Magento hosting: VPS hosting, Shared hosting, Dedicated server or Cluster hosting?

You have the ambition to set up a Magento webshop, and soon you find out you have to make an important choice: The choice about which type of hosting you need.

A decision you have to think about carefully. For a Magento webshop, there are mainly 4 possibilities:

• VPS Hosting
• Shared Hosting
• Dedicated Servers
• Cluster Hosting

But what is the difference between these hosting types?

What do you have to take into account if you want to make the right choice? You have to think about it well before you make the decision. It might seem obvious, but it is one of the more important choices you have to make.

Hosting that does not fit your requirements can be fatal for your webshop.

That’s why we are here to help.

In this article we discuss the difference between VPS hosting, Shared hosting, Dedicated servers and Cluster hosting in a comprehensive way. After that, we compare these types to the possibilities Hipex has to offer.

VPS Hosting

When you choose for a VPS (Virtual Private Server), you get a physical server divided in multiple smaller ones. A lot of hosting providers see this as a IaaS-service (Infrastructure as a Service).

VPS hosting and Shared hosting match on quite a lot. With both solutions, resources will be splitted to offer a cost-efficient solution. However, the main difference is that with VPS hosting, the server will divide the available resources into smaller, separate servers.

Dividing the resources guarantees you a certain amount for your use. However, in no case, more resources than the fixed amount can be used.

When the limit has been crossed, downtime is the consequence. In an earlier stage, you will also recognize that your webshop will become slower when you're close to the maximum amount of possible resources.

VPS: Unmanaged or Managed?

When you decide to use a VPS, you have to look for an appropriate supplier. At this stage, the choice between managed and unmanaged hosting arises.

When you choose for unmanaged hosting, you will get root access and you will be responsible for configuring and maintaining your VPS.

When you want an easier way to VPS hosting, or lack knowledge that is required to maintain your VPS, managed hosting will be more suitable for you. The amount of freedom will be less than unmanaged, but your web hoster will help you with the configuration and maintenance of VPS server.

If you choose unmanaged hosting, your monthly costs will be lower than a managed VPS.

Shared Hosting

With Shared Hosting, you will host your online store on a server with multiple other other stores. This means you will split the resources of the server with a certain amount of other websites on the server.

When using the same resources, it can occur that for instance Webshop A needs a lot of resources at a certain time of the week (because of high traffic) which means you have less resources available.

The extent to which this happens is dependent on the total available resources and the number of webshops running on the same server.

Usually, this is not a problem for smaller websites. However, when you have a growing webshop, where performance is getting essential, with an increased conversion rate and the amount of customization is growing, it’s probably time to have a look at a Dedicated server.

When you made the decision Shared Hosting is the best option for you, it’s time to select the best hosting provider. You want to make sure the hosting provider keeps your server updated when it comes to software and other patches. Make sure you check this before signing up.

The usability is dependent on the fact if you choose for shared managed hosting or shared unmanaged hosting.

When you choose for shared managed hosting, you will have less influence on the use or configurations, however there will be almost completely taken care of your server. When you choose unmanaged hosting, you need to have a lot of technical knowledge as you have to configure and maintain it yourself.

Dedicated Server

If you choose a Dedicated Server, you will have a server at your disposal that is entirely intended for you.

You don’t have to share resources with other webshops, awesome right?

In this case, your processing power is much higher which has a positive impact on the performance of your webshop and peak resistance. Besides that, you are also entirely free to decide how you want to use these resources. You have much more freedom in using software instances as nobody will hamper you.

As you will understand, this is a big advantage compared to Shared Hosting or VPS hosting.

You decide which software en configurations you want to run and set on your hardware. As an example: you can have a slightly higher impact on getting a lower TTFB (Time To First Byte).

When you decide to purchase a dedicated server, you will have the choice between managed and unmanaged hosting (just as Shared Hosting and VPS Hosting).

When choosing for an unmanaged dedicated server the chances are high the hosting provider will give you Root access. This means that you can configure your server the way you want.

It sounds nice, but be aware that you need certain knowledge to do this correctly. You are responsible for the configuration, updating all the software and ensuring the security of your server is well-fixed.

It might happen that your webshop is inaccessible for certain reasons (DDoS attack, application error, server configuration and more). In this case you are responsible to get this fixed and working properly again.

Usually, a good hosting company will think along with you as well (based on a good service level), but in the first place, you must keep in mind that you’re responsible.

No experience with the things we’ve mentioned above? It’s probably better to with Hipex Managed hosting solutions.

All your concerns will be taken away when having managed hosting on a dedicated server. The web hoster ensures (usually via an SLA) the maintenance and security of your server and makes sure everything is up to date.

