Shared, dedicated, VPS hosting, what are the differences

Shared, dedicated, VPS hosting, what are the differences?


It only took about fifteen years for the web to establish itself, both in the uses of the general public and professionals. As a result, very quickly, individuals and businesses wanted to have space to host their own website.

Shared, dedicated, VPS hosting, what are the differences

To meet all the requirements, and adapt to the evolution of technologies, the hosts now offer several types of very differentiated offers ranging from simple shared hosting to dedicated hosting, from VPS to cloud computing, this article proposes ` `to explain simply and briefly the challenges of these different types of accommodation.


To host a website, it is necessary to have disk space on a computer. Even if it is possible to host its site on a personal computer, at home or on the premises of a company, very quickly users turned to the services of companies specializing in hosting, for reasons of cost. , technical skills and practicality.


To have suitable hosting for your future website, you have to anticipate the machine resources needed to make it work in good conditions.


It is therefore a question of defining its needs in terms of bandwidth, availability or even guaranteed recovery in the event of a failure. But above all, it is a question of defining the technical infrastructure of this hosting, which can take several aspects.


The most economical: shared hosting


Shared hosting is the most economical form of web hosting. Technically, this is to host several sites on the same server, in a standard way. These accommodations are therefore preconfigured and preconfigured, so ideal if you do not have server administration skills.


The flip side of this standardization is that it is not possible to customize the environment of the system, web server, applications or services. Suitable for small sites with low traffic, these accommodations do not have any special security measures either.


The most specific: the dedicated server


High-end web hosting, the dedicated server consists in providing a user with a machine reserved for his own use. The client has all the hardware resources of the server, without limitation, as well as complete freedom to configure server programs, install libraries or schedule tasks.

Shared, dedicated, VPS hosting, what are the differences

Dedicated hosting is therefore more expensive than shared hosting, but fully customizable according to the customer’s needs. Knowledge of server administration is required, unless you entrust administration to your technical service provider.


The hybrid: the VPS (Virtual Private Server)


A hybrid system between shared and dedicated, the VPS consists in creating several virtual servers on the same real server, using software virtualization technologies.


Thus, the hard disk is shared with several other users, but each virtual server has its own processor and its own memory allocation. VPS therefore allows more flexible administration, settings and installations than a shared server.


The most flexible: the Cloud


The concept of the Cloud has developed with the massive virtualization of architectures. Cloud hosting does not simply rely on a physical machine divided into several virtual machines: it relies on the interconnection of several of these physical machines, which in turn are divided into virtual machines.


The objective is to provide more flexibility, in order to be able to modify the power of a server in real time according to the evolution of its needs. Ideal for websites that experience occasional spikes in visits, for example.

Shared, dedicated, VPS hosting, what are the differences

Thus, the Cloud allows an infinite choice of sizing and increased scalability. Finally, the business model of the Cloud is characterized by the fact that the user does not pay for a range of resources but rather according to the resources actually consumed.


Shared, dedicated, VPS or Cloud, it is therefore important to understand the challenges of these technologies in order to adopt the system that best meets their needs, whether it is performance management of personalization security service or still flexibility.

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