The Differences Between Managed and Unmanaged VPS Hosting Services
Like many things, a business starts small. With time – and in the best-case scenario – it will grow in traffic, income, and clientele. Traffic is directly proportional to website speed.
If your site has slowed down, your organization has outgrown its hosting plan. If your business launched as a startup, you probably started with shared hosting. This is the cheapest but also the lowest-quality plan.
As your business grows, you’ll find the need to evolve. With that, you will need to change your hosting type and plan.
If you’re currently on shared hosting or you were when you started out, the other types available to you are VPS, cloud, and dedicated hosting. This article will deal with VPS hosting, one of the most popular options available.
What is VPS Hosting?
VPS hosting is an appealing combination of shared and dedicated hosting. There are two types of VPS hosting: managed and unmanaged. This guide will discuss the advantages, disadvantages, and the best option for you as a business owner.
Managed Hosting
It takes effort, time, and technical expertise to manage a website. With managed VPS hosting, your service provider will take care of all the responsibilities related to the server, such as maintenance, core updates, and software installation. You can focus on developing your new company when someone is taking care of all of that for you.
In the simplest of terms, this type of hosting is a hands-free approach to hosting. Business owners or managers with little to no technical expertise will find it an optimal solution. They won’t need to concern themselves with anything related to the server.
Unmanaged Hosting
Website owners who choose unmanaged VPS hosting have to take care of all the server maintenance tasks and responsibilities. They still have a hosting provider, but this provider is only responsible for the physical server and its availability.
You need technical experience and resources to manage your server if you opt for unmanaged VPS hosting. Emerging businesses won’t find unmanaged VPS hosting a suitable option even if they have staff with technical experience. This is because their main focus should be on establishing a market presence and not on technical issues.
Pluses of VPS Hosting
Both managed and unmanaged VPS hosting have the same pluses. These include root access, better security, instant resource allocation, and improved performance. The following sections will discuss these advantages of VPS hosting in detail.
Root Access
This type of hosting is the middle ground between dedicated and shared hosting. As such, it has some of the properties of both. With dedicated hosting, you have the server to yourself. With shared hosting, you share it with other users.
Users of a VPS hosting plan have a server that is isolated from others but hosted on the same physical one. They are able to manage and customize their server and its resources as they wish.
Security
Dedicated hosting and VPS hosting both ensure high security to websites. Individual servers get unique IP addresses, albeit sharing the same physical server.
Instant Resource Allocation
On a VPS, resources like OS, RAM, and CPU are allocated as soon as the server is up and running. You can scale these resources easily depending on your traffic. However, the hosting plan itself is not scalable.
Performance
Today, most businesses opt for an SSD hard drive, as its advantages outweigh those of an HDD drive. Website performance is better because the website loading speed is improved, which reflects on the Google search ranking as well.
Final Thoughts on the Differences Between Managed and Unmanaged Hosting
With the former type of hosting, the provider is responsible for server updates and maintenance. If you choose unmanaged, the provider will only be accountable for physical server maintenance and uptime.
Managed hosting is more expensive, but it’s the better option for startups and small businesses. Experienced users with more established businesses will find unmanaged hosting better.
The Right Choice for Your Business
The choice of hosting provider is just as important as that between managed and unmanaged hosting. The right provider for your needs will guarantee accessibility and uptime of the website, depending on the main server’s availability.
