Going viral is great. Unless your site faceplants in front of thousands of people because it can’t handle the traffic.

If you’re hosting on a VPS and gearing up for a big traffic event, now’s the time to ask: “Can my server handle this?” The good news is, with the right preparation, the answer can be a confident yes.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know to scale your VPS for traffic surges — without panic, guesswork, or praying to the server gods. Let’s dive in.

What Is a VPS (and Why Does It Matter When Traffic Spikes)?

A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a type of web hosting that gives you dedicated resources on a server shared with other users. Unlike shared hosting, where websites compete for the same resources, a VPS uses virtualization technology to create isolated environments — giving you more control, better performance, and the flexibility to scale your site as needed.

In other words, you get dedicated slices of resources (memory, CPU, storage) that aren’t shared with other sites —as opposed to shared hosting, where your neighbors can hog the server, meaning if one site has a huge spike in traffic, it can slow down everyone else. With a VPS, your site lives in its own isolated “container” with guaranteed resources, so other websites’ traffic surges won’t directly affect you.

Why is this important for scaling? Because while a VPS gives you more control and stability, you still have finite resources allocated to your site.

If your site suddenly needs more CPU or RAM than your plan includes, it can still suffer. But VPS plans are usually very scalable — you can easily add more RAM, CPU, or disk space as your site grows. In other words, a VPS is built to grow with you.

Proactively scaling your VPS before a big traffic event means increasing those resources (and optimizing your setup) ahead of time, so your site stays smooth when the visitors pour in.

It’s kind of like preparing a restaurant for a big dinner rush by adding more tables and staff and prepping ingredients ahead of time. You don’t want to wait until customers are crammed in the lobby to react.

Step-by-Step: How To Scale Your VPS for Traffic Surges

Now, let’s roll up our sleeves and get into why you’re here —this is how you scale your VPS if you anticipate your site will need more of those resources in the near future.

Step 1: Monitor Your Current Traffic and Set a Baseline

You can’t scale what you don’t measure. Start by auditing your current traffic to establish a performance baseline. Use your analytics to review how many visitors you get on a normal day and what your peak traffic looks like. If you use a DreamHost managed hosting plan (including VPS), you can now see built-in traffic analytics on the Traffic Dashboard, seamlessly integrated into the “Manage Websites” section of your customer control panel.

For example, find your average daily visitors and note the times or events when traffic spikes —maybe during past sales or campaigns. Knowing your “normal” versus “busy” traffic levels will help you quantify how big an upcoming surge might be.

Why do this? If you normally have 500 daily users and expect 5,000 during a launch, that’s a 10× jump —a huge strain if you’re unprepared. By identifying patterns (say, traffic doubles every day at 8 p.m., or tends to spike right after you send a newsletter), you can plan server resources for those loads. You want to establish a traffic baseline so you can recognize a true surge and scale accordingly.

Pro tip: Set up real-time analytics or server monitoring now. This will alert you if traffic starts ramping up unexpectedly before the big event.

Step 2: Choose a Flexible VPS Hosting Plan

Next, evaluate your hosting plan. Is your VPS plan flexible enough to handle a spike?

Not all VPS hosts are created equal —you’ll want one that lets you easily dial resources up or down. Check if your provider offers quick upgrades (or even automatic scaling) for CPU, RAM, and bandwidth. The goal is to avoid being stuck on a plan that can’t expand when you need it.

If your current host limits how fast you can scale, consider migrating to one that specializes in scalability (many cloud-based VPS providers allow near-instant resource adjustments). Some VPS hosting plans even have auto-scaling, meaning if traffic increases, the system can allocate more resources on the fly to keep your site stable.

At minimum, make sure you can manually upgrade your VPS plan quickly (within minutes or hours, not days).

Step 3: Allocate Sufficient Resources

Now it’s time to give your VPS those extra lanes of traffic we talked about. Well before the surge hits, allocate more server resources to handle the load. This might mean upgrading your VPS to add RAM, vCPUs (virtual processors), or increasing network bandwidth limits. A smart rule of thumb is to add a healthy buffer on top of your expected needs —roughly 50% extra capacity as a cushion.

For example, if your baseline monitoring from Step 1 suggests you’ll need around 2 GB of RAM to handle normal traffic, consider scaling to ~3 GB RAM for the surge, just to be safe. This margin gives you enough wiggle room to make sure you won’t max out resources if the spike is bigger than predicted.

Pro tip: It’s far better to have a bit too much capacity than to watch your site slow to a crawl or crash because it ran out of RAM.

Step 4: Implement Caching to Reduce Server Strain

Want a quick win for scalability? Enable caching on your site. Caching stores copies of your site’s pages and content so that repeat requests can be served quickly without your VPS doing all the work each time.

In practice, when caching is enabled, the first visitor generates the content (for example, running PHP and database queries for a page) and a static version is saved. Subsequent visitors are then served that pre-built page from the cache, so your server doesn’t have to crank out the same page over and over.

The result: faster load times for users and much less stress on your VPS’s CPU and database.

There are a few types of caching to consider:

• Page caching stores full HTML pages.
• Object or database caching stores frequent query results.
• CDN (Content Delivery Network) caches static files (images, CSS, etc.) on servers around the world.

An easy route to take is installing a caching plugin for WordPress. Your host may also offer built-in caching. By caching content, you avoid overworking your server during high traffic and can handle far more visitors with the same VPS specs.

Pro tip: Using a CDN alongside caching offloads even more traffic from your VPS, since the CDN will serve images and other files to users, leaving your server free to handle the harder tasks.

Step 5: Consider Load Balancing if One Server Isn’t Enough

What if you anticipate a massive surge that one VPS alone can’t handle, even with more resources and caching? It might be time to think beyond a single server. Load balancing is a technique where you use multiple servers to share the traffic load.

Essentially, you put a load balancer in front of your VPS that distributes incoming visitors across two or more servers, preventing any single machine from getting overwhelmed. This setup can drastically increase the amount of traffic you can handle by leveraging multiple VPS instances in tandem.

A load balancer might send half your visitors to “Server A” and half to “Server B” (and even spin up more servers if needed). This not only increases capacity but also adds redundancy — if one server goes down, others can pick up the slack, improving reliability.

