Virtual Private Servers have become a great resource for semi-dedicated web hosting and for webmasters who have simply outgrown the shared web hosting market but for whatever reason cannot afford or are not ready to upgrade to dedicated server hosting.
So what is a Virtual Private Server (VPS)?
VPS web hosting is simply a dedicated server that is split into smaller shared web hosting sections. It differs from a shared server in that in shared hosting, you could be sharing the server with upwards of 500 different webmasters, which means that you get 1/500th of the server’s CPU. This is normally divided into less than 1% of the CPU and if you go over, your account is likely suspended from the web host until you fix the cause of the usage or upgrade to a plan that can support that kind of environment.
For virtual private server hosting, you are normally guaranteed a set portion of the server’s RAM and in some cases, you can go over this amount if the others sharing your server space don’t use their portion. The best VPS hosting providers will only put 25 people or less on your VPS web hosting plan with you – this gives you added freedoms to install applications and run more resource-intensive scripts which could have been potentially dangerous in a completely-shared environment.
VPS web hosting plans are normally much cheaper than dedicated web hosting plans. You can plan to pay anywhere between $40-80/month for a basic virtual private server web hosting plan.
**UPDATE: Lunarpages Web Hosting is offering a HUGE discount on their Windows VPS Web Hosting Plan. Normally priced at $69.95/month, they have lowered the price to $39.95/month, a complete bargain in this industry. This is a limited time promotion and no coupon code is necessary.**
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