How is VPS Hosting different from Shared Hosting?

In this article, we will go over the fundamental characteristics of shared hosting and VPS hosting. You will also read about the differences between these two popular options. 

So, let’s get started! 

What is Shared Hosting?

Shared hosting is a type of hosting package where multiple websites share resources on a single server. In this setup, each user is allocated a portion of the server, which includes CPU cores, bandwidth, disk space, and RAM.

Since all users on the server share the available resources, the performance of your website can be impacted by the activities of other users. When the server is not heavily loaded, you can make the most of the available resources. However, if other websites on the same server experience a surge in traffic, it is likely that your site’s speed will be affected. For this reason, shared hosting is ideal for small websites that do not have many monthly visitors. 

Benefits of Shared Hosting

1. Cost-effective: Shared hosting is an affordable option as users share the cost of server resources, making it a more budget-friendly choice compared to other hosting types.

2. Low maintenance: Users of shared hosting don’t need to worry about physical upkeep and backend maintenance of the servers. The hosting provider handles these tasks, saving users time and effort.

3. Beginner-friendly: Shared hosting is designed to be user-friendly, making it ideal for those without technical expertise. Users can easily set up and manage their websites without requiring extensive technical skills.

Disadvantages of Shared Hosting

1. Limited resources: Users are allocated a fixed amount of resources for their websites. If a site exceeds its allocated resources, it can lead to performance issues, downtime, and potential loss of traffic.

2. Security concerns: Sharing a server with other websites means that if one site experiences a security breach or crash, it can potentially impact the security of other sites on the server. While hosting providers take measures to mitigate risks, shared hosting inherently carries a higher security vulnerability compared to dedicated hosting.

3. Lack of root access: In shared hosting, users do not have access to the root server. This restriction prevents users from making certain system-level changes or configurations, limiting their control and flexibility over the hosting environment.

What is VPS Hosting?

Despite its name, a virtual private server (VPS) does not provide users with a physical dedicated server. Instead, VPS hosting allows users to create a hosting environment that simulates the functionalities of a dedicated server.

In VPS hosting, users have full access to their allocated portion of the server, which is on a smaller scale and at a lower cost compared to renting an entire dedicated server.

While users still share the physical server with other VPS users, each user is assigned specific resources based on their chosen package. These allocated resources are exclusively dedicated to the assigned users, ensuring that their website performance remains unaffected by other websites hosted on the same server.

Although there are managed VPS solutions available, many web hosting providers offer unmanaged VPS services. This means that users need to possess technical knowledge and expertise to effectively maintain and utilize the server.

VPS hosting provides users with dedicated server resource allocation, giving them greater control and flexibility. However, it is typically more expensive than shared hosting packages due to the enhanced features and resource availability.

How is VPS hosting different from shared hosting?

Price

Shared hosting is more affordable, making it ideal for beginners starting a website. On the other hand, VPS hosting is better suited for advanced needs, such as corporate websites or high-traffic sites that require significant resources.

Performance & Resource Allocation

VPS hosting users have allocated resources but can manage them according to their site’s needs through the control panel. Since the server is not shared, site performance remains stable and unaffected by other websites. VPS hosting offers more control and flexibility in managing resources.

Control and Scalability

VPS hosting requires more technical knowledge as the hosting provider does not manage the server’s backend. Although it may be challenging for beginners, VPS hosting offers root access, allowing customization to meet specific website needs. VPS hosting is also superior in terms of scalability, ensuring sufficient resources are available as the website grows.

Conclusion

Shared hosting is suitable for smaller websites with lower resource demands, while VPS hosting is recommended for websites requiring greater resources and customization options. When it comes to security, shared hosting benefits from managed services, while VPS hosting requires users to implement their own security measures. Consider these factors carefully to determine which hosting type aligns best with your specific website requirements.

How Much Does a Hosting Server Cost Per User for an App?

