Difference between VPS and rental server

Review of VPS and shared rental servers

What is VPS?

A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is a hosting service that uses a virtual private server. a VPS allows multiple users to use the same server, but each user has their own virtual environment isolated from the others VPS allows multiple users to use the same server, but each user has their own virtual environment isolated from the others.

What is VPS?

What is Shared Rental Server?

Shared hosting is a hosting service that hosts multiple websites on a single server. In shared hosting, multiple users share the same server and its resources. For this reason, shared hosting is less expensive and easier to use than VPS, making it more suitable for personal websites and small to medium-sized businesses.

Difference between VPS and Shared Hosting

||VPS|Shared Rental Server| |:---|:---:|:---:|:---:| |Resource Allocation|Allocate dedicated resources|Use shared resources (some occupied types available)| |Root access|Yes|No| |Security|High|Low| |Customizability|High|Low| |Cost|High|Low| |Traffic|Large capacity available|Limited| |Operation and management|Need to be done at your own risk|Provider manages the operation and management|

Resource Allocation

One of the most significant differences between VPS and shared rental servers is the method of resource allocation.

A VPS uses virtualization technology to divide a physical server into multiple virtual servers. Each VPS is allocated dedicated resources (CPU, RAM, storage, etc.) and is not affected by other VPSs. This means stable performance is not affected by the access status of other users.

Shared rental servers, on the other hand, allow multiple users to share the same resources. Of course, memory and CPU allocations are also made to some extent in the background on the rental server, but the numbers are much lower than those of a VPS. Also, since there are many users on the same physical server, performance will vary depending on how other users are accessing the server. If other users are overloading the server, the performance of your site may be affected.

In this area, even shared rental servers nowadays often have features to distribute and cache resources well, but even so, rental servers are less resource-intensive than VPS, which can be occupied virtually.

In addition, recently, a type of rental server that can occupy resources has been introduced.

Root Access

Another major difference between VPS and shared rental servers is root access. Root access is whether or not you have administrative access to the server.

A VPS can have root access because it is an independent server that is virtually partitioned. With root access privileges, users are free to customize the server and use any applications or programs they wish to install. In other words, users of a VPS have complete freedom to customize and manage their server.

Shared rental servers, on the other hand, are managed by the company providing the rental server, and users are not free to install applications as they wish in most cases. However, in the opposite sense, it is also an advantage that users do not have to manage the server.

Security

In terms of security, VPS and shared rental servers differ in "thinking" rather than in function.

VPSs are more flexible in terms of security because they can have root access privileges, and advanced security measures can be taken. For example, there are numerous features to protect against unauthorized access and attacks, such as setting up firewalls on the server and restricting access on the network side. However, this does not mean that a VPS is more secure by default, as it means that you can "increase your own security.

Shared rental servers, on the other hand, are operated from the perspective that "the provider is responsible for managing security. It is up to the provider to decide how much security they can provide. Shared rental servers have relatively high security settings because security is important to them, but they do not offer flexible security settings.

Also, shared rental servers use the same server as other users, so if other users are running programs infected with viruses or malware, you, who are housed on the same server, are at a higher risk of attack or unauthorized access.

Site Speed

It is commonly said that "VPS=Fast" and "Shared Rental Server=Slow", but this is not true. In some cases, a shared rental server can be faster than a VPS server.

In principle, a VPS that does not share resources with other users will have faster site speeds. However, this also depends on what programs you are running and the appropriate cache allocation. In particular, if you are running programs that eat a lot of memory, such as MySQL or PHP, you may find that the VPS is faster at first but then gets stuck due to lack of memory if you leave the standard settings.

On the other hand, a shared rental server is not as fast as a VPS (with an equivalent plan), but not as slow, because the provider has optimized the server itself. Compared to 10 years ago, shared servers have improved in terms of processing power, so it is sometimes faster to use a shared server than to use a VPS for an uninformed amateur.

Customizability

Many users who choose VPS will avoid shared rental servers due to their lack of customizability. That is how different the customizability is between VPS and shared rental servers.

With a VPS, users are essentially free to customize the system as they wish. This has to do with scalability, which we will discuss later, but depending on the service, CPU, memory, and even storage capacity can be customized. In other words, with VPS, users can "operate a customized server that meets their needs.

Shared rental servers are a "run a program in a given environment" service, so they do not offer the same degree of freedom as VPS. Not only the installation of applications, but also the configuration parameters of programming languages such as PHP are restricted, so some applications may not work at all, and this cannot be solved by customization.

Scalability

VPS and shared servers also differ in terms of scalability.

While it used to be the case that "once you sign a contract, you cannot upgrade your plan" for both, VPS allows you to upgrade or downgrade your plan from a fast stage. Recently, shared rental servers also support plan upgrades and downgrades.

However, VPSs, which are virtualized servers, allow more freedom to add resources. For example, if a website is growing rapidly, resources such as CPU, memory, and storage can be added quickly. Depending on the service, it may be possible to add "just CPU or just memory". A VPS can also be clustered with multiple servers to improve scalability.

Shared rental servers, on the other hand, cannot compete with VPS in terms of scalability. Some recent shared rental servers support plan upgrades and downgrades, or offer "upgrade by the hour" services, but the options are limited compared to VPSs, which can even be built into clusters.

However, for general web sites and blogs, the scalability of a shared rental server may be sufficient.

Cost

In general, a VPS with more flexibility will cost more, while a rental server where the server is shared by many users will cost less.

However, when compared in terms of cost, there used to be a big difference between VPS, where monthly fees of 1,000 yen or more were the norm, and shared rental servers, which can be rented for as little as 100 yen per month. However, recently, there are VPS that can be rented for less than 300 yen and resource-owning rental servers that are more expensive than VPS.

Depending on the usage conditions, it may be "better to rent a VPS than to rent an expensive rental server," or "a shared rental server is more cost-effective if it cannot be operated properly," so the recent trend is to choose the most suitable one depending on your usage conditions. The trend these days is to choose the most suitable one depending on your usage situation.

Should I choose VPS or shared hosting?

VPS and shared hosting have become "more difficult to choose" in a positive sense.

As we have explained, there is a big difference between VPS and shared hosting, but from the user's perspective, shared rental servers are getting closer to VPS in terms of performance, so in a good way, we can say that "the choice has expanded" and in a bad way, "it has become more difficult to choose".

If you are not sure which is better, you can basically start with a shared rental server now and then, but be sure to compare price plans alone first, because "VPS is better after all" is often the case.