Should I use a VPS or dedicated Server?

DefaultUser · Jan 22, 2017

A friend and I are going to be combining our resources and putting our websites on the same hosting service. We both have shared hosting right now. We want to get something better than shared hosting and are trying to decide between a VPS or a Dedicated Server.

We want to have a web hosting service that we can keep for the long term (years) so we want to get something that will have room and resources to grow and expand our websites.

If we had a certain amount of money for a budget what would be the best choice? Would a cheap dedicated server or a better VPS server be the best route to go?

Our websites are Wordpress with and without WooCommerce, Drupal and Magento if that will make any difference.

We will probably also use if for a couple weeks to learn how to do everything before the sites get migrated since we have both only used shared hosting.

Houston_Datum · Jan 22, 2017

DefaultUser said:
A friend and I are going to be combining our resources and putting our websites on the same hosting service. We both have shared hosting right now. We want to get something better than shared hosting and are trying to decide between a VPS or a Dedicated Server.

We want to have a web hosting service that we can keep for the long term (years) so we want to get something that will have room and resources to grow and expand our websites.

If we had a certain amount of money for a budget what would be the best choice? Would a cheap dedicated server or a better VPS server be the best route to go?

Our websites are Wordpress with and without WooCommerce, Drupal and Magento if that will make any difference.

We will probably also use if for a couple weeks to learn how to do everything before the sites get migrated since we have both only used shared hosting.

You can get you a small dedicated server something like an 8GB E3-XXXX or something like that you'll have loads of room to grow up to 32GB RAM and however much disk space you need most E3s have 4 trays.

hfav · Jan 22, 2017

I think a VPS with minimum 4GB Ram and minimum 2 cores processor will be good for you. It will be cheaper than any dedicated servers.

vpsrus · Jan 22, 2017

DefaultUser said:
A friend and I are going to be combining our resources and putting our websites on the same hosting service. We both have shared hosting right now. We want to get something better than shared hosting and are trying to decide between a VPS or a Dedicated Server.

We want to have a web hosting service that we can keep for the long term (years) so we want to get something that will have room and resources to grow and expand our websites.

If we had a certain amount of money for a budget what would be the best choice? Would a cheap dedicated server or a better VPS server be the best route to go?

Our websites are Wordpress with and without WooCommerce, Drupal and Magento if that will make any difference.

We will probably also use if for a couple weeks to learn how to do everything before the sites get migrated since we have both only used shared hosting.

What control panel do you intend to install to manage your sites???

There are some costs attached to each option one is If you opt for paid CP prices are different for VPS and dedicated.

If costs are not the problem go dedicated.

NickR · Jan 22, 2017

Get a VPS. It's easily scalable and you can seamlessly upgrade it. If you got a real dedicated server, then you'd need to physically upgrade it, which means downtime. If there's a hardware failure on your DS, then it will take more time to replace it (ie more downtime). If you get a VPS (or a true Cloud), then failure won't cause any downtime.

Get a KVM/Xen VPS if you want true virtualization and if you don't trust the provider. You can still get the same specs in a VPS as you would from a dedicated server, but with a VPS you get seamless scalability and more uptime

DefaultUser · Jan 22, 2017

Houston_Datum said:
You can get you a small dedicated server something like an 8GB E3-XXXX or something like that you'll have loads of room to grow up to 32GB RAM and however much disk space you need most E3s have 4 trays.

If I started out with an 8GB and wanted to double it sometime does that take long usually?

hfav said:
I think a VPS with minimum 4GB Ram and minimum 2 cores processor will be good for you. It will be cheaper than any dedicated servers.

If I start out with a VPS and want to switch to a dedicated server later would that be hard to do?

vpsrus said:
What control panel do you intend to install to manage your sites???

There are some costs attached to each option one is If you opt for paid CP prices are different for VPS and dedicated.

If costs are not the problem go dedicated.

I am really not sure which control panel I would be using yet. That's something else that I need to look into. Does the control panel thatis used make much of a difference?

NickR said:
Get a VPS. It's easily scalable and you can seamlessly upgrade it. If you got a real dedicated server, then you'd need to physically upgrade it, which means downtime. If there's a hardware failure on your DS, then it will take more time to replace it (ie more downtime). If you get a VPS (or a true Cloud), then failure won't cause any downtime.

Get a KVM/Xen VPS if you want true virtualization and if you don't trust the provider. You can still get the same specs in a VPS as you would from a dedicated server, but with a VPS you get seamless scalability and more uptime

So with a VPS if I wanted to get more ram there would be zero downtime?

I don't know much about the virtualization aspect of the servers. What do you mean when you say to get KVM/Xen if I don't trust the provider? Are their ways a provider can scam you?

gagah · Jan 22, 2017

DefaultUser said:
A friend and I are going to be combining our resources and putting our websites on the same hosting service. We both have shared hosting right now. We want to get something better than shared hosting and are trying to decide between a VPS or a Dedicated Server.

