Dedicated hosting solutions, whether it’s in the form of a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a dedicated server, are great for websites that have outgrown their shared hosting platform and need dedicated resources, or if you’re looking to run your own software and install your own packages. However, the difference between a dedicated server and a VPS can often be confusing, but luckily for you, Jolly Leaf are industry experts and in this article we’re delivering a great explanation on the differences between the two!
In this article, we’re going to use trees and treehouses as an analogy to help our explanation. Because who doesn’t love treehouses?
Dedicated Server Hosting
As you can see, above we have a treehouse situated in a large tree with plenty of room for the occupant of the treehouse to expand their treehouse to the limit of the tree. This is because the occupant has their own resources and doesn’t have to share with anybody. However, if the occupant doesn’t require all this free space and resources, it can be considered a waste and of course, this solution is also costly! How does this relate to a dedicated server I hear you ask? In this analogy, the dedicated server is represented by the tree and treehouses is a website or application. With dedicated server hosting, the server’s RAM, storage space, connections and core processors are all at the disposal of the single user on the server as they have root access and do not share with other people. The user of a dedicated server can install whichever OS they choose and configure the server to their exact specification – which cannot be achieve on shared hosting solutions.
VPS Hosting
Now for VPS hosting. Above we have a tree with multiple treehouses in, where the occupants of each treehouse can do whatever they please with their own branch and within their treehouse. However, each occupant cannot use the resources that are assigned to the other treehouses because they do not have permission to. In this instance, again the tree represents a dedicated server that has been divided into portions for each treehouse to use the resources of. This is how a VPS works! VPS hosting is hosted on a dedicated server, however the server has simply been divided into portions and resources such as RAM, storage space and CPU have been diced and allocated to each user on the VPS. This is where a VPS gets its name from, because each account is virtual and is not physically a dedicated server. However, each user gets root access but cannot access the resources of others on the VPS. Like a dedicated server, users of a VPS get almost as much control as that of a dedicated, with powers to reboot their virtual server and install custom modules etc. One big benefit of choosing VPS hosting over dedicated server hosting is that the cost of a VPS is much cheaper and is a great middle ground between shared hosting and a dedicated server.
We hope this article has helped you understand the difference between dedicated server and VPS hosting. Should you have any questions or need further clarification, get in touch!