Know that you typically won’t need load balancing unless you expect truly high traffic or need high availability. It does introduce more complexity (and cost).

But it’s good to understand the concept: when one VPS isn’t enough, you can always add more servers behind a load balancer to add virtually unlimited capacity. Some hosting providers offer easy load balancing or cloud instances that auto-scale out —if your big event is going to be huge, this is an option to discuss with your host.

Step 6: Test Your Setup

Don’t wait until launch day to find out if your scaling efforts worked. Simulate a traffic surge on your site to see how they hold up.

This is commonly done via load testing or stress testing tools. These tools send a large number of simulated visitors or requests to your website to mimic a flood of real traffic. The goal is to push your VPS to the limit in a controlled way and observe what happens.

During load testing, monitor your server’s response times, CPU/RAM usage, and whether any errors occur.

Do pages start failing at a certain number of concurrent users? Is the database choking on too many queries?

A test might reveal, for example, that your site slows down drastically beyond 1,000 simultaneous users — indicating you may need to further optimize or add resources. It’s much better to discover these bottlenecks now instead of during the actual traffic spike, when real customers are on the line.

There are many tools (both free and paid) to do this: Apache JMeter, BlazeMeter, Loader.io, etc.

Run a few tests approaching the traffic levels you expect. This will identify any weak links in your setup (like a particular plugin or script that crashes under load, for example). You can then fix those issues —whether it’s tweaking database indexes or further boosting your resources —before you get big surges in real traffic.

Step 7: Monitor Your VPS in Real Time During the Surge

The day of your campaign or launch is here!

As visitors start flocking in, make sure you’re watching your VPS metrics in real time. Almost all VPS platforms have monitoring tools or dashboards (and if not, third-party monitoring tools can fill the gap). Keep an eye on your CPU usage, memory consumption, disk I/O, and network traffic in real time.

You may want to set up alerts too. For example, get an email or text alert if CPU usage stays above 90% for more than a few minutes, or if memory is running low. These can act as an early warning system so you can take action (like allocating more resources or optimizing something on the fly) before you run into a potentially catastrophic issue.

By monitoring actively, you avoid flying blind. Real-time analytics also let you validate that your preparations are working, and it’s actually pretty fun to watch the numbers if everything is running smoothly.

And if something starts breaking, you’ll be glad you noticed it immediately. Remember, you can’t manage what you don’t monitor.

After the Surge: Review, Right-Size, and Improve

Congratulations on making it through your viral moment! Once the traffic surge subsides, don’t just pat yourself on the back and forget about it. This is a golden opportunity to review and learn from the experience.

• Start with a post-surge analysis: Dig into your server logs and performance metrics to see how things went. 
• Identify any bottlenecks or errors that occurred when traffic was at its peak: For example, did the CPU hit 100%? Did response times spike anywhere? Maybe one of your pages still loaded slowly due to an uncached element. Analyzing this data will pinpoint what worked well and what could still be improved.
• Gather plenty of feedback: if you had team members or users report issues (“Checkout was slow” or “the site timed out for me at 1 p.m.”), take note. All of this information helps you refine your plan for the future. Adjust your infrastructure and configuration based on what you learned. 

If you found you over-provisioned (for example, you doubled your RAM but only used 60% of it), you might scale the VPS back down slightly to save on costs until the next big event. On the other hand, if you were near the limits, you might decide to upgrade to a larger VPS plan permanently, so you’re ready for growth.

This is also a great opportunity to update your contingency plans. Did your alerting and monitoring cover everything? Do you need to add a database replica or tweak your caching settings next time?

Use the experience to improve your playbook for future traffic surges: both planned and unexpected.

Scale Confidently With the Right Hosting

By now, you should feel more confident about scaling your VPS to handle traffic surges. We’ve covered everything from understanding your baseline, beefing up resources, clever caching tricks, to testing and real-time monitoring.

The key takeaway? Preparation beats panic.

When you take these proactive steps, you’re not just hoping your site will survive. You know it will. So, the next time your marketing campaign pays off or your post goes viral, you can celebrate the traffic spike instead of dreading it.

If you’re looking for a hosting partner that makes this entire process easier, consider scaling with DreamHost. DreamHost Managed VPS Hosting offers dedicated resources and a scalable, flexible platform designed for growing sites. With four plans to choose from and features like built-in analytics, free WordPress migrations, expandable RAM and storage, and more, you can trust DreamHost to help your site perform under pressure.

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Here’s how DreamHost’s VPS offering stands apart: 24/7 customer support, an intuitive panel, scalable RAM, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited hosting domains, and SSD storage.

Choose Your VPS Plan

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Scaling a VPS for Traffic Surges appeared first on DreamHost Blog.

If you’ve ever wanted more control or peace of mind over your AI, the solution might be right under your nose: hosting AI models locally. Yes, on your own hardware and under your own roof (physical or virtual). It’s kind of like deciding to cook your favorite dish at home instead of ordering takeout. You know exactly what goes into it; you fine-tune the recipe, and you can eat anytime you want — no depending on anyone else to get it right.

In this guide, we’ll break down why local AI hosting could transform the way you work, what hardware and software you need, how to do it step by step, and best practices to keep everything running smoothly. Let’s dive in and give you the power to run AI on your own terms.

What Is Locally Hosted AI (and Why You Should Care)

Locally hosted AI means running machine learning models directly on equipment you own or fully control. You can use a home workstation with a decent GPU, a dedicated server in your office, or even a rented bare-metal machine, if that suits you better.

Why does this matter? A few important reasons…

• Privacy and data control: No shipping sensitive information off to third-party servers. You hold the keys.
• Faster response times: Your data never leaves your network, so you skip the round-trip to the cloud.
• Customization: Tweak, fine-tune, or even re-architect your models however you see fit.
• Reliability: Avoid downtime or usage limits that cloud AI providers impose.

Of course, hosting AI yourself means you’ll manage your own infrastructure, updates, and potential fixes. But if you want to make sure your AI is truly yours, local hosting is a game-changer.

Assessing Hardware Requirements

Getting your physical setup right is one of the biggest steps toward successful local AI hosting. You don’t want to invest time (and money) into configuring an AI model, only to discover your GPU can’t handle the load or your server overheats. 

