VPS or Dedicated Hosting

Digital Ocean is not cloud. Everything is "local" storage, not on a SAN, thus not "cloud".

OP - What types of sites are you running? Chances are, you do not need a virtual server or dedicated server. Be aware, that many here will tell you that you do however, they haven't a clue.

Exactly. There's so many that just run virtual machines and label it cloud that its sickening. They generally fall off the map anyhow when their so called "cloud" fails. One comes to mind that advertised on this forum called Proudhosts I believe it was..people were pissed when the guy sold and and they found out it was thousands of accounts jammed on one single server.

second that
they are mostly needed when u run a bot / software 24 hours a day
like gsa or xrumer

I just switch to a VPS with SSD storage and load times were cut almost in half.

I'm paying around $90/month including WHM, 80GB storage and a few add-ons.

It's an option that's becoming more popular as prices of SSD (solid state drives) comes down

It might be overkill for you, but one to consider if you want to host multiple sites (especially wordpress) and speed is important to you.

So you're justifying the cost of a VPS vs using crappy overloaded shared hosting? The problem is with the host itself - upgrading to a VPS isn't the solution; finding a better host is the solution.

I give up counting the number of hosting companies and various products I have gone through over the last 10 years...

"Cloud Hosting" emmm... most of that can be sales talk, you will be surprised how many offer these types of products turn out to be shared packages...

If you dont have the skills to manage your own server then a dedicated server will not be the way to go..

I currently use Hawkhost as my core service provider for hosting.. I am not an affiliate or have anything to do with them, and only suggest you look at them as they offer a Semi Dedicated Plan. You are still sharing x amount with others, but the speed of sites (your hosting account) is dramatically different, and if your like me and you don't have the skills to manage your own server then this offers something that allows you to sleep at night..

I have both a semi dedicated plan and a standard shared plan with hawkhost, and the difference between the two plans is exponential.. If you wanted to get away from a shared hosting arrangement, to enjoy more speed, then this could be what you might be looking for...



mbc

That's not really accurate. A VPS is still a type of shared hosting, but is a "virtual server". It usually has far less RAM than dedicated, and it has to share I/O and port speed. There's really no way to specify # of visitors easily, as it depends on the ratio of resources:traffic.

There's nothing "specialists" about this. It's not really that different from a VPS, except it doesn't share anything. In many ways, it's easier to handle than a VPS, save tmp folder permissions. Again, it has nothing to do with traffic #, but the ratio of resources:traffic. I doubt a single server could handle 1M visitors alone, especially if DB are involved. It's best to have separate servers.

This part is true.

And "standard" = shared, with a good provider (ie, NOT Hostgator, Bluehost, Godaddy, 1&1, etc -- those are crappy providers). The real problem is people that choose the wrong host, and thinking the only way to have better is to get a VPS. It's not true. You need a better hosts, not a VPS!

If you're an admin (like I am), you don't necessarily need mgmt. But I often get it, to be "lazy" (too busy, need help). Or as an extra set of eyes/hands. Picking the right hosts is very important here!

It's good, period, tech savvy or not.

In a manner of speaking, yes, it's good. I don't debate that. But if you're good with servers/linux and general management, you should be able to host sites fairly well without a control panel at all; save on an otherwise recurring cost. Or you can always opt for an alternative like Webmin; preferences matter.

Depends; the questions you've asked me don't have a set answer to them, unfortunately. I took a quick look at the prosper app and apparently it tracks clicks for PPC marketers. It may or may not be database intensive depending on how many clicks/activity you're tracking on a daily basis and what kind of coding standards the software itself uses. How optimized their queries are, how optimized your installation of MySQL (or MariaDB as some prefer to use it over MySQL) is, etc.

If you've got a particularly high powered VPS, for example, and average traffic websites then you might be able to host the sites and the tracking software on the same VPS, sure. If not, you might need more than one VPS to isolate the sites and tracking.

So, let's assume you're going to use cPanel, a bunch (10 maybe?) of wordpress websites that receive average traffic (say, 10,000 uniques a day?) per day with some plugins and caching enabled. And you're looking to host the tracking software too on the same server.

Now cPanel recommends a bare minimum of 512MB RAM on a VPS it's going to be installed on. Keeping the above hypothetical numbers in mind, you'd be looking at at least a 2GB RAM VPS (to allow for some growth room too) to host those 10 sites along with the tracking software.

Remember, this is keeping in mind you've got caching turned on, your database installation is optimized, your web server is optimized, Prosper 202 uses optimized queries, so on and so forth. There's so many variables to 'deciding that perfect config' that you can't just do it right off the bat. If you're migrating from an existing setup that might help you get a better idea. But if this is your first time with a VPS, for example, than you'll get to a good config with a little trial and error.

Completely agree. Most problems arise from not knowing how to do things, then, blaming the provider. If you're unsure of how to manage a server, "correctly", then you need to either use a managed solution of have a professional do it. Some companies however, don't manage anything past the initial setup - so make sure to ask questions first.

No.

If you mean big crappy hosts like:
- 1&1
- Godaddy
- Dreamhost
- Yahoo
- the 50+ EIG brands (Hostgator, Bluehost, Justhost, Fatcow, etc etc)

Again ... no.

With those hosts, the sites are SLOWER and have lots of micro-downtimes all day long.