VPS vs Cloud: Finding the Right Cloud Hosting Solution

Looking at purchasing VPS (Virtual Private Server) Cloud Hosting vs a Cloud Server? Unsure which type is best for you?

In today’s hosting world, you have dozens of hosting options to choose from. You have shared hosting, dedicated hosting, CMS specialized hosting, reseller hosting, and so on. On the top of most lists are VPS vs cloud hosting, but what are the differences? Cloud hosting can refer to many different types of cloud solutions.

Many IT professionals get lost searching for a cloud solution with the agility and flexibility needed for their growing application or website, all at a palatable price point.

Here are the basics about three of the most popular cloud hosting solutions, as well as distinct advantages and disadvantages when it comes to choosing between cloud vs VPS.

When looking at the difference between VPS vs Cloud Server, you must first understand the term VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. Let’s break down each part of this server type to its basic function.

Virtual in VPS simply means that you do not own a physical server. Instead, you have a virtual instance that is working on a parent server.

For example, imagine that you have one super PC, and from that PC you spawned an additional 10 PCs that are using the resources of that super PC. You can manipulate resources that each of those spawned PCs through virtualization.

This is exactly what a VPS Server is: a spawned PC using virtualization to utilize a specific part of the CPU cores, memory, and RAM of a Cloud Dedicated Server.

Private means that your VPS is just yours. The environment is not shared with anyone else, which is also known as single-tenancy. Your resources are your own, and whatever you do won’t affect users of other VPS instances on the Cloud Dedicated parent server. Likewise, anything other tenants do on the other VPS instances cannot affect your VPS instance.

A server is a machine or a computer that provides hosting services. This means that your VPS instance is still a server, even though it doesn’t exist in a physical form. VPS Hosting is a virtual server that is created through virtualization, creating a viable and scalable hosting solution perfectly suited for many SMBs.

Now that you have a better understanding of what VPS actually is, we will go through some advantages and disadvantages of VPS Hosting.

You are free to do whatever you want with your VPS. You can manage your server however you like. Root access is at your disposal and you can install whatever you want, whenever you want.

VPS hosting is highly efficient. On shared hosting you are depending on traffic from others. On VPS instances, your hosting instance is isolated from other instances on the same parent server. Your traffic and resources are yours alone.

You can easily and quickly scale VPS with a single click. Having on-demand access to more CPU, RAM, and storage can be extremely helpful, as well as keep your site from crashing during busy sales seasons.

VPS hosting is very secure as well. Everything that you are running from your server is completely safe from the eyes of other users on the parent server. So if you are on a parent server with 8 other VPS instances, you or them won’t be able to see each other’s instances.

Deployment is so easy that it can be done with a single click thanks to automatization. When you order your VPS instance through our Manage interface, it will be deployed in an hour or so.

In case of something going wrong on the server and it is beyond repair, backup can be done easily through a server image that can be created with a single click. When you have a server image, you can quickly restore a VPS instance to a previously working state.

Every VPS is deploying from previously created automated scripts (automation that we mentioned above). It means that you have to choose VPS instances that the hosting company has previously defined.

For example, if you want a VPS instance that runs on Debian OS and has 4 CPU cores and 4 GB of RAM, and the hosting company doesn’t offer that, it isn’t an option. You are not able to choose a VPS with one OS and then simply install another one on it.

Liquid Web has many options when it comes to OS selection and resource allocations for VPS Hosting.

If there are issues with the parent server’s hardware, things are likely out of your hands. Unlike VPS, the parent server is an actual physical instance that can, just like everything else, break.

Something meaningless and easy to fix can happen, like a snapped power cable. Or something more serious could have happened, like an entire motherboard going bad and needing to be replaced. These things are rarely happening, but they do.

Rest assured that when something like this happens at Liquid Web, our technicians are on it in a blink of an eye to get everything in order as soon as possible.

Now that you are familiar with pros and cons of VPS Hosting and you know some basics, let’s compare VPS vs a cloud dedicated server.

To put it simply, a Cloud Dedicated Server is an actual dedicated server with a virtual layer that is running on top of it. When comparing VPS vs cloud server, the largest difference is the isolation and amount of resources available

The implementation for Cloud Dedicated Servers is similar to our Cloud VPS, with our Cloud platform taking care of the provisioning. This allows our Cloud Dedicated servers to have a scalable, virtual environment. But instead of sharing the resources with other users, you have the full use of them.

If you are comparing bare metal dedicated vs cloud servers, the main difference is if your content ever outgrows the server on which you are running it, upgrade of the server will involve data migration and downtime while hardware undergoes maintenance.

With cloud dedicated, downtime due to migration can be minimized. It’s running on cloud, thus it can be scaled “on the go.” This comes in handy because downtime during resize is minimal. Migration processes are not something that is easily done in most cases and it requires some time.

Keep the following four advantages in mind when comparing Virtual Private Server vs cloud:

Just like VPS Hosting, Cloud Dedicated servers also have root access which gives you complete freedom when it comes to configuration and tweaking.

A Cloud Dedicated server is completely owned by one tenet. You are not sharing resources or space with anyone.

For those expecting a high influx of traffic or planning a new product launch, Cloud Dedicated servers can scale and increase RAM or CPU cores with a single click.

You can even scale a Cloud Dedicated Server down to a VPS Server, which is extremely useful if you see you aren’t using the full server resources and your budget has tightened.

Cloud Dedicated hosting has a few limits when it comes to server deployment. For example, if you deploy a CentOS Cloud Dedicated server with InterWorx as the control panel, you will need to migrate if you want to switch your control panel or distribution system to cPanel or Debian, respectively.

Now that we have covered Virtual Private Server vs cloud, let’s examine the possibilities and features of another cloud server that is much different than VPS called private cloud.

VMware Private Cloud gives you the ability to optimize, reconfigure, or scale up your resources on the fly. Liquid Web’s Private Cloud environment is powered by VMware which adds a nice kick of power, performance, and the security to the package.

Private Cloud environments allow you to move compute power and data storage between virtual machines (VMs) that you deploy.

As you compare Virtual Private Server vs cloud, note that Private Cloud uses virtualization to combine computing power into shared pools which will be automatically provisioned based on the needs of your business. This makes Private Cloud a more powerful and robust cloud solution.

Liquid Web’s VMware Private Cloud product is fully managed, which means that we take care of the entire hosting infrastructure. All that you need to do is to deploy VMs and your applications.

Liquid Web server nodes are built using Intel Xeon Servers, combined with ultra-fast NetApp SAN storage. This helps VMs deliver maximum speed, scalability, and reliability for our customers.

All Private Cloud plans has no limit on how many VMs can be deployed, and you won’t be charged extra even if you spin 20 VM instances. But, the amount of VMs that can be deployed does depend on the resources that you have at your disposal.

VMware Private Cloud offers total system control and increased security through dedicated hardware and physical infrastructure that’s used exclusively by the company that owns it.

With the Private Cloud at Liquid Web, you receive the same monthly bill, which helps with budget allocation and decreased infrastructure spending.

Because you have complete control over your private cloud, it is much easier to reallocate resources and get your cloud to perform specifically according to requirements that you and your team need.

VMware Private Cloud is a solution for companies and businesses that have outgrown both VPS and traditional dedicated servers and need maximum uptime and scalability.

VPS Hosting, Cloud Dedicated Hosting, and VMware Private Cloud are all cloud solutions that can help growing SMBs, each with their distinct advantages and disadvantages. When comparing VPS vs purchasing a cloud server, reflect on not only your current demands but predicted growth over the next few years.