Daily Active UsersAverage Monthly Server Price
Up to 100 users$5-$25
Up to 1,000 users$15-$50
2,000 – 10,000 users$50-$150
11,000 – 25,000 users$100-$250
26,000 – 100,000 users$200-$500
101,000 – 1 million users$500-$2,500

When designing a business plan for a heavy load application, it is very important to take into account and accurately calculate such costs as the pricing of the hosting service where the application data will be stored. Large-scale applications, such as social networks, can become a real problem for their owners if the associated costs are calculated wrong initially.

Just imagine: thousands of users every day supplement the application database with messages, photos, and other media files – how much storage space is needed, how much can it cost and how much does a hosting server cost per user for a social network app? Will your application become a “dead” project because of the high maintenance expenses? In this article, we plan to describe the order of calculating the cost of the server hosting for large applications to avoid unpleasant financial surprises after the app release.

What is the basis for calculating the average server cost per user?

It is important to keep in mind that server hostings are characterized not only by the provisioned storage space but also by communication channel bandwidth and hardware capacities. Thus, the mobile app backend hosting cost can be calculated based on the following indicators:

  • The cost of each Storage Gigabyte;
  • The cost of each Megabit of Bandwidth;
  • The cost of the Server’s Performance.

Also, the cost of server hosting can be affected by equipment maintenance expenses, technical support charges, and other factors.

How to calculate the cost of Server Hosting?

How much does a social app cost to run? Depending on the pricing parameters, the cost of server hosting for a heavy application can be calculated in several ways.

#1 Calculation according to the Storage Space Cost (SSC)

A very simple calculation scheme, for which it is required to approximate the number of application users and the maximum storage limits for each of them. The rough estimation is simple: if the cost of storing the object is $0.1 per GB of space per month and your application is calculated, say, for 5000 users, with a limit of 2 GB, the result of multiplying all the numbers (5000 Ă— 2 Ă— 0.1) the monthly cost of the server would be $1000.

It is important to understand that this calculation gives only an approximate cost of required hosting. The actual number of users may differ, and each user will not necessarily use all the space provided to them. Thus, you can make an assumption about the actual use of the server space (as a percentage of the initial number of users and disk space) and use this coefficient to adjust the appraisal.

#2 Own/Rented server

Buying or renting a whole server can significantly reduce the cost of hosting, but requires the seed capital. For example, for an application designed for the same 5000 users and 2 GB storage limit (10,000 GB or 10 TB), you need to purchase about 2 servers with 8x 2TB SATA disks (taking into account the cost of server space for user data, operating systems, application backend and RAID reservation), the cost of which is about $3000 each, plus additional equipment (racks, etc.), the totals would approximate to $6500. If you have such a starting amount, you can recoup the costs for 2 years at a server cost of $270-300 per month. Thus, the price of one GB of space for one user would equal to $0.06.

Making a long-term business plan with the calculation of hosting costs for the above scheme it is important to consider the expiration of the equipment. Any device has an approximate service life and needs regular replacement.

Another variant suitable for those who do not have sufficient starting capital is server equipment rental. Calculating the cost to maintain an application when renting server hardware can be carried out according to the same scheme, but taking into account the monthly rental fees.

Testing the application to determine the required hosting parameters

All the previous estimation methods are based only on the approximate assumptions of the user numbers and the necessary space for each user. Such calculations do not take into account the traffic, the required processor power, the average load on the server and many other factors. The calculation for these models is suitable for compiling a primary business plan for understanding the profitability of the application even before work on it is started.

However, in order to obtain more or less accurate data on the required server capacity and volume for an already developed application and, accordingly, calculate the cost of server hosting, a deeper approach is needed.

The best and accurate calculations are given by testing the required application efficiency using the specially developed software. Such test programs create “virtual users” that simulate the actions of real users of the application, measuring the loads to identify the optimal configuration of the application’s server part infrastructure.

The essence of the testing

To test the application architecture, worker threads mirroring virtual users are used, each of which can execute one of three action scenarios:

  • Light (authorization, login to the server, viewing the application partitions, sending/receiving requests);
  • Medium (to the light scenario’s actions, sending/receiving messages, uploading photos, viewing photos of other users, sending/receiving pictures are added);
  • Heavy (extensive exploitation of all the application features).

