Virtual Private Server or Reseller Hosting?

Virtual private server, shortly known as VPS is considered a milestone in computer technology. For the past few decades or so, both hardware and computer have come a long way from historical punch cards and bulky hard drives. With fifth generation of computers with artificial intelligence in the pipeline, the demarcation between hardware and software is thinning drastically. In that perspective, VPS is nothing but a host operating system operates another operating system on a hardware simulation. This has paved way for the web developers to run multiple ‘virtual’ servers on one ‘physical’ server.

Reseller hosting is the service provided by the owners of high end networking servers where they lease out portions of hardware and networking resources to their clients, who in turn ‘resell’ it to their customers who are basically looking for someone to host their personal or commercial websites. Most of these resellers who share the computer resources available with them are web developers or designers themselves. So, they lease out the resources with a mark up in the cost that they themselves are paying to their networking server hosting company. Nonetheless, reselling hosting services are available from a few to a few tens of dollars per month depending on the resources lent.

Choosing a Virtual Private Server or Reseller Hosting.

Virtual private server hosting lies midway between those entry level web hosting plans that offer limited share of hard disk space and co-location hosting or dedicated hosting. Co-location hosting comes as a high financial commitment because you invest in owning and managing the hardware and simply hire network connectivity and ‘rack space’ from the data center. In dedicated hosting, you pay rent for the server that is dedicated for your web hosting. Thus a virtual private server offers an ideal middle path if you are the crossroads of having outgrown your shared hosting plan but not yet ready to burden yourself with co-location or dedicated hosting commitment.

Thus to choose reseller hosting over virtual private server hosting or vice versa depends on the size of your business and your growth forecast for the future. When you own a small to medium scale business and looking to open online stores it is best to invest with a reseller hosting service provider especially if you are a novice to the image hosting business. Resellers take care to run your websites for you and any teething troubles are sorted by them and the data center. Also many provide competitive terms to upgrade the resources as your business grows online.

As your business is on the rising graph and shared hosting plans are too meek to handle the high volume traffic, then it is time to explore your options on virtual private server hosting. This opens a floodgate of unlimited hosting, back up, file storage, mails, FTP* services, ability to install, run programs etc at your will. However with this comes a huge responsibility of installations, upgrades, maintenance and security of the server under your charge. So, if you are willing to learn as you progress, you know your decision by now!

*FTP:
File Transfer Protocol.