So, before you dive into the details of installation and model fine-tuning, it’s worth mapping out exactly what sort of hardware you’ll need.

Why Hardware Matters for Local AI

When you’re hosting AI locally, performance largely boils down to how powerful (and compatible) your hardware is. A robust CPU can manage simpler tasks or smaller machine learning models, but deeper models often need GPU acceleration to handle the intense parallel computations. If your hardware is underpowered, you’ll see slow inference times, choppy performance, or you might fail to load large models altogether.

That doesn’t mean you need a supercomputer. Many modern mid-range GPUs can handle medium-scale AI tasks — it’s all about matching your model’s demands to your budget and usage patterns.

Key Considerations

1. CPU vs. GPU

Some AI operations (like basic classification or smaller language model queries) can run on a solid CPU alone. However, if you want real-time chat interfaces, text generation, or image synthesis, a GPU is a near-must.

2. Memory (RAM) and Storage

Large language models can easily consume tens of gigabytes. Aim for 16GB or 32GB system RAM for moderate usage. If you plan to load multiple models or train new ones, 64GB+ might be beneficial.

An SSD is also strongly recommended — loading models from spinning HDDs slow everything down. A 512GB SSD or larger is common, depending on how many model checkpoints you store.

3. Server vs. Workstation

If you’re just experimenting or only need AI occasionally, a powerful desktop might do the job. Plug in a mid-range GPU and you’re set. For 24/7 uptime, consider a dedicated server with proper cooling, redundant power supplies, and possibly ECC (error-correcting) RAM for stability.

4. Hybrid Cloud Approach

Not everyone has the physical space or desire to manage a noisy GPU rig. You can still “go local” by renting or purchasing a dedicated server from a hosting provider that supports GPU hardware. That way, you get full control over your environment without physically maintaining the box.

Pulling It All Together

Think about how heavily you’ll use AI. If you see your model constantly in action (like a full-time chatbot or daily image generation for marketing), invest in a robust GPU and enough RAM to keep everything running smoothly. If your needs are more exploratory or light usage, a mid-tier GPU card in a standard workstation can deliver decent performance without destroying your budget.

Ultimately, hardware shapes your AI experience. It’s easier to plan carefully up front than to juggle endless system upgrades once you realize your model requires more juice. Even if you start small, keep an eye on your next step: if your local user base or model complexity grows, you’ll want headroom to scale.

Choosing the Right Model (and Software)

Picking an open-source AI model to run locally might feel like staring at a massive menu (like that phonebook they call a menu at Cheesecake Factory). You’ve got endless options, each with its own flavors and best-use scenarios. While variety is the spice of life, it can also be overwhelming. 

The key is to nail down what exactly you need from your AI tools: text generation, image synthesis, domain-specific predictions, or something else altogether.

Your use case drastically narrows the search for the right model. For example, if you want to generate marketing copy, you’d explore language models like LLaMA derivatives. For visual tasks, you’d look at image-based models such as Stable Diffusion or flux.

Popular Open-Source Models

Depending on your needs, you should check out the following.

Language Models

• LLaMA/ Alpaca / Vicuna: All well-known projects for local hosting. They can handle chat-like interactions or text completion. Check how much VRAM they require (some variants need only ~8GB).
• GPT-J / GPT-NeoX: Good for pure text generation, though they can be more demanding on your hardware.

Image Models

• Stable Diffusion: A go-to for generating art, product images, or concept designs. It’s widely used and has a massive community offering tutorials, add-ons, and creative expansions.

Domain-Specific Models

• Browse Hugging Face for specialized models (e.g., finance, healthcare, legal). You might find a smaller, domain-tuned model that’s easier to run than a general-purpose giant.

Open Source Frameworks

You’ll need to load and interact with your chosen model using a framework. Two industry standards dominate:

• PyTorch: Renowned for user-friendly debugging and a huge community. Most new open-source models appear in PyTorch first.
• TensorFlow: Backed by Google, stable for production environments, though the learning curve can be steeper in some areas.

Where To Find Models

• Hugging Face Hub: A massive repository of open-source models. Read community reviews, usage notes, and watch for how actively a model is maintained.
• GitHub: Many labs or indie devs post custom AI solutions. Just verify the model’s license and confirm it’s stable enough for your use case.

Once you pick your model and framework, take a moment to read the official docs or any example scripts. If your model is super fresh (like a newly released LLaMA variant), be prepared for some potential bugs or incomplete instructions. 

The more you understand your model’s nuances, the better you’ll be at deploying, optimizing, and maintaining it in a local environment.

Step-by-Step Guide: How To Run AI Models Locally

Now you’ve chosen suitable hardware and zeroed in on a model or two. Below is a detailed walkthrough that should get you from a blank server (or workstation) to a functioning AI model you can play with.

Step 1: Prepare Your System

1. Install Python 3.8+

 Virtually all open-source AI runs on Python these days. On Linux, you might do:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3 python3-venv python3-pip

On Windows or macOS, download from python.org or use a package manager like Homebrew.

2. GPU drivers and toolkit

If you have an NVIDIA GPU, install the latest drivers from the official site or your distro’s repository. Then add the CUDA toolkit (matching your GPU’s computation capability) if you want GPU-accelerated PyTorch or TensorFlow.

3. Optional: Docker or Venv

If you prefer containerization, set up Docker or Docker Compose. If you like environment managers, use Python venv to isolate your AI dependencies.

Step 2: Set Up a Virtual Environment

Virtual environments create isolated environments where you can install or remove libraries and change Python version without affecting your system’s default Python setup.

This saves you headaches down the line when you have multiple projects running on your computer.

Here is how you can create a virtual environment:

python3 -m venv localAI
source localAI/bin/activate

You’ll notice the localAI prefix to your terminal prompt. That means you are inside the virtual environment and any changes that you make here will not affect your system environment.

Step 3: Install Required Libraries

Depending on the model’s framework, you’ll want:

• PyTorch

pip3 install torch torchvision torchaudio

Or if you need GPU acceleration:

pip3 install torch torchvision torchaudio --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu118

• TensorFlow

pip3 install tensorflow

For GPU usage, make sure you have the right “tensorflow-gpu” or relevant version.

