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Shared Web Hosting Vs. Virtual Private Server Vs. Dedicated Server

How do you explain shared web hosting, virtual private server and dedicated server to a non-techie? Here’s a simple analogy that I thought of:

Shared Web Hosting
Imagine a refrigerator in your house. Everyone in the family has a share of space in it. You can buy your own stuff and put it in there. Of course, you need to be considerate with other people. You cannot just occupy every space in the refrigerator or others will complain (but you can if you want!). That’s basically what a shared hosting service is. You are sharing a server with other people, sharing its resources and when someone uses more resources than yours, you get affected. You are lucky if all the users in the server are well-behaved. I just moved out from this type of service because this blog is already using more resources than others causing them to complain. 🙁 This is the cheapest among the three.

Dedicated Server
Going back to the refrigerator scenario, this means that you have your own refrigerator dedicated only to you. No one uses the refrigerator except you. You can buy a lot of stuff, put it in there and no one will complain. 🙂 This one is obviously expensive, actually the most expensive among the three. Imagine buying a refrigerator just for your own self?

Virtual Private Server
Going back to the refrigerator scenario, you still share a refrigerator with others. But you have a reserved space inside the refrigerator that only you can use. Nobody can put their stuff on your space, they have their own spaces too. Nobody cares whether you put a lot of stuff in your space or not, because they have their own reserved space on the same refrigerator. You virtually have your own refrigerator, but actually you’re sharing it with others but on better terms. Obviously, this one is more expensive than shared hosting but cheaper than dedicated server. This is the service that this blog is using right now, courtesy of Dreamhost PS (use MACUHA50 promo code to get $50 discount!).

For a more technical definition of these terms, visit the Wikipedia:

Marhgil Macuha

Marhgil Macuha is a Computer Engineering graduate of Batangas State University. He is currently a Senior Solutions Developer at a Canadian IT company.

7 Comments:

  1. So, kelangan ko bumili ng ref?

    Just kidding! 😀

  2. yeah ganun din inexplain ko sa nagtanong sa akin 😀 heehee..

  3. investment lang naman sa tingin ko..

    kung gusto mo magbenta ng madaming YELO, ICE CANDY, ICE TUBIG at MAG STORE ng marami pang PAGKAIN dapat may sarili kang REFRIGERATOR mo..

    Nice one here..

    @macuha
    if you still have problem on Dreamhost even sa VPS nila, i think they don’t have YM support that you can HARASS them if you have problem LOL 🙂 you can goo to WDSERVERS.COM.

    though wala xang website for hosting, reliable to and I’m using him for my proxies and bait pa and one of the best part is you can YM here if you have problem…

    Kapag pipili ng REFRIGERATOR dapat madali mo makontak when times of trouble kumbaga masolve agad ung prob mo within HOUR lang..

  4. @Mojics… tingnan natin kung magloloko pa ito. tama ka, wala akong maharass sa YM. 🙂 so far, so good naman na ito, thanks for the tip. 😉

  5. Hmmm not sure about DH’s VPS. No root access so their still practically in control of your system. It’s like a reseller with an enabled Jail account for SSH access, But then to each his own, mahal ko na ung host ko eh hehe

  6. Thanks for the definitions!

  7. relating to chosen this hosting .we discovered it is good web host if you want to set up a huge web sites but the problem is often a bit higher rate.i am hoping they will decrease the internet hosting costs.

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