Typical time between each script action is established to 1 second.

Thus, gradually increasing the number of threads, each of which randomly engages one of the scenarios, the testing application measures the load on the server part of the application in its different configurations. As soon as any element of the application starts to work incorrectly, the test stops and changes the infrastructure configuration.

Most of the established outsourcing software development companies have such a sophisticated in-house testing program.

Results

The result of the test is the optimal configuration of the application infrastructure, which can support the maximum number of users simultaneously using the application. It also calculates the maximum hardware capabilities required for the application, based on which you can calculate the server hosting cost for the application most accurately.

Also, based on the results of the test, you can choose the hosting model (renting server hosting, renting server equipment or colocation, own server), which will not only be most advantageous financially but also meet the requirements of the application in the case of high loads.

Summary

When developing large applications similar to social networks or media hosting, an important part of the business plan will be to estimate server costs per user. For preliminary calculations at the design stage of the application, you can employ simple mathematical models:

Number of users/space for each – to calculate hosting and storage costs/necessary equipment expenses/monthly fees – when buying or renting equipment

However, for accurate calculations of the cost of hosting and choosing the most beneficial server interaction model (purchase, lease, colocation) in mobile development for Android or iOS, professional testing is necessary that would take into account all the appropriate factors. Only after calculating the necessary application load on the server can you tell exactly which server parameters will best meet the needs of the application and, based on the received data, clearly estimate the cost of hosting – total and average server cost per user.

Most Popular Source Code Hosting Services in 2023

Nowadays, there are a lot of source code hosting services to choose from — all having their pros and cons. The challenge, however, is to pick the one that will fit your needs best because the price is not the only factor that should be considered.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the key features of the most popular source code hosting facilities to help you make a wise decision. But first let’s take a brief look at what source code hosting service is because, as we see, there are some confusion about this term.

What is a source-code Hosting Service?

In short, source code hosting services or simply source code managers (SCM) are the services for projects that use different version-control systems (VCS). The latter ones are also sometimes referred to as “version control tools”.

Basically, a VCS is software and, in general, its main task is to allow programmers to track the revisions of a code in course of software development. Such revisions may be shared among all the team members so everyone can see who made a particular change and when. The list of the most popular version control tools includes Git, Mercurial, and Subversion.

At the same time, a source code manager is not software, it’s service. To put it more simply, it’s a space to upload copies of source code repositories (i.e. storage location for one project). Unlike version control systems which are just command lines, source code hosting service provides a graphical interface.

Without a source code manager, the work on a software development project would be difficult if possible at all.

GitHub

The choice of SCM is not accidental. Because if you ever ask someone what is a source code hosting service, Github will probably be the first thing they’ll start talking about. And it’s no wonder: it is ranked No.38, according to the Moz’s list of the top 500 websites.

Here are the key benefits of GitHub:

  • free for open-source projects
  • contains wiki, a platform for sharing hosting documentation
  • has an integrated issues tracking system
  • makes it possible to receive and issue contributions to projects   
  • has a well-developed help section with guides and articles
  • has gists, a service for turning files into git repositories
  • has GitHub pages that host static websites
  • allows for convenient code review  (in-context comments, review requests etc.)
  • has embedded project management features (task boards, milestones etc.)
  • offers team management tools (integration with Asana)

The above list contains only the most essential advantages of GitHub for you to understand why this source code hosting service is so popular among programmers. Yet, there is a risk that the great era of GitHub will soon come to its end. In October 2018, it was acquired by Microsoft and this raised some concerns among developers. But we’ll see.

Prices:

  • free – for open-source projects
  • $7 per month – for individual developers
  • $9 per user/month – for teams
  • $21 per user/month – for businesses (either business cloud or installed on a server)

GitLab

GitLab is also one of the handiest source code hosting services. As of today, it has fewer users than GitHub but does its best to conquer developers’ hearts. If you’ve ever used each of these host platforms for code repositories, you might have noticed that GitLab looks and feels like GitHub in many aspects. Yet, it also has some features the latter is lacking, so we may not say that GitLab significantly lags behind it in terms of functionality.

