Shared Web Hosting or VPS: What’s best for you?

New to building and maintaining websites? Taking on the hosting side of website management for the first time? Choosing your website’s hosting set up is one of the first and biggest choices you’ll need to make.

Don’t worry, you’re far from the first person needing a bit of help deciding how to host their website. We're here to help you think things through carefully.

More advice for beginners: A quickstart guide to websites, hosting, domains, and almost everything else

Choosing the right type of hosting is critical to get your website and business operating smoothly. Making the right decisions today could save you from a costly and onerous migration later down the road.

We're looking at two of the most common (and low-cost) types of hosting: Web Hosting, a.k.a shared hosting, and Virtual Private Servers (VPS).

But first, you’ll need to know a few things about your website before you can confidently choose the right type of hosting:

1. The number of websites, and the amount of traffic they'll get. Are you building only one or two blogs or business sites? Are you expecting tens of thousands of visitors?
   • Usually, you'd only consider a VPS for hosting multiple sites or for particularly large, busy, or technically complex sites.
2. Budget. Quite simply, Web Hosting has a lower entry price than VPS packages. Just be aware that underinvesting in Web Hosting or chasing cheap deals can be a costly mistake. Underpowered options can slow your sites down and affect the visitor/customer experience. Moving between different hosting solutions can be tricky and time consuming, so pick a path that ought to suit you for more than just the short term.
   • Shop around, and be realistic about what you really need. The threshold to move up to VPS usually requires multiple websites, large resource requirements, or technical complexity.
3. Server administration and management. Do you have the technical expertise to maintain servers and fix issues on a day-to-day basis, or will you need access to experts?
   • Web Hosting packages are much simpler and less technical than managing a VPS. You don't need to worry about security patching, or running Linux, or what SSH is.
   • On the other hand, Server Management is available as a paid extra with a VPS. It’s a service we highly recommend if a VPS is the right choice but managing your own server infrastructure doesn’t appeal.
4. Disk space. This is the amount of data you can store on the web server. HTML or text is economical, whereas a lot of images, videos and animations may require more disk space.
   • This likely won’t be a problem if you’re just starting out, especially if your Web Hosting package includes unlimited storage space. (MyHost plans don't limit disc space by the gigabyte, but they do cap you at a total of 250,000 files.)
   • If your storage needs are complex, shared Web Hosting might not be for you. A server of your own is a better idea if you plan to to store and stream a lot of video, or you need to store hundreds of thousands of files, or there are privacy considerations.
5. Security and compliance. With a VPS you can take control of security patches and updates, and you have more flexibility to conform to rules or requirements around data security and sovereignty, payment processing, and handling sensitive data.
   • If this is important to you, talk with providers before making a final choice. Depending on your requirements, Web Hosting may not be out of the question.

Once you’ve thought these over, you'll be ready to take a closer look at Web Hosting and VPS.

Shared Web Hosting

In brief:

• Shared resources, which keep costs down and can be more than enough for lots of sites.
• Enough speed, storage and processing for common uses but particularly big sites, or other special demands might not be well served.
• Low hosting bills.

There are more MyHost customers using Web Hosting packages than running a VPS. If you're only running one or two websites, it's very unusual to need anything more than shared Web Hosting.

Related articles:

• Web Hosting shopping guide: Features, prices, and more
• Web Hosting 101: The most common questions answered
• What are Linux hosting and Windows hosting? And how do cPanel and Plesk fit in?

To visualise shared Web Hosting, imagine a shared office working space. You share resources like the printer, coffee maker, and even the space, so you can't makeover or personalise your workplace.

Someone else keeps the coffee beans topped up, and there's always milk in the fridge, but at lunch time the kitchen can get a bit crowded.

What’s more, your workstation is a standard one. You have decent Wi-Fi, but not an ultra quick connection. You have security, like a lock on the door, but no top-of-the-line biometric measures.

Shared Web Hosting is similar. You get your share of a server's resources and networking, and you don't need to worry about maintenance. It‘s the cheapest and easiest option out there.

It’s good enough almost all of the time. But if you need more than the basics, or you're planning to grow fast, it may not be what you're looking for.

