When you are keen to start your own blog, you can choose from paid hosting or free hosting options, depending on your requirements and budgetary constraints. You can also choose a self-hosting option where you host your own blog in WordPress. You can decide how you want this blog to look, adding the plug-ins according to your preferences. In short, you can enjoy complete flexibility and control when it comes to designing this blog.

For hosting your own blog, you can make use of either shared hosting or VPS hosting and it is necessary to see which hosting solution will offer you more advantages over the other. In shared hosting, you can share server space with co-users but this means that your website can even slow down when other users swallow up too many of the server’s resources. 

What are shared hosting and VPS hosting?

Shared hosting is found to be very useful for smaller websites because it is easy to install and much cheaper compared to other hosting solutions. However, when your site starts to slow down, it is an indication that you have possibly outgrown the server’s resources and need to upgrade to VPS hosting.  

In VPS hosting, an entire server is divided into multiple virtual servers, each functioning independent of the others. This means that even if you have larger websites residing on the same server as you, it will not affect the resources you get from the VPS plans. You will be able to avail of an allotted amount of RAM and CPU regardless of how many users are sharing the same physical server. Your website can automatically perform better because you have root access to the server and you are free to install applications to suit your business needs. When the site expands, you can also upgrade to an even more powerful VPS without experiencing any migration hassles.

Now, the question arises as to which is a better hosting solution for a WordPress site, whether it is VPS or shared hosting. It is always better to choose VPS hosting simply because VPS hosting plans are now being offered for very reasonable rates by most providers. Although installation may take a while and you may need some time to get started, it is definitely far more convenient because of the additional resources and the flexibility that you can enjoy with this form of hosting.

What advantages can VPS hosting provide over shared hosting?

You will find that there are quite a few benefits which VPS hosting offers for WordPress sites in comparison to shared hosting. This explains why most serious bloggers and online businesses are making a beeline for VPS plans.

• VPS servers are more like dedicated servers because you can enjoy nearly all features and benefits of dedicated hosting minus the high costs. VPS is virtual hosting as there is no real hardware; it shares resources belonging to a large physical server. So, all sites using VPS hosting will be able to enjoy resources without having to share these with their neighbors. However, in shared hosting, a site is sharing resources with other sites residing on the same physical server; they have the same resources and a common IP address. So, it is very likely that your website can have disruption in services because of technical problems in the other sites. This is one key benefit which VPS hosting offers over shared hosting to its users. Prices between these two plans are also not very strikingly different to consider using shared hosting for your WordPress site. Compared to about $20 a month, VPS plans will charge you about $25 a month.

•  As far as security goes, you will not want your website to face security threats; in shared hosting, the chances of there being hacking attempts and virus attacks are high as there are security loopholes and the lack of security in any site can cause threats for the neighbors. In VPS hosting, the provider will implement robust security measures to ensure there are no breaches.

• When your website can load faster, your users will have a better experience navigating on your website and it will also contribute to higher rankings in search engines like Yahoo or Google. When you opt for shared hosting, there are multiple users sharing the server bandwidth; this may result in slow loading time for your web pages. These performance issues can make your visitors disgruntled and they may even navigate to another site, leading to loss of revenues for your website.

•  Finally, when you run a blog or an ecommerce site, you need a high degree of flexibility to be able to install applications and software which can benefit your interests. VPS hosting will allow you to enjoy complete root access to the server. This means that you can install scripting languages of your choice, something that is definitely not possible when you buy shared hosting plans.

These are some of the key benefits you can enjoy when you choose VPS plans for your WordPress site and this is why you should consider this form of hosting rather than shared hosting.