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting can be extremely costly depending on how many bells and whistles are included in the price tag. Those extras are nice, but you’ll have to decide for yourself whether they are things you’ll actually ever have the occasion to use. Many of the add-ons that are available with dedicated hosting aren’t necessary at all and if they do become important to you, you can always switch to dedicated hosting at a later date.
Flexibility
Once upon a time, dedicated hosting might have had a large advantage in this department, but cloud technology has been a real game changer. Dedicated servers do still have the upper hand in this department—slightly. However, VPS services providers are catching up quickly and that advantage could grow even smaller in the future. For the average webmaster, this won’t become an issue unless you plan to conduct extremely complex, resource intensive projects. One of the truly great things about a VPS is the flexibility to adjust and change your plan at any time without being locked into a rigid contract for a specified length of time. For the average webmaster, it’s a wise decision to start with a VPS and only make the move to dedicated hosting if and when you’ve outgrown the resources that are available to you.
Performance
One of the big benefits of dedicated hosting is that you are the captain of your own ship. If your hardware can handle it, performance-wise, then the dedicated hosting you have can generally run it. The major thing to remember is that one user has all the available resources of the server at their disposal while those using VPSs are sharing those resources with numerous additional users. This is where dedicated hosting has a distinct advantage. However, the average user doesn’t need high performance from their hosting. They need reliable uptime and VPS cloud servers like Rackspace provide exceptional uptime to their hosting customers.
Ease of Use
This has always been a category where VPSs wins hands down. The problem with all the bells and whistles that go along with the dedicated hosting make it a much more complex type of system to deal with. Today, the scales are tilted even more in favor of VPS. Companies that offer shared hosting have gone out of their way to make the hosting process as user-friendly as possible for the sake of users who are just learning the ropes.
Dedicated hosting is one of those things that may be nice to have, but for the average webmaster—especially one who doesn’t already have a significant Internet following—a VPS is a great place to start. Compare your options and find the best fit for your budget and your current web hosting needs.