Speaking about main GitLab advantages, they are the following:

  • an open-source software
  • can be installed on your server
  • contains wiki and issue tracking functionality
  • has a user-friendly interface
  • has integrated CI/CD
  • comes with a deployment platform (Kubernetes)
  • allows for exporting projects to other systems
  • convenient for Scrum teams since it provides burndown charts as a part of milestones and allows teams to manage issues using Agile practices
  • has time-tracking features

It’s worth mentioning that GitLab also offers a convenient and easy migration from GitHub. So if you’re among those who feel uncomfortable about Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub, GitLab would be the best option for you.

Prices:

  • Free – for open-source projects, private projects
  • $4 per user/month – Bronze plan
  • $19 per user/month – Silver plan
  • $99 per user/month – Gold plan

BitBucket

BitBucket is also a widely-used source code management tool and it’s a common second choice of many programmers (after GitHub). There are currently two versions of BitBucket: a cloud version hosted by Atlassian and a server version.

The main benefits of BitBucket are:

  • free private source code repositories (up to 5 users)
  • supports both Git and Mercurial (unlike GitHub and GitLab that can host only Git projects)
  • integrates with Jira and other popular Atlassian tools
  • allows for convenient code review (inline comments, pull requests)
  • advanced semantic search
  • supports Git Large File Storage (LFS)
  • has integrated CI/CD, wikis and issue tracking (only cloud versions)
  • offers team management tools (embedded Trello boards)

On top of this, BitBucket allows for external authentication with Facebook, Google and Twitter which makes this source code hosting service even more convenient for developers. It’s not as similar to GitHub as GitLab, but you can also easily migrate from GitHub to BitBucket.

Prices:

  • Free – for small teams (up to 5 users)
  • $2 per user/month – for growing teams (starts at $10)
  • $5 per user/month – for large teams (starts at $25)

SourceForge

SourceForge is one of the most well-known free host platforms for code repositories. It works only for open-source software development projects, but we could not ignore it in this article because SourceForge was of the first tools of this kind. Actually, before GitHub was even “born”,  SourceForge already topped the market.

Why you may want to choose SourceForge for your project? Well, here are its main strengths:

  • free for open-source projects
  • supports Git, Mercurial, and Subversion
  • offers the issue tracking functionality
  • offers an easy download of project packages
  • allows for hosting of both — static and dynamic pages
  • Has a huge directory of open-source projects
  • does not restrict the number of individual projects

The main downside of SourceForge is that it’s not very flexible and can be used only for open-source projects. So when it comes to the private app or web development, this source code manager is usually not even on the list.

Prices: the service is Free.

Wrap-up

In this source code management tools comparison, we outlined most widely used or promising services. Of course, there are a lot of other similar solutions which you may also consider for your app or web development project. But if you don’t have time for deep research, as professional software developers, we may recommend Github or Gitlab vs Git. These platforms are considered the best code hosting services since they are quite versatile and can satisfy a wide range of programming needs.

Renting a VPS Server in Europe or USA

A VPS server is a virtual private server that allows you to share the resources of a physical machine with other users. This type of hosting is more affordable than renting a dedicated server and it also offers more flexibility.

Why You Should Consider VPS Server and How to Make the Most Out of This Decision?

If you are interested in renting a VPS server, then you should know that there are many providers on the market and it can be hard to find the best one for your needs.

A VPS server is a virtual machine that is hosted in a data center and shared with other virtual servers. A VPS server can be used to run an operating system, application, or website.

This article will teach you how to rent vds server from a provider. You will learn what you need to know about the process and the pros and cons of renting one.

The article will also provide you with some tips for choosing the best provider for your needs.

This article will help you make an informed decision on which provider to choose and how to make the most out of your new VPS server.

Why You Should Rent a VPS Server

Renting a VPS server is an ideal solution for startups and small businesses with limited budget. A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a virtual machine that has its own operating system, storage, and memory. It offers full control of the host machine as well as its own software. You are also able to run your own applications on the VPS server.