Step 4: Download and Prepare Your Model

Let’s say you’re using a language model from Hugging Face.

1. Clone or download:

Now you might want to install, git large file systems (LFS) before you proceed since the huggingface repositories will pull in large model files.

sudo apt install git-lfs
git clone https://huggingface.co/your-model

TinyLlama repository is a small local LLM repository you can clone by running the below command.

git clone https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen2-0.5B

2. Folder organization:

Place model weights in a directory like “~/models/<model-name>” Keep them distinct from your environment so you don’t accidentally delete them during environment changes.

Step 5: Load and Verify Your Model

Here is an example script that you can run directly. Just make sure that you change the model_path to match the directory of the cloned repository.

import torch
from transformers import AutoTokenizer, AutoModelForCausalLM
import logging

# Suppress warnings
logging.getLogger("transformers").setLevel(logging.ERROR)

# Use local model path
model_path = "/Users/dreamhost/path/to/cloned/directory"

print(f"Loading model from: {model_path}")

# Load model and tokenizer
tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(model_path)
model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
    model_path, 
    torch_dtype=torch.float16,
    device_map="auto"
)

# Input prompt
prompt = "Tell me something interesting about DreamHost:"
print("n" + "="*50)
print("INPUT:")
print(prompt)
print("="*50)

# Generate response
inputs = tokenizer(prompt, return_tensors="pt").to(model.device)
output_sequences = model.generate(
    **inputs,
    max_new_tokens=100,
    do_sample=True,
    temperature=0.7
)

# Extract just the generated part, not including input
input_length = inputs.input_ids.shape[1]
response = tokenizer.decode(output_sequences[0][input_length:], skip_special_tokens=True

# Print output
print("n" + "="*50)
print("OUTPUT:")
print(response)
print("="*50)

If you see similar output, you are all set to use your local model in your application scripts.

Make sure you:

1. Check for warnings: If you see warnings about missing keys or mismatches, ensure your model is compatible with the library version.
2. Test output: If you get a coherent paragraph back, you’re golden!

Step 6: Tune for Performance

1. Quantization: Some models support int8 or int4 variants, drastically reducing VRAM needs and inference time.
2. Precision: Float16 can be significantly faster than float32 on many GPUs. Check your model’s doc to enable half-precision.
3. Batch size: If you’re running multiple queries, experiment with a small batch size so you don’t overload your memory.
4. Caching and pipeline: Transformers offer caching for repeated tokens; helpful if you run many step-by-step text prompts.

Step 7: Monitor Resource Usage

Run “nvidia-smi” or your OS’s performance monitor to see GPU utilization, memory usage, and temperature. If you see your GPU pinned at 100% or VRAM maxed out, consider a smaller model or extra optimization.

Step 8: Scale Up (if Needed)

If you need to scale up, you can! Check out the following options.

1. Upgrade your hardware: Insert a second GPU or move to a more powerful card.
2. Use multi-GPU clusters: If your business workflow demands it, you can orchestrate multiple GPUs for bigger models or concurrency.
3. Move to dedicated hosting: If your home/office environment isn’t cutting it, consider a data center or specialized hosting with guaranteed GPU resources.

Running AI locally might feel like a lot of steps, but once you’ve done it once or twice, the process is straightforward. You install dependencies, load a model, and run a quick test to make sure everything is functioning like it should. After that, it’s all about fine-tuning: tweaking your hardware usage, exploring new models, and continually refining your AI’s capabilities to fit your small business or personal project goals.

Best Practices from AI Pros

As you run your own AI models, keep these best practices in mind:

Ethical and Legal Considerations

• Carefully handle private data in line with regulations (GDPR, HIPAA if relevant).
• Evaluate your model’s training set or usage patterns to avoid introducing bias or generating problematic content.

Version Control and Documentation

• Maintain code, model weights, and environment configs in Git or a similar system.
• Tag or label model versions so you can roll back if the latest build misbehaves.

Model Updates and Fine-Tuning

• Periodically check for improved model releases from the community.
• If you have domain-specific data, consider fine-tuning or training further to boost accuracy.

Observe Resource Usage

• If you see GPU memory frequently maxed, you might need to add more VRAM or reduce the model size.
• For CPU-based setups, watch out for thermal throttling.

Security

• If you expose an API endpoint externally, secure it with SSL, authentication tokens, or IP restrictions.
• Keep your OS and libraries up to date to patch vulnerabilities.

Your AI Toolkit: Further Learning and Resources

Learn more about:

• Mastering customer relationships with AI
• Boosting productivity with AI
• 100 best WordPress plugins
• Getting the most out of Claude AI
• How to use Midjourney
• How to use Otter.ai

For library-level frameworks and advanced user-driven code, PyTorch or TensorFlow documentation is your best friend. The Hugging Face documentation is also excellent for exploring more model loading tips, pipeline examples, and community-driven improvements.

It’s Time To Take Your AI In-House

Hosting your own AI models locally can feel intimidating at first, but it’s a move that pays off in spades: tighter control over your data, faster response times, and the freedom to experiment. By choosing a model that fits your hardware, and running through a few Python commands, you’re on your way to an AI solution that’s truly your own.

AI Business Advisor

Get Personalized Expert AI Guidance at Your Fingertips.

Ready to take your business to the next level? See how DreamHost’s AI Business Advisor can help with everyday tasks like content creation and planning, giving you more time to focus on what really matters. Give it a try and watch your business grow.

Learn More

The post Everything You Need To Know To Start Hosting Your Own AI Models Locally appeared first on DreamHost Blog.

1. You’re already on a virtual private server (VPS), but lately you’re seeing…issues — This guide will help you determine if those slowdowns and outages mean you need a more powerful plan and whether the cost is worth it.
2. You’re eyeing VPS — You’ll learn when a VPS makes sense for your needs versus shared or dedicated hosting.

Before you beat yourself up for a slow-loading website laden with error messages, know that this usually isn’t your fault. More often than not, it’s a good sign.

Yeah, seriously. It likely means your business is kicking butt, your traffic is growing, or your site is doing more cool stuff. Your needs are just getting bigger. Congrats!