Here are some key factors when choosing or creating a Web Hosting plan:

“Low-cost” doesn't always mean “cost-effective”. If you're saving $5 a month but suffering from slow load times and security issues, you're better off spending a little more. (Most downfalls of free WordPress Hosting apply to all Web Hosting.)

Choose a host that acts on risks fast, and proactively. When you're on a shared server, your neighbour's issues can spill over and affect you if your host isn't proactive, or your sites aren't properly isolated from each other. Some questions worth asking providers are: How serious are they about security, like regular server patching? What’s their plan if another site on your server gets overloaded? If you or someone else on your server grows beyond the limits of your plan, what happens next?

Look for dedicated technical support. Given the possible issues that can arise from shared servers, set yourself a high standard for technical support. Look for a provider that guarantees 24/7 access to support and answers questions quickly.

Recommendation

Shared Web Hosting is best for basic personal sites, blogs, and small businesses. It even suits some of our small digital agency clients.

VPS (Virtual Private Servers)

In brief:

• More customisable
• Pick your specs and resources like storage and bandwidth
• Enable faster speeds
• Access scalability
• Take more control over server security

With Virtual Private Servers, your imagined workstation is more “yours”, and it comes with extras. Compared to shared Web Hosting you can expect more control over security (usually with a higher starting point), plenty of storage space, and possibly a faster internet connection.

Every VPS is a server of your own, carved out of a physical server by virtualisation technology. As with shared Web Hosting, you’ll still have neighbours you’ll be even less likely to notice. You and your fellow workmates still go to one place for work but this time you have your own cubicle, which you can personalise and control.

In hosting, this private cubicle means having your choice of operating system, along with your personal share of storage, CPU, RAM, and bandwidth (a lot of providers, including us, promise unlimited bandwidth).

You get more control and scalability if you’re planning to run lots of websites, or if you’re an agency wanting to host a bunch of client websites from the same place.

Here are some key factors to consider when choosing or creating your own VPS plan:

Site performance. There’s many factors which can speed your site up, or slow it down. When it comes to server hardware two biggies are CPU and RAM. “CPU” (or central processing unit) refers to a computer’s capacity to process data. “RAM” (random access memory) refers to memory space.

In general, more CPU and RAM means your server will run faster and handle more work. Think of it like this: more CPU cores let your server multitask, and more RAM lets it do those tasks faster. If your site gets busy enough to overload either your CPU or RAM, page load times will get longer, and eventually your site will crash.

Quality hardware. As well as looking at the number of CPU cores and gigabytes of RAM on offer, remember that we’re talking hardware so the actual machine matters, too. You don’t want your VPS sitting inside a years-old box that was built back when 4G phones were the latest thing. Ask about the hardware that providers offer. See if anyone else can match the NVMe storage that we put all our new customers on.

Server management. VPS is an unmanaged service, which gives you big web management responsibilities that might distract you from growing your business. VPS providers, like MyHost, can aid you with managed services add-ons. While this adds some bucks to your bill, the reward is not needing to worry about web maintenance tasks as our engineers cover everything from monitoring to security. And it keeps you patched and protected for the increasing amount of vulnerabilities being discovered everyday.

Recommendation

Virtual Serverss (VPS) are best for agencies and larger, fast growing businesses like ecommerce, especially if you can handle your own server administration.

Still undecided?

Still struggling to make the decision? We’d be glad to work through your options with you. Just contact us to get started.

We can help you work out whether Web Hosting or a VPS suits you better. Once you’ve made that pick we’ll get you onto the right plan as well.

Benefits of going with MyHost

Our Web Hosting packages (which all come with free unmetered traffic, fully featured email and automatic backups) are optimised to be compatible with WordPress and integrate smoothly with Cloudflare.

As for VPS packages, MyHost plans all include full root access, unlimited national bandwidth, 1 free IP address, and free set up.

Every VPS is on high quality hardware, with automatic daily backups of your server stored for 14 days in a secure off-site location.

We provide 24/7 support to all our customers, on every hosting solution. We guarantee 99.9% uptime with robust performance and high speed.

Every business is different, and Web Hosting isn't a one-size-fits-all thing. We've been helping New Zealanders strike the right balance for years, so if you have any questions, you know who to ask.

Article last updated 5 June 2026, originally published 7 September, 2021