Shared hosting, VPS or dedicated server: how to choose
Every project that outgrows a free platform lands on one of three tiers: shared hosting, a VPS or a dedicated server. This guide explains what each tier actually gives you, what it costs, at which point it stops being enough, and how to move up a tier without changing providers. It is written for site owners, developers and admins who want to choose based on workload, budget and skills, not on marketing.
What each tier actually gives you
Shared hosting: a managed platform
On shared hosting you rent a slot on a server the provider fully manages. You get a control panel, PHP, a MySQL database, mail and backups. The provider patches the OS, tunes the web server and handles security on the platform level. You never have to touch a command line. The trade-offs are no root access, a fixed software stack and resource limits shared with other tenants on the same machine.
VPS: root on your own virtual machine
A VPS is a virtual machine with its own operating system and reserved CPU, RAM and disk. You get root, so you can install any runtime, run background services, containers and your own firewall rules. The provider is responsible for the physical host and the network. Everything inside the machine, updates, hardening, backup configuration, is your job.
Dedicated server: the whole machine
A dedicated server is physical hardware used by you alone. No neighbours, no shared resources, full control down to RAID layout and firmware settings. It gives the most predictable performance per euro and carries the most responsibility. Hardware replacement is the provider's job, everything above the metal is yours.
Typical prices and what you pay for
Shared hosting starts at about 3.20 EUR per month, a VPS at about 9.35 EUR per month, and dedicated servers run from several tens of euros upward depending on CPU, RAM and storage. The logic is the same everywhere: on shared hosting you pay for a fraction of a machine plus the admin work done for you, on a VPS you pay for reserved resources, on a dedicated server you pay for the whole box, its power and its rack space in the data centre.
Price the tiers by total cost, not by the headline number. A 9.35 EUR VPS that eats four hours of your time each month for patching and monitoring is more expensive than a 3.20 EUR managed plan if your time is worth anything. The reverse also holds: squeezing a busy shop into shared hosting to save a few euros usually costs more in slow pages and lost orders.
Skills you need at each tier
Shared hosting requires application-level skills only: upload files over SFTP, work the panel, maintain your CMS. The platform stays the provider's problem, your application stays yours.
A VPS assumes you are comfortable in a Linux shell. The realistic minimum you should be able to do without looking up every step:
ssh root@your-server apt update && apt upgrade -y ufw allow 22/tcp && ufw allow 443/tcp && ufw enable crontab -e
plus configuring automated backups and reading logs when something breaks. A dedicated server adds hardware awareness: RAID health, disk SMART values and an out-of-band console for the day the machine stops answering over the network.
When each tier stops being enough
Shared hosting is over when any of these appear:
- The application needs a persistent process: a queue worker, a websocket service, a Node or Python daemon.
- You hit PHP worker or CPU limits at normal traffic, not only during spikes.
- You need software the platform does not offer: a specific extension, a search engine, a newer database version.
A VPS is over when the machine is saturated at its everyday load. Check before deciding:
uptime free -h df -h vmstat 5 5
If the load average sits above the core count for hours, if free -h shows swap in active use, or if the CPU spends its time waiting for disk, resize to a bigger VPS plan first. Move to a dedicated server when the largest sensible VPS is still not enough, when you need performance unaffected by any neighbour, or when the monthly VPS price approaches the cost of comparable physical hardware.
A dedicated server stops being enough when one machine cannot hold the workload at all. From there the question is architecture rather than hosting: split the database onto its own server, add a second application server, put a balancer in front.
Migration paths inside one provider
Upgrading is much simpler when the old and the new tier sit in the same data centre. From shared hosting to a VPS the provider can export your files and databases directly, so the move is mostly a DNS change. Between VPS plans an upgrade is a resize: same disk, more resources, one reboot. From a VPS to a dedicated server you copy the data yourself:
rsync -avz /var/www/ new-server:/var/www/ mysqldump --single-transaction shop | ssh new-server "mysql shop"
Lower the DNS TTL to 300 a day before the move, test the new machine through a hosts file entry, then switch the record. Inside one network the copy runs at wire speed and the site's latency profile does not change, which is the main practical argument for scaling within one provider instead of hopping between several.
Decision checklist
Answer in order and stop at the first match:
- Standard CMS or PHP site, no background services, budget first: take shared hosting.
- You need root, custom software or a persistent daemon, and you can administer Linux: take a VPS.
- Sustained heavy CPU, RAM or disk load, strict isolation requirements, or a VPS bill close to hardware cost: take a dedicated server.
- Still unsure: take the smaller tier. Moving up inside one provider is a routine operation, and it is cheaper than paying for months of capacity you do not use.
If the first line matched, start with a shared hosting plan and revisit the question when traffic grows. If you landed on root access, compare VPS plans by RAM first and CPU second: in practice memory is what runs out.