A VPS server is not just a hosting solution for websites; it can be used for any kind of business application such as databases or email servers. In addition, you are able to manage your VPS server from anywhere in the world which means you don’t have to worry about hiring someone else to maintain it.

How to Rent the Best VPS for You

A VPS is a virtual private server that can be rented by anyone. A VPS can be seen as a self-contained mini-server that runs its own operating system, but shares the resources of the larger machine it is running on.

The most important thing to note about renting your own VPS is that you are in complete control of your data. This means you have total control over the applications and services you run on your VPS, and if anything goes wrong, it’s your responsibility to fix it.

Dedicated servers in USA & Europe

Dedicated servers are a type of hosting service that offers the full resources of a physical server to a single customer.

Dedicated servers are not as expensive as they used to be and they also offer better performance than shared hosting.

What are the Advantages of Renting a VPS Server?

A VPS Server is a virtual private server. This means that it is not a physical server and instead it is a software-based server.

In this article, we will look at the advantages of renting a VPS Server. The advantages include:

1) low cost

2) high availability

3) security

What are the Disadvantages of Renting a VPS Server?

The main disadvantage of renting a VPS server is that it can only be used by one customer. It cannot be shared with anyone else.

Another disadvantage of renting a VPS server is that the customer will not have full control over the server. The customer will have to rely on the provider to maintain and update their servers.

Choosing a Cheap VDS Provider? 5 Questions To Ask First!

Choosing a cheap reliable VPS hosting company is not always easy. There are a lot of options to choose from and not all providers can be trusted.

In this article, we will talk about the six things you should ask before choosing a VPS provider.

Choosing a Virtual Private Server Provider can be a daunting task. There are many providers to choose from, each with their own features and limitations. You need to figure out what you need the server to do, which operating system you want to run on it, whether or not it should have one or more cores, what memory it should have and how much space.

  1. The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Managed Hosting Provider
  2. Managed vs. Unmanaged Hosting
  1. Do you know the right questions to ask your managed hosting provider?
  2. Beware of these Red Flags when shopping for Managed Hosting!
  3. How Much Should Quality Managed Hosting Actually Cost You?

Most customers do not know what questions to ask and can be easily tempted by the promise of guarantees. They often make decisions based on a feeling from one sales pitch without doing any research beforehand, or they do inadequate research.

Luckily, we’re here to help you out.

Conclusion – Why You Should Consider Renting a VPS Server

The conclusion section is the last part of the article. It should summarize the main points discussed in the article and provide a final call to action.

In this section, I will explain why you should consider renting a VPS server for your business.

How Much Does a Hosting Server Cost Per User for a Social App?

When designing a business plan for a heavy load application, it is very important to take into account and accurately calculate such costs as the pricing of the hosting service where the application data will be stored. Large-scale applications, such as social networks, can become a real problem for their owners if the associated costs are calculated wrong initially.

Just imagine: thousands of users every day supplement the application database with messages, photos, and other media files – how much storage space is needed, how much can it cost and how much does a hosting server cost per user for a social network app? Will your application become a “dead” project because of the high maintenance expenses? In this article, we plan to describe the order of calculating the cost of server hosting for large applications to avoid unpleasant financial surprises after the app release.

What is the basis for calculating the average server cost per user?

It is important to keep in mind that server hostings are characterized not only by the provisioned storage space but also by communication channel bandwidth and hardware capacities. Thus, the mobile app backend hosting cost can be calculated based on the following indicators:

  • – The cost of each storage gigabyte;
  • – The cost of each megabit of bandwidth;
  • – The cost of the server’s performance.

Also, the cost of server hosting can be affected by the equipment maintenance expenses, technical support charges, and other factors.

How to calculate the cost

How much does a social app cost to run? Depending on the pricing parameters, the cost of server hosting for a heavy application can be calculated in several ways.