We want to have a web hosting service that we can keep for the long term (years) so we want to get something that will have room and resources to grow and expand our websites.

If we had a certain amount of money for a budget what would be the best choice? Would a cheap dedicated server or a better VPS server be the best route to go?

Our websites are Wordpress with and without WooCommerce, Drupal and Magento if that will make any difference.

We will probably also use if for a couple weeks to learn how to do everything before the sites get migrated since we have both only used shared hosting.

Oh boy you're in for some good ol' learning time!

I'd say start small, unless you want to still use cPanel (that will cost you a bunch), start looking into alternative panel like Webmin or Vesta, and while you're learning try to optimize your server for speed with using as low resource as possible. Even 1gb RAM VPS can be used for what you're talking about (just make sure the CPU's not weak though). Buying big VPS or Dedis with huge amount of RAM at the beginning is not advised because it will make you lazy about setting up your server properly, and if for example some process goes rogue (it will happen) and eats a bunch of RAM, you'll not be alerted and just think well i have 8gb, what does it matter. Then when the day of reckoning came and you're hit by a traffic influx, you'll be confused. So that's my advice, really.

RDO Servers · Jan 22, 2017

The biggest question is, why do you want to move to a VPS/dedicated?

Keep in mind that a VPS is still "shared". Even if you get a KVM or XEN with dedicated resources, you are still sharing the server with other users.

Upgrades are more likely to cause downtime with a dedicated then a VPS, but most things should be able to be handled quickly, and scheduled during off peak hours.

If you want just a small VPS (~4Gb RAM, 100-200Gb space), then go for a VPS. If you want more then that, go ahead and move up to a dedicated server.

RDO Servers · Jan 22, 2017

RDO Servers said:
you are still sharing the server with other users.

hfav said:
VPS are sharing same physical dedicated resource.

I don't see the difference in our statements...

The fact is, unless you are the only VPS customer on the node, you are in fact sharing the physical server with someone else.

hfav said:
all VPS providers provide dedicated resource to each VPS.

No true. There are many hosting providers that sell OpenVZ VPS's with shared resources.

DefaultUser · Jan 23, 2017

Thank you all for your replies, time and help. All of this will really help me in one way or another. :yourock:

NickR said:
You can start out on a VPS and switch to a dedicated anytime. It's not hard to do if you know what you are doing. Most managed hosting providers offer free migrations. Even if they don't official offer them, I'm pretty sure they will migrate you from a VPS to a Dedicated since you'll be paying them more money.

I wasn't sure how hard it is since I have never done that myself. Thanks for the info.

NickR said:
You need to read up more on virtualization types. With OpenVZ, providers can easily oversell you resources and you are not really isolated from other VPSes. XEN and KVM offer true, real isolation.

Yes I saw some thongs on virtualization but didn't look into it in depth. That is something else I am going to add to my "to-do" list.

vpsrus said:
Everything has a tag price attached if you go with a paid control panel

Then would a free control panel be a good choice to start with?

gagah said:
Oh boy you're in for some good ol' learning time!

Yeah that's what I have been realizing. I didn't know that there was so much to learn by just learning about VPS and dedicated server hosting.

gagah said:
I'd say start small, unless you want to still use cPanel

I have thought about that actually. I have also thought about using other control panels like maybe one of the free ones to start out and for the extra learning.

RDO Servers said:
The biggest question is, why do you want to move to a VPS/dedicated?

Well we were thinking that we could get one and have better performance over shared hosting and a lot more ability to grow and do other things. Plus the learning part is something that is something that I was wanting.

HostYourNet-DR · Jan 23, 2017

VPS and dedicated are basically the same. you get direct access to the machine, you can run mostly the same OS on both.
The only difference is that VPS you get assigned a portion of the resource that the hosting company gives you of the host machine they use.
Dedicated server is 100% yours for resources and access.
As well as the price as this all depends on what resources you both think you shall need when running all the sites.

Gecko · Jan 23, 2017

I understand that you want to have room to grow but there can be some big cost differences, depending on exactly what you are paying for. Personally I also like to have more than I need but unless you have a lot of sites, big sites or some other need then you probably won't need a dedicated server and a good VPS will probably work well.

However, if you want to spend the money and it's in your budget then you can do that and grow into it perhaps.

It's always nice to be driving a Ferrari but a Camaro will work just fine! :vteen:

DefaultUser · Jan 26, 2017

vpsrus said:
As the control panels are quite different paid and non-paid I would start to research and learn the features, pros and cons of each and when decided go for it, they will work on a dedicated or VPS.

So then are the paid control panels better if you don't consider the price?

HostYourNet-DR said:
this all depends on what resources you both think you shall need when running all the sites.