The disadvantage of managed hosting is that the price will be slightly higher. The web hoster has more work to do regarding your server. Keep that in mind when you make the decision!

Conclusion:when you have a promising webshop, a dedicated server might be a good option for you. The choice between Managed or Unmanaged Hosting depends on your technical knowledge, the influence on the server you want to have and your budget.

Cluster Hosting

When your online store attracts many visitors everyday and the resources of one dedicated server won’t be enough anymore, cluster hosting will become interesting.

With cluster hosting, you have multiple servers connected within the same Private LAN Network.

A cluster consists of at least 2 servers. In most cases you will split your database from your application. So your database has its own server and your application as well. With this type of setup both your database and application have their own resources which leads to a substantial amount of performance gain.

When there are multiple servers running the application you have the option to add a load balancer.

All the traffic passes first through the load balancer. The job of the load balancer is to balance the load between the available application servers, without overloading one of them.

These setups (with a load balancer and multiple application servers) will be used by bigger webshops that have to deal with a lot of traffic or have to process a lot of orders.

With a cluster set up, you will handle spikes in traffic much better. By balancing the traffic between multiple servers, you can assume you can deal with twice as many visitors. Your peak resistance has been doubled by this.

Also, with cluster environments, you can choose between managed and unmanaged hosting. When you have chosen an unmanaged solution, you will get some servers at your disposal you have to connect and configure yourself.

Please note that you need to have a lot of knowledge to do this and configuring and maintaining will cost you a lot of time.

Hosting via Hipex

When you choose Hipex as your hosting provider, you will always get a managed hosting solution with an extra layer above, designed by Hipex. Hipex offers shared, dedicated and cluster hosting services all as a managed solution.

If you're interested in how our Shared, Dedicated and Cluster hosting works read further.

Hipex Shared Hosting

At Hipex, we take a critical look at the number of webshops that will be hosted on the Shared server in contradiction to many other parties. Hipex has the objective of keeping a lot of resources free for higher traffic spikes our clients experience.

The main advantage of this is that resources will be shared but when your webshop grows you don’t have to scale up to a dedicated server immediately.

Besides that, Hipex offers extended monitoring to keep an eye on the webshop’s performance. We also have a dedicated support team to help you with hosting related issues. Besides that we also use monitoring services on server and application level and go further than other parties within the market.

Hipex Dedicated Servers

Hipex does not only offer shared hosting, but also various dedicated servers. These servers are really powerful, contain the latest hardware, will be checked periodically and will be provided with the most recent updates every month.

The servers differ in resources and so in price. It is possible to purchase a Magento optimized dedicated server that will be fully managed by us for €399 a month. This will give your performance an enormous boost.

With shared hosting options and dedicated servers, Hipex offers a lot of possibilities for growing webshops that have not reached their limit. When you already grew out of this phase and have more than 350,000 visitors per month, we recommend looking at our managed cluster servers.

Hipex Cluster Hosting

The possibilities of cluster hosting are practically endless. You configure your resources separately on different servers which enables you to scale up without limitations.

Hipex is an expert in cluster hosting and goes way further than other hosting providers. We offer a lot more resources in comparison to other companies for competitive prices.

However, the biggest advantage you get when hosting at Hipex are not only the amount of resources but the service level and the available tooling we have available for you.

Our team consists of certified Magento experts with a lot of experience in the e-commerce industry. The major part of the team has built and maintained Magento webshops and so, they know how to deal with various problems.

Because of this, Hipex knows better than anyone what the needs of Magento webshops are and how we, as a Magento 2 hoster, need to come up with a tight solution.

Performance is the absolute key for Hipex and to maintain our number one position, we work with the latest techniques. We even make Linux kernel modifications to get the most out of your Magento webshop.

And on top of that, you will benefit from the development layer Hipex has created and optimized throughout the years. The Hipex platform is optimized for the usage of the most-used e-commerce plans.

Conclusion

Which type of hosting is suitable for you? Ask yourself the following questions:

How much traffic do I expect and what do I want to pay?

Expect a lot of traffic? A Shared server will not be suitable. When you expect low traffic and want to keep costs low, Shared hosting will be your best bet.

Want to have 100% control over the hardware and software configurations?

Then you can opt for a dedicated server. Dedicated servers are generally much more expensive than Shared servers, but they also come with many advantages. Please note that if you opt for an unmanaged dedicated server, you must have sufficient knowledge in-house for the various configurations. That is why we offer standard managed hosting so you can focus on running your business.

Do I want a server with limited influence?

Then VPS hosting will be something for you. The costs are lower than a dedicated server, but you will have the advantages of having your own part of the VPS server.

Ready to grow your business and take the advantage of real performance?

Hosting at Hipex will be the best solution for you. A lot of big (and smaller) webshops have already chosen this path!