The big question for everyone: Is your website suffocating on its current hosting plan?

Let’s figure it out, gentle reader.

Reality Check: Why Your Hosting Matters

Think of hosting as your website’s home. You wouldn’t build a mansion on quicksand, would you? Your hosting is that foundation. Get it wrong, and everything else wobbles.

Performance, reliability, user happiness — it all starts here.

Let’s break down the neighborhood again, especially if you’re still deciding where to move in.

Shared Hosting (The Apartment Building)

Cheap and cheerful! But you share everything — server power (CPU), memory (RAM), and sometimes even an IP address.

If your neighbor throws a massive, resource-hogging party (like their site goes viral or runs horribly inefficient code), your lights dim. Performance takes a massive hit: fast one minute, glacial the next. Great for a starter blog, not so much for a business aiming high.

VPS Hosting (The Townhouse)

You’re still connected to others (on the same physical server), but virtualization software builds strong digital walls. You get your own guaranteed slice of CPU, RAM, and storage.

No more resource theft from noisy neighbors. This means way more consistent speed (often 15–35% faster than shared, sometimes more) and more control. You can usually tweak settings you couldn’t touch on shared hosting.

This is the sweet spot for most growing businesses.

Dedicated Hosting (The Mansion)

The whole server, all yours. Maximum power, total control.

Also, maximum cost and often maximum headache if you have to manage it yourself (unless you pay even more for management). Honestly? It’s usually overkill unless you’re running something massive like a huge e-commerce empire or have very specific, high-security needs.

👉🏼For everyone: especially if you’re carefully watching your budget, remember why you care about speed and reliability.

We’re talking money — cold, hard cash.

One-second load times get 2.5x the conversions of five-second load times.

Slow site = fewer sales, fewer leads, and more annoyed users who bounce away to your competitors. Plus, Google hates slow sites, burying them in search results.

Good hosting means your site works, letting you focus on customers instead of playing emergency admin, especially true if you choose a managed VPS where someone else handles the nerdy upkeep. (Like us!)

5 Signs Your Website is Begging for a VPS Upgrade

These apply if your current VPS is struggling, or if you’re seeing these symptoms on shared hosting and know it’s time to jump ship.

1. Your Site Slows Down During Traffic Surges

One minute your site is zipping along, and the next, it’s sputtering like an old engine. Too many visitors are hammering your VPS, and the hardware just can’t keep up.

Take Sarah, who runs an online boutique for quirky vintage tees. One day, a celebrity accidentally tweets a pic wearing one of her shirts. Suddenly, her site gets hit with 10 times its normal traffic. Normally, her VPS handles 500 visitors an hour; today, it struggles with 5,000.

Every extra second loading flushes potential revenue down the drain. Users bounce. Carts get abandoned. Google sighs disapprovingly and bumps you down the rankings.

The cost of lost business because of slowness often surpasses the cost of a better hosting plan.

Why This Happens

Usually, it’s the holy trinity of bottlenecks: Not enough CPU power to juggle all the code execution (PHP, database queries). Not enough RAM, meaning no room for caching and constant, slow disk access. Or slow Disk I/O, where your storage just can’t read/write data fast enough for demand.

How an Upgrade Helps

Upgrading your VPS means adding more muscle — more CPU cores, extra RAM, and greater bandwidth. With more oomph, your site handles spikes without breaking a sweat.

💡Monitoring Tips

• Check your control panel regularly. If your CPU or RAM usage hits 90–100% during peak times, it’s time for an upgrade. Use tools like GTmetrix or Google PageSpeed Insights during those “big moment” events to see how your site performs.
• If you’re still on shared hosting and your site slows down during busy times, try simulating traffic loads with free online tools. Compare the results to the performance benchmarks of VPS plans.

2. Your Site Experiences Frequent or Unplanned Downtime

The dreaded “500 Internal Server Error” appears more often than you’d like. Or the database connection drops, leaving your site adrift. It might happen randomly, or (infuriatingly) right when traffic peaks. You’re getting too familiar with restarting server processes or rebooting the whole VPS.

Downtime is lost sales and leads. Full stop.

It also shreds your credibility and tells search engines your site is unreliable. Fixing the root cause (often resource limits) is essential financial hygiene for an online business.

Why This Happens

When your VPS is maxed out because of high traffic, large data transfers, or background processes, it can’t handle any extra load. Over time, this leads to crashes and downtime.

How an Upgrade Helps

More resources provide breathing room. A beefier VPS can absorb sudden demands without falling over, keeping your site stable and available.

💡Monitoring Tips

• Use uptime monitors like UptimeRobot to track your site’s availability. Frequent alerts about downtime indicate that your current VPS isn’t cutting it. Compare the downtime history with your resource usage logs to see if an upgrade is in order.
• If you’re considering moving away from shared hosting, look into VPS plans that advertise reliable uptime guarantees. Ask potential providers about their redundancy measures and what happens if one part of the server fails.

BTW, DreamHost offers a 100% uptime guarantee, so your online home is always up and running.

3. You Frequently Hit Resource Limits

Your hosting provider’s warning emails are becoming a regular feature in your inbox. Your control panel confirms it: CPU or RAM usage graphs are constantly slammed against the maximum limit. Maybe you’ve even faced performance throttling or surprise overage charges.

This is the clearest possible signal: your current plan is too small. Continuing as-is means accepting poor performance, risking service interruptions, and potentially paying extra anyway. An upgrade isn’t optional here; it’s necessary.

Why This Happens

VPS plans come with predetermined resource limits. As your site gains more pages, features, and visitors, these limits get tested. If you’re constantly hitting those limits, your hosting plan is simply too small for your needs. It’s like trying to fill a fuel tank that’s already full: nothing extra can go in, and things start to overflow.

How an Upgrade Helps

A more powerful VPS plan offers higher resource limits, so you don’t have to worry about that “red zone” creeping up on you. With additional CPU cores, extra RAM, and increased bandwidth, your server can comfortably handle a sudden surge or a steady increase in demand without choking.

