While Shared hosting ($8.95 per month) can be great, affordable solution for starting web site or blog, a VPS (Virtual Private Server: $19.95 per month) offers significant advantages for web site owners who place a premium on speed, security and scalability.

A few advantages of VPS’s over Shared Hosting account:

• Guaranteed Speeds.  A Shared Hosting account must share the CPU’s and Memory (RAM) of its server with up to 150 other web sites (other hosting companies will pack up to 300 sites on a shared server.)   This is not the case with a VPS.  A VPS receives guaranteed CPU and RAM so other web sites will not slow it down.
• Enhanced Security.  On a shared server we have to loosen our security measures since we are protecting up to 150 other web sites. With a VPS we are able to tighten security measures because we are only protecting one web site.  Its the difference between protecting one person verse protecting a group of people.  Its a whole lot harder to protect the group.
• Instant Scalability.  With a VPS we can immediately increase the amount of visitors that it can handle to accommodate a sudden an increase in traffic.  For example, when your site is linked from a popular site like CNN.com.   Instant scalability is not possible with Shared Hosting as the site would actually taken offline in the event of a large spike in traffic so that it doesn’t slow down the other 150 sites on the same server.
• Unlimited site hosting.  With a Shared Hosting account you can host one web site.  With a VPS account you can host as many as you like without increasing your monthly cost.
• More tools for your developer.  Since a VPS is your own server your developer has access to everything on the server, which makes them happier and more productive.  On Shared Hosting, since its a shared server, this is not possible.

Hope this helps!

~ Oban