Late last year, I was pretty happy to have a budget to take a VPS for my company. This was first server that we own. What a great feeling to have it. But soon the great feeling becomes a nightmare. It was not that hosting company is not that good, it was just that the VPS are not good in general. I am talking about it after using atleast 10 VPS server from 3-4 different companies. Fortunately I invest only in one of them.
Coming back to topic, here are reasons why I hate VPS now:
1. VPS is said to be cheaper, But for whom? You or hosting companies? Companies with good reputation or resources gives a VPS starting at $60 per month for just a 1GB RAM, with 30GB HDD. IF you compare it with Dedicate server with low end they ends up with 160 GB HDD and 2 GB RAM. for about $100. But to get that configuration you need to spend over $100. So comparatively they are not cheap.
2. When I buy a VPS I read that my VPS will be hosted on Cloud network and hence if a VPS fails for some reason it get up again on next node in network and reduce the downtime. Unfortunately my VPS Hosting GRID failed and it dump my data for 48 hrs, before they can fix the node. I was not alone but all people having their VPS on that grid lost valuble 48hrs waiting for their server. Later it took 15 days to get my hosting to move my VPS to new GRID as even after 48 hrs they said they still need to do few maintenance and my VPS will do roller coaster during that time. If I have Dedicated server and if some hardware fails it took less than 2 hrs to get it up live. But if VPS grid’s hardware fails who grid gets overloaded from other VPS and reduce performance. Plus changinge their hardware wasn’t easy. This is what I had experience on my server and unfortunately on client’s hosting when their Hosting [different my mine] fails for them too.
3. VPS should not be confused with Cloud Hosting. VPS are virtual machine, and even if they are hosted on Cloud Network they are not Cloud hosting for your purpose, they are as good as dedicate machine. IF your VPS fails, or shutdown, your website will be down. You won’t get shifted or reboot, becuase machine is down not a network. It is like notepad crashing on your computer. It do not effect computer otherwise. Cloud hosting are like shared hosting, where multiple computers store data, and a data replication happens on fallback node. then your webserver runs on different hardware on same grid and other application as well. So if say one web server fails there are other webserver available to take load of your application. But this is note the case with VPS machines. IF you take VPS you take a 1990’s computer as server don’t expect too much.
4. VPS is a concept of running more than one Operating system on given hardware. Like running Parallel to run Widows on Mac. Though it is been said that they share resources, but actually if you have a computer with 4 GB RAM running 2 VM with 2 GB RAM. do you think you get full 2GB RAM performance? the answer is NO. because at 4GB RAM there are 3 OS running. and one is using 4GB, while other 2 are using 2GB each, so they need 8GB in total, but it is not possible because we have 4GB. So the host operating system scarifice some of his RAM, maybe 3GB but it still be a 5GB. Same happens with CPU processing, Same with HDD. A HDD writes a 1xX speed if it has to write it for 3 OS will it write faster? no it still write 1xX and each os get only 1/3xX of speed.
In nutshell, if you are trying to save money by using VPS, then you better reconsider using a Shared hosting or a Dedicated server. Hosting 10 site on VPS will cost you $6 per month with no performance, where as shared hosting from decently good host will cost your just about same, but much better performance. And if you have enough money why not a Dedicated server or a Cloud hosting like Microsoft Azure, or Amazon S3 like services ?