Well we want to make sure we have a lot of room for growth if needed. We would rather have too much than too little if you know what I mean. Would it be best to just start on the lower side of needs and scale up as needed?

Gecko said:
Personally I also like to have more than I need but unless you have a lot of sites, big sites or some other need then you probably won't need a dedicated server and a good VPS will probably work well.

Well we don't have a lot exactly right now but we plan on continually adding more.

MilesWeb · Jan 26, 2017

Decide your budget first, which platform you can afford. I suggest go for VPS plan.

aaronhank · Jan 26, 2017

I think we had two factors to select form both of them. First, as per your pocket. Second, according to the services or quality. It's depend on you what's your priority to choose.

webhostuk · Jan 27, 2017

when you say you got Magento website, I would go for dedicated server option, we have lots of magento customers and this ecommerce application requires lots of physical resources, I dont say that wont work on VPS, but when you speak about speed and performance dedicated server with nginx website will make lot of difference.

DefaultUser · Jan 27, 2017

vpsrus said:
Yes, the best one paid is the cPanel right now and another feature of a paid control panel is the support what you don't have on the free ones

Is support something that most people need or can you find the information on somewhere like here or in a Google search?

PaulAdam said:
Decide your budget first, which platform you can afford. I suggest go for VPS plan.

I am leaning towards a VPS from what a lot of people have said. Is there something in particular that I should look for in a VPS based on my needs?

aaronhank said:
I think we had two factors to select form both of them. First, as per your pocket. Second, according to the services or quality. It's depend on you what's your priority to choose.

Well I prefer quality and good service but shouldn't I consider things like the cost also?

HostYourNet-DR said:
I would start with a VPS as they can be upgraded very easy and have very little downtime in doing so.
If you start having issue you can try to find out where you need more resources. If you want to use a Control Panel like cPanel i would suggest a starting point of around 4gb of RAM.

Do you mean 4GB of RAM for cpanel and more RAM for the websites or 4GB in total for the websites and cpanel?

webhostuk said:
when you say you got Magento website, I would go for dedicated server option, we have lots of magento customers and this ecommerce application requires lots of physical resources, I dont say that wont work on VPS, but when you speak about speed and performance dedicated server with nginx website will make lot of difference.

So Magento uses more RAM and other resources? Would it be better to use Magento or switch to something that doesn't use as much resources?

WhiteVM · Feb 5, 2017

What are the uses? if you have a lot of visitors and you are running big traffic , ram and disk so I recommend you to start on a VPS and if its not enough go to a dedi.
today people can go to a cloud hosting that can run as a Dedicated server, we can offer for the client upto 256GB ram and 10TB disk on one cloud using the VMWare on our cloud E7 servers,

but as I asked before, what are the use, if the shared hosting company say you to move cuz you are using to much sources of the servers, so move, if not, I think the shared hosting is the best.

when you are using a VPS or Dedicated server you need to manage and config it, the shared hosting is cool cuz the Network Administrators & Sysadmins already did this job.

DefaultUser · Feb 6, 2017

HostYourNet-DR said:
With a control panel like CPanel it makes life a lot eaiser to host and troubleshot any issues.

I have a CPanel server in VPS mode on my main server with 4 cpu's and 4gb ram running about 30 web sites and a few of them are magento sites as well.

Really? That seems like quite a bit of websites on only 4Gb of RAM. You must have some good optimization going on.

HostYourNet-DR said:
If you want to keep your costs low and dont want to the hassle of running a full cpanel server there are reseller account that basically give access to WHM just as you are in root with a few of the main system configurations blocked out.

If you need any more help to let us know.

I didn't know that. That is interesting, I might check into that. Thanks.

aaronhank said:
Well sounds good that you shouldn't consider the cost and prefer the quality of the service. So, after getting your point I would recommend you to go with VPS.

Why are you recommending a VPS?

WhiteVM said:
What are the uses? if you have a lot of visitors and you are running big traffic , ram and disk so I recommend you to start on a VPS and if its not enough go to a dedi.

There will be a few Wordpress websites and a couple of ecommerce websites as well. Right now the traffic isn't real high numbers but we will be doing a lot of marketing and advertising for them so that will be going up.

DefaultUser · Feb 7, 2017

HostYourNet-DR said:
For all my VPS i use the VMware OS to host which allows better performance as there no middle man on the server using 2.

I didn't know that VMware had better performance. Is this one that is easy to use?

HostYourNet-DR said:
I recommend using a VPS as its cheaper on the cPanel Licencing as well as cheaper to host/pay monthly for rather than a dedicated server.

I didn't know that cPanel cost more for a dedicated server. I would think that as long as the server isn't being used for other people or setup for multiple VPS's it would be the same.

ikalf said:
Try ISPConfig. Its free and easy to use.

Do I get this through the hosting company or download it on a website somewhere and install it myself?

Should I use a VPS or dedicated Server?

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