💡Monitoring Tips

• Regularly review your hosting metrics. If CPU usage stays near 100% for more than a few minutes daily, it’s time to upgrade. The extra cost is often offset by improved performance and fewer customer complaints.
• Compare your current resource usage (if you have any site metrics) with the detailed offerings of VPS plans. If you’re planning on scaling up, make sure your provider offers room to grow.

4. Customers Report Slow Checkouts

Imagine you run an e-commerce site. Your product pages look great, but when customers hit the checkout button, the system takes its sweet time to respond.

Hello, abandoned carts and frustrated buyers. (And we all know frustrated buyers don’t stick around for a second chance.)

Why This Happens

Dynamic processes like logins, checkouts, and database queries require a lot of processing power and memory. If your VPS plan is too modest, these functions lag. When visitors hit an overloaded server, they get caught in a long queue, and by the time they’re served, they’re ready to call it a day.

How an Upgrade Helps

A bigger VPS plan means more processing power and extra memory. This improves the speed of resource-heavy operations like checkouts and logins. In simple terms, upgrading ensures your website doesn’t keep customers waiting — or worse, walking away.

💡Monitoring Tips

• Keep an eye on conversion rates and support tickets. A sudden drop in conversion rates or an uptick in complaints about slow performance signals that you’re pushing your VPS to its limits.
• Before you decide to stay with shared hosting, run some tests on your current setup. If pages like checkout or login take too long to load during busy periods, compare those results with the performance stats of VPS hosting. The upgrade cost might be justified by the increase in completed transactions.

5. You’re Expecting Major Growth or Need Advanced Features

Perhaps performance is adequate today, but you’re looking ahead. You’re launching that complex membership site, adding an extensive online course platform, planning a massive ad campaign, or preparing to host more client sites.

You know the demands on your server are about to increase significantly.

Upgrading before you launch or scale up is the proactive, less-stressful approach. It prevents day-one disasters and ensures your infrastructure investment supports your business growth initiative. Why wait for problems?

Why This Happens

Growth brings new demands. Whether it’s increased traffic from a viral campaign or the need for complex, resource-intensive applications, your current server may not be able to keep pace with your ambitions. Planning is key. Waiting until your site collapses under its own weight is both inconvenient and costly.

How an Upgrade Helps

You’re future-proofing your website. A robust VPS plan allows you to install advanced caching systems, custom server configurations, and even dedicated support. It’s the difference between scrambling to put out fires and confidently rolling out new features without a hitch.

💡Monitoring Tips

• Look at your business forecasts. If you predict a significant traffic surge or plan to launch new, resource-hungry features, consult with your hosting provider about scaling up before issues arise.
• If you’re still on shared hosting and planning for significant growth, the switch to VPS hosting is a long-term investment. Compare your projected traffic and feature needs against the offerings of VPS plans, and choose one that gives you plenty of room to grow.

Making the Jump: Is Upgrading a Royal Pain? And What About Control?

You see the signs; you feel the pain. But the thought of actually upgrading might conjure images of technical chaos and lost weekends. Is it really that bad?

Chill. If you’re upgrading your VPS plan with your current host (like DreamHost), it’s usually surprisingly straightforward.

Now, about that control question…does a better VPS plan give you more control? It hinges on what “control” means to you, and whether you’re using managed or unmanaged VPS.

• Unmanaged VPS: You get the ‘keys to the kingdom’ — full root access. Install whatever, configure however. Maximum control. Also, maximum responsibility. You handle everything: security, updates, troubleshooting. Upgrading gives you more raw resources that you then have to manage. Only venture here if you have the technical skills and, frankly, the desire to manage a server at that level.
• Managed VPS (DreamHost’s specialty): The host handles the server admin grind: OS updates, security patches, keeping things optimized. Your control lies in managing your websites, applications, and data via the control panel, plus often SSH access for advanced tweaks. Upgrading here gets you more power and stability, enabling your site to do more, but not necessarily deep-level OS administration control. It’s the perfect setup if you want top performance without becoming a part-time sysadmin.

For most businesses just wanting their website to work reliably and fast, managed VPS is the way to go.

Stop Letting Your Hosting Stunt Your Growth

Whether you’re maxing out your current VPS or are finally ready to escape the chaos of shared hosting, DreamHost offers managed VPS hosting plans designed to scale smoothly alongside your ambitions.

Here’s what you get with DreamHost VPS:

• Consistent speed: Guaranteed RAM and CPU resources mean reliable performance
• Warp-speed storage: Fast SSDs on all plans, with ludicrously fast NVMe SSDs available
• Grow without the pain: Easily upgrade resources through your panel when needed
• We sweat the server stuff: Managed hosting means updates, security, and monitoring are handled
• Rock-solid uptime: Backed by our famous 100% Uptime Guarantee
• Fort Knox security (almost): Free Let’s Encrypt SSL, plus expert security oversight
• Help when you need it: 24/7 access to knowledgeable support humans

Stop letting sluggish hosting frustrate you and your visitors. Check out DreamHost’s VPS plans and build on a foundation that won’t hold you back.

VPS Hosting

Take Charge with Flexible VPS Hosting

Here’s how DreamHost’s VPS offering stands apart: 24/7 customer support, an intuitive panel, scalable RAM, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited hosting domains, and SSD storage.

Choose Your VPS Plan

The post 5 Signs Your Website Needs a VPS Upgrade appeared first on DreamHost Blog.

But what if half your “customers” just occupy tables, waste your baristas’ time, and never buy coffee?

Meanwhile, real customers leave due to no tables and slow service?

Well, that’s the world of web crawlers and bots.

These automated programs gobble up your bandwidth, slow down your site, and drive away actual customers.

Recent studies show that almost 51% of internet traffic comes from bots. That’s right — more than half of your digital visitors may just be wasting your server resources.

But don’t panic!

This guide will help you spot trouble and control your site’s performance, all without coding or calling your techy cousin.

A Quick Refresher on Bots

Bots are automated software programs that perform tasks on the internet without human intervention. They:

• Visit websites
• Interact with digital content
• And execute specific functions based on their programming. 

Some bots analyze and index your site (potentially improving search engine rankings.) Some spend their time scraping your content for AI training datasets — or worse — posting spam, generating fake reviews, or looking for exploits and security holes in your website.