Calculation according to the storage space cost

A very simple calculation scheme, for which it is required to approximate the number of application users and the maximum storage limits for each of them. The rough estimation is simple: if the cost of storing the object is $0.1 per GB of space per month and your application is calculated, say, for 5000 users, with a limit of 2 GB, the result of multiplying all the numbers (5000 Ă— 2 Ă— 0.1) the monthly cost of the server would be $1000.

It is important to understand that this calculation gives only an approximate cost of required hosting. The actual number of users may differ, and each user will not necessarily use all the space provided to them. Thus, you can make an assumption about the actual use of the server space (as a percentage of the initial number of users and disk space) and use this coefficient to adjust the appraisal.

Own / rented server

Buying or renting a whole server can significantly reduce the cost of hosting, but requires the seed capital. For example, for an application designed for the same 5000 users and 2 GB storage limit (10,000 GB or 10 TB), you need to purchase about 2 servers with 8x 2TB SATA disks (taking into account the cost of server space for user data, operating systems, application backend and RAID reservation), the cost of which is about $3000 each, plus additional equipment (racks, etc.), the totals would approximate to $6500. If you have such a starting amount, you can recoup the costs for 2 years at a server cost of $270-300 per month. Thus, the price of one GB of space for one user would equal to $0.06.

Making a long-term business plan with the calculation of hosting costs for the above scheme it is important to consider the expiration of the equipment. Any device has an approximate service life and needs regular replacement.

Another variant suitable for those who do not have sufficient starting capital is server equipment rental. Calculating the cost to maintain an application when renting server hardware can be carried out according to the same scheme, but taking into account the monthly rental fees.

Testing the application to determine the required hosting parameters

All the previous estimation methods are based only on the approximate assumptions of the user numbers and the necessary space for each user. Such calculations do not take into account the traffic, the required processor power, the average load on the server and many other factors. The calculation for these models is suitable for compiling a primary business plan for understanding the profitability of the application even before work on it is started.

However, in order to obtain more or less accurate data on the required server capacity and volume for an already developed application and, accordingly, calculate the cost of server hosting, a deeper approach is needed.

The best and accurate calculations are given by testing the required application efficiency using the specially developed software. Such test programs create “virtual users” that simulate the actions of real users of the application, measuring the loads to identify the optimal configuration of the application’s server part infrastructure.

The essence of the testing

To test the application architecture, worker threads mirroring virtual users are used, each of which can execute one of three action scenarios:

  • – Light (authorization, login to the server, viewing the application partitions, sending/receiving requests);
  • – Medium (to the light scenario’s actions, sending/receiving messages, uploading photos, viewing photos of other users, sending/receiving pictures are added);
  • – Heavy (extensive exploitation of all the application features).

Typical time between each script action is established to 1 second.

Thus, gradually increasing the number of threads, each of which randomly engages one of the scenarios, the testing application measures the load on the server part of the application in its different configurations. As soon as any element of the application starts to work incorrectly, the test stops and changes the infrastructure configuration.

Most of the established outsourcing software development companies have such sophisticated in-house testing programs.

Results

The result of the test is the optimal configuration of the application infrastructure, which can support the maximum number of users simultaneously using the application. It also calculates the maximum hardware capabilities required for the application, based on which you can calculate the server hosting cost for the application most accurately.

Also, based on the results of the test, you can choose the hosting model (renting server hosting, renting server equipment or colocation, own server), which will not only be most advantageous financially but also meet the requirements of the application in the case of high loads.

Summary

When developing large applications similar to social networks, an important part of the business plan will be to estimate server costs per user. For preliminary calculations at the design stage of the application, you can employ simple mathematical models (number of users/space for each – to calculate hosting and storage costs/necessary equipment expenses/monthly fees – when buying or renting equipment).

However, for accurate calculations of the cost of hosting and choosing the most beneficial server interaction model (purchase, lease, colocation) in mobile development for Android or iOS, professional testing is necessary that would take into account all the appropriate factors. Only after calculating the necessary application load on the server can you tell exactly which server parameters will best meet the needs of the application and, based on the received data, clearly estimate the cost of hosting – total and average server cost per user.

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