VPS hosting has become a popular offering on the web hosting market. The allure behind this solution is that it creates a common ground between shared and dedicated hosting. Despite its power and all the benefits, a VPS is not suited for everyone. This type of arrangement will cost you a few hundred dollars per year on service, but there are more glaring disadvantages that need to be considered as well.

Technical Challenges

With the typical shared hosting service, you lease a plan on a monthly or annual basis. What you sign up for is an outsourced, fully managed solution. The hosting company provides the hardware and internet connectivity, administers the server, and takes care of all the technical aspects behind the scenes. With a VPS hosting plan, however, you move up in status and virtually have complete control of your private environment.

While this can be a major advantage, it can also present challenges for the simple fact that you are responsible for managing the server, installing software, applying updates and monitoring security. This isn't much of a problem for the more technically inclined user, but could be a terribly frustrating ordeal for the less experienced. If you do not have firsthand knowledge of server administration or OS commands, you could end up out of your league with a VPS hosting solution you simply are not equipped to handle. The power of a virtual platform is sometimes too much for the needs and experience level of many individuals.

Hardware Limitations

VPS hosting can provide you with a much greater degree of control and better performance, as critical system resources are more adequately allotted. However, even though you get the benefit of guaranteed resources, there are some limitations that might be cause for concern.

Due to the similarities of a VPS and dedicated server, some have the misconception that you have all the resources to yourself. This is not the case. You are still required to share hardware assets with the other virtual servers partitioned on the machine. While this is not an issue for most, it could be for you, depending on the nature of your business. This essentially means that you are not guaranteed access to the memory you require at any given time due to an instance such as a log jam. Though very rare, an error like this can occur on a virtual platform. If these are disadvantages your business cannot afford, you might be best suited for a dedicated server in order to have all the hardware resources at your disposal.