Of course, not all bots are created equal. Some are critical to the health and visibility of your website. Others are arguably neutral, and a few are downright toxic. Knowing the difference — and deciding which bots to block and which to allow — is crucial for protecting your site and its reputation.

Good Bot, Bad Bot: What’s What?

Bots make up the internet.

For instance, Google’s bot visits every page on the internet and adds it to their databases for ranking. This bot assists in providing valuable search traffic, which is important for the health of your website.

But, not every bot is going to provide value, and some are just outright bad. Here’s what to keep and what to block.

The VIP Bots (Keep These)

• Search engine crawlers like Googlebot and Bingbot are examples of these crawlers. Don’t block them, or you’ll become invisible online.
• Analytics bots gather data about your site’s performance, like the Google Pagespeed Insights bot or the GTmetrix bot.

The Troublemakers (Need Managing)

• Content scrapers that steal your content for use elsewhere
• Spam bots that flood your forms and comments with junk
• Bad actors who attempt to hack accounts or exploit vulnerabilities

The bad bots scale might surprise you. In 2024, advanced bots made up 55% of all advanced bad bot traffic, while good ones accounted for 44%.

Those advanced bots are sneaky — they can mimic human behavior, including mouse movements and clicks, making them more difficult to detect.

Are Bots Bogging Down Your Website? Look for These Warning Signs

Before jumping into solutions, let’s make sure bots are actually your problem. Check out the signs below.

Red Flags in Your Analytics

• Traffic spikes without explanation: If your visitor count suddenly jumps but sales don’t, bots might be the culprit.
• Everything s-l-o-w-s down: Pages take longer to load, frustrating real customers who might leave for good. Aberdeen shows that 40% of visitors abandon websites that take over three seconds to load, which leads to…
• High bounce rates: above 90% often indicate bot activity.
• Weird session patterns: Humans don’t typically visit for just milliseconds or stay on one page for hours.
• You start getting lots of unusual traffic: Especially from countries where you don’t do business. That’s suspicious.
• Form submissions with random text: Classic bot behavior.
• Your server gets overwhelmed: Imagine seeing 100 customers at once, but 75 are just window shopping.

Check Your Server Logs

Your website’s server logs contain records of every visitor.

Here’s what to look for:

• Too many subsequent requests from the same IP address
• Strange user-agent strings (the identification that bots provide)
• Requests for unusual URLs that don’t exist on your site

A legitimate Googlebot request might look like this in your logs:

66.249.78.17 - - [13/Jul/2015:07:18:58 -0400] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1" 200 0 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

If you see patterns that don’t match normal human browsing behavior, it’s time to take action.

The GPTBot Problem as AI Crawlers Surge

Recently, many website owners have reported issues with AI crawlers generating abnormal traffic patterns.

According to Imperva’s research, OpenAI’s GPTBot made 569 million requests in a single month while Claude’s bot made 370 million across Vercel’s network.

Look for:

• Error spikes in your logs: If you suddenly see hundreds or thousands of 404 errors, check if they’re from AI crawlers.

• Extremely long, nonsensical URLs: AI bots might request bizarre URLs like the following:

/Odonto-lieyectoresli-541.aspx/assets/js/plugins/Docs/Productos/assets/js/Docs/Productos/assets/js/assets/js/assets/js/vendor/images2021/Docs/...

• Recursive parameters: Look for endless repeating parameters, for example:

amp;amp;amp;page=6&page=6

• Bandwidth spikes: Readthedocs, a renowned technical documentation company, stated that one AI crawler downloaded 73TB of ZIP files, with 10TB downloaded in a single day, costing them over $5,000 in bandwidth charges.

These patterns can indicate AI crawlers that are either malfunctioning or being manipulated to cause problems.

When To Get Technical Help

If you spot these signs but don’t know what to do next, it’s time to bring in professional help. Ask your developer to check specific user agents like this one:

Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; GPTBot/1.2; +https://openai.com/gptbot)

There are many recorded user agent strings for other AI crawlers that you can look up on Google to block. Do note that the strings change, meaning you might end up with quite a large list over time.

👉 Don’t have a developer on speed dial? DreamHost’s DreamCare team can analyze your logs and implement protection measures. They’ve seen these issues before and know exactly how to handle them.

Your Bot-Busting Toolkit: 5 Simple Steps To Take Back Control

Now for the good part: how to stop these bots from slowing down your site. Roll up your sleeves and let’s get to work.

1. Create a Proper robots.txt File

The robots.txt simple text file sits in your root directory and tells well-behaved bots which parts of your site they shouldn’t access.

You can access the robots.txt for pretty much any website by adding a /robots.txt to its domain. For instance, if you want to see the robots.txt file for DreamHost, add robots.txt at the end of the domain like this: https://dreamhost.com/robots.txt

There’s no obligation for any of the bots to accept the rules.

But polite bots will respect it, and the troublemakers can choose to ignore the rules. It’s best to add a robots.txt anyway so the good bots don’t start indexing admin login, post-checkout pages, thank you pages, etc.

How to Implement

1. Create a plain text file named robots.txt

2. Add your instructions using this format:

User-agent: *          # This line applies to all bots
Disallow: /admin/      # Don't crawl the admin area
Disallow: /private/    # Stay out of private folders
Crawl-delay: 10        # Wait 10 seconds between requests
User-agent: Googlebot  # Special rules just for Google
Allow: /               # Google can access everything

3. Upload the file to your website’s root directory (so it’s at yourdomain.com/robots.txt)

The “Crawl-delay” directive is your secret weapon here. It forces bots to wait between requests, preventing them from hammering your server.

Most major crawlers respect this, although Googlebot follows its own system (which you can control through Google Search Console).

Pro tip: Test your robots.txt with Google’s robots.txt testing tool to ensure you haven’t accidentally blocked important content.

2. Set Up Rate Limiting

Rate limiting restricts how many requests a single visitor can make within a specific period.

It prevents bots from overwhelming your server so normal humans can browse your site without interruption.

How to Implement

If you’re using Apache (common for WordPress sites), add these lines to your .htaccess file:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.css|.js|.png|.jpg|.gif|robots.txt)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^Googlebot [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^Bingbot [NC]
# Allow max 3 requests in 10 seconds per IP
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^([0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+)$
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>

If you’re on Nginx, add this to your server configuration:

limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=one:10m rate=30r/m;
server {
    ...
    location / {
        limit_req zone=one burst=5;
        ...
    }
}

Many hosting control panels, like cPanel or Plesk, also offer rate-limiting tools in their security sections.

Pro tip: Start with conservative limits (like 30 requests per minute) and monitor your site. You can always tighten restrictions if bot traffic continues.

3. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

CDNs do two good things for you:

1. Distribute content across global server networks so your website is delivered quickly worldwide
2. Filter traffic before it reaches the website to block any irrelevant bots and attacks

The “irrelevant bots” part is what matters to us for now, but the other benefits are useful too. Most CDNs include built-in bot management that identifies and blocks suspicious visitors automatically.

How to Implement

1. Sign up for a CDN service like DreamHost CDN, Cloudflare, Amazon CloudFront, or Fastly.
2. Follow the setup instructions (may require changing name servers).
3. Configure the security settings to enable bot protection.

If your hosting service offers a CDN by default, you eliminate all the steps since your website will automatically be hosted on CDN.

Once set up, your CDN will:

• Cache static content to reduce server load.
• Filter suspicious traffic before it reaches your site.
• Apply machine learning to differentiate between legitimate and malicious requests.
• Block known malicious actors automatically.

Pro tip: Cloudflare’s free tier includes basic bot protection that works well for most small business sites. Their paid plans offer more advanced options if you need them.

4. Add CAPTCHA for Sensitive Actions

CAPTCHAs are those little puzzles that ask you to identify traffic lights or bicycles. They’re annoying for humans but nearly impossible for most bots, making them perfect gatekeepers for important areas of your site.

How to Implement

1. Sign up for Google’s reCAPTCHA (free) or hCaptcha.
2. Add the CAPTCHA code to your sensitive forms:
   • Login pages
   • Contact forms
   • Checkout processes
   • Comment sections

For WordPress users, plugins like Akismet can handle this automatically for comments and form submissions.

Pro tip: Modern invisible CAPTCHAs (like reCAPTCHA v3) work behind the scenes for most visitors, only showing challenges to suspicious users. Use this method to gain protection without annoying legitimate customers.

5. Consider the New llms.txt Standard

The llms.txt standard is a recent development that controls how AI crawlers interact with your content.

It’s like robots.txt but specifically for telling AI systems what information they can access and what they should avoid.

How to Implement

1. Create a markdown file named llms.txt with this content structure:

# Your Website Name
> Brief description of your site

## Main Content Areas
- [Product Pages](https://yoursite.com/products): Information about products
- [Blog Articles](https://yoursite.com/blog): Educational content

## Restrictions
- Please don't use our pricing information in training

2. Upload it to your root directory (at yourdomain.com/llms.txt) → Reach out to a developer if you don’t have direct access to the server. 

Is llms.txt the official standard? Not yet.

It’s a standard proposed in late 2024 by Jeremy Howard, which has been adopted by Zapier, Stripe, Cloudflare, and many other large companies. Here’s a growing list of websites adopting llms.txt.

So, if you want to jump on board, they have official documentation on GitHub with implementation guidelines.

Pro tip: Once implemented, see if ChatGPT (with web search enabled) can access and understand the llms.txt file.

Verify that the llms.txt is accessible to these bots by asking ChatGPT (or another LLM) to “Check if you can read this page” or “What does the page say.”

We can’t know if the bots will respect llms.txt anytime soon. However, if the AI search can read and understand the llms.txt file now, they may start respecting it in the future, too.

Monitoring and Maintaining Your Site’s Bot Protection

So you’ve set up your bot defenses — awesome work!

Just keep in mind that bot technology is always evolving, meaning bots come back with new tricks. Let’s make sure your site stays protected for the long haul.

• Schedule regular security check-ups: Once a month, look at your server logs for anything fishy and make sure your robots.txt and llms.txt files are updated with any new page links that you’d like the bots to access/not access.
• Keep your bot blocklist fresh: Bots keep changing their disguises. Follow security blogs (or let your hosting provider do it for you) and update your blocking rules at regular intervals.
• Watch your speed: Bot protection that slows your site to a crawl isn’t doing you any favors. Keep an eye on your page load times and fine-tune your protection if things start getting sluggish. Remember, real humans are impatient creatures!
• Consider going on autopilot: If all this sounds like too much work (we get it, you have a business to run!), look into automated solutions or managed hosting that handles security for you. Sometimes the best DIY is DIFM — Do It For Me!

A Bot-Free Website While You Sleep? Yes, Please!

Pat yourself on the back. You’ve covered a lot of ground here!

However, even with our step-by-step guidance, this stuff can get pretty technical. (What exactly is an .htaccess file anyway?)

And while DIY bot management is certainly possible, you mind find that your time is better spent running the business.

DreamCare is the “we’ll handle it for you” button you’re looking for.

Our team keeps your site protected with:

• 24/7 monitoring that catches suspicious activity while you sleep
• Regular security reviews to stay ahead of emerging threats
• Automatic software updates that patch vulnerabilities before bots can exploit them
• Comprehensive malware scanning and removal if anything sneaks through

See, bots are here to stay. And considering their rise in the last few years, we could see more bots than humans in the near future. No one knows.

But, why lose sleep over it?

Pro Services – Website Management

Website Management Made Easy

Let us handle the backend — we’ll manage and monitor your website so it’s safe, secure, and always up.

Learn More

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The post How To Stop Web Crawlers and Bots From Slowing Down Your Website appeared first on DreamHost Blog.

It’s a frustrating experience, especially if you’ve already invested in a virtual private server (VPS). Isn’t VPS hosting supposed to supercharge your site compared to shared hosting? Well, yes. But, you often have to fine-tune your VPS to fully unleash its speed potential.

That’s what we’ll explore here: a straightforward yet comprehensive guide to VPS performance tuning. By the end of this article, you’ll know what tweaks can make your site load faster, how to identify bottlenecks, and even when you might need to upgrade your hosting plan. (Bonus: how DreamHost can help).

Let’s dive in.

Why Site Speed Is Crucial for Small Businesses

Your website’s speed does more than just satisfