When you sign up for a web hosting plan, you have several choices. Most companies offer one or more shared hosting plans, which are the least expensive choice. You may also be able to choose a more advanced type of hosting, such as Virtual Private Server or VPS hosting. This is an increasingly popular type of hosting that provides you with access to more resources and flexibility than you get with shared hosting. Let's look at some of the differences between shared and VPS hosting as well as some tips to help you choose between them.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the best-known type of hosting plan. This means that resources such as servers are shared among many clients. This allows the web hosting company to offer plans at very reasonable prices. Shared hosting is sufficient for most new website owners and even for many small businesses. Many web hosting companies offer a large number of features with their inexpensive shared hosting plans. To use an example, let's look at some of what you get with a shared hosting plan from GreenGeeks.

• Unlimited web space.
• Multiple websites on one account.
• Drag and drop site builder.
• One Click Install Tool -To install applications such as WordPress.
• Free domain name.
• Free nightly backups.

These features make it easy for anyone, even without technical skills, to start a website and give it a professional look. For example, you could either use the site builder or WordPress to create a new site in minutes. Currently, GreenGeeks has plans for this type of shared hosting for as low as $4 per month. Keep in mind that each web host offers different features. With some companies, you can choose among several shared hosting plans. In this case, the cheapest plan may only let you build one website while a costlier plan allows you unlimited websites.

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting uses virtual private servers to provide customers with more power and flexibility than is available with shared hosting. This type of hosting allows you to install just about any type of platform of software you might want. VPS hosting is designed to provide many of the advantages of a dedicated server, a setup where you have your own unique server. With a virtual private server, you are technically sharing the server with others, but at the same time you have your own space that acts like a dedicated server. This makes it possible to have the advantages of your own server at a lower cost.

There are several advantages of VPS over shared hosting. These include

• Greater privacy and security.
• Control -you can start and restart the server and install applications whenever you want.
• Customize your site -You can customize applications such as MySQL, PHP and Apache to your specifications. With the cPanel VPS, you have a great deal of freedom to design your site.

In general, VPS hosting is a good choice for someone with a high traffic site or who wants to be able to install and customize elements to the site on a regular basis. While VPS hosting is cheaper than getting a dedicated server, it is more expensive than shared hosting. On the other hand, most web hosts that offer this type of hosting give you a choice of plans, so you are only paying for resources that you actually need.

To use GreenGeeks as an example once more, they have five different VPS plans, ranging in price from $39.95 per month to $159.95 per month. The different plans allow for increasing amounts of RAM and storage space. For the least expensive plan, for example, you get 1 GB RAM and 1000 GB of bandwidth, all the way up to 8 GB RAM and 3000 GB of bandwidth for the most costly plan. If you have a growing website, it's always possible to start off with the least expensive plan and upgrade as your needs expand.

Shared vs. VPS Hosting: Making the Right Choice

If you are looking for web hosting, it's a good idea to do plenty of research and compare different plans. You might compare the features of shared and VPS hosting and decide which is right for you. You might ask yourself several questions to help you decide.

• What is your budget? If you are on a very limited budget, you will have little choice but to choose shared hosting. You still have quite a bit of freedom with this option and you can always upgrade to VPS hosting later on.
• How big is your site? Whether you currently have a website or plan to build one, how big is it? How much traffic do you have? Shared hosting is sufficient for most small to medium-sized websites. After a certain point, however, you may find that the site is too slow or doesn't perform optimally with shared hosting.
• Do you need to customize your site? If you need to install special software or make adjustments to the server, you should consider VPS hosting as shared hosting does not allow you to do these things. On the other hand, if you are sticking with the basics, shared hosting may be all you need.

These are some of the factors to consider when comparing shared and VPS hosting. A reliable web host can provide you with lots of helpful features, even with shared hosting. On the other hand, with cPanel VPS hosting, you are able to build an even larger and more complex website. It all depends on your needs and budget.