Most website owners opt for WordPress as their CMS. Although the same platform works properly on shared hosting, these plans are cheap and will stop having enough resources as time goes on. When you start receiving more traffic, it’s important to make an upgrade. Fortunately, there are a bunch of other alternatives out there. In this post, we’ll outline what VPS WordPress hosting is and how to know when it’s the right moment to choose one.
What is the main difference between shared hosting and VPS?
Shared hosting means the resources on the server are divided between multiple websites. It’s like renting a room in a shared house – you’ve got your own space, but there are other people with you. While that’s not so great, it is the cheapest alternative on the market. If we talk about VPS hosting, you can think about it as renting an apartment. Is still a shared space from a building, but all the rooms are just for you and can’t be used by someone else. The prices are higher, but still affordable and come up with multiple benefits.
Generally, shared hosting works great at the beginning of your journey. A VPS WordPress package is better in the long term since you might run an online store or another business that’s growing. The resources are divided virtually through a hypervisor that creates multiple machines for every real server.
When is it time to upgrade?
The first reason you should purchase a VPS is when your website is running slow. Most visitors aren’t patient and will leave your pages if the content is not showing up in 3 seconds or less. The more images or other elements you add, the harder this will become. Take into account that plugins and widgets also influence time responses. You might optimize everything with caching memory and a lazy load system, but it is not necessarily enough. Find out what the real speed is by using a tool like GTMetrix. Upgrading to VPS will give you better performances instantly.
The second reason is getting over shared hosting limits. A VPS is far superior because it comes with root access, which means more control over what’s happening. You might install a Linux system and configure multiple accounts with limited permissions.
What to look for when you buy a VPS WordPress?
If you’re concerned with the security, having an automated backup service included for your virtual server is vital to your business. Even though there’s a small chance to get malware on the website, you never know what to expect. Back-ups save your database, theme, gallery, and much more. How would it be to wake up one day to realize your whole work has been deleted? Automation is more convenient because you never have to worry about remembering to save your last week’s changes. It’s also not a good idea to store files on your computer at home or on a flash drive, because you are open to security breaches.
When selecting a VPS WordPress hosting solution, you must consider the type of storage too. Servers that use SSD are up to 20xfaster than servers with HDD. If you want more, you might purchase a VPS plan with NVMe technology. Whatever your preferences, the experience you get is similar to a dedicated server — except for the fact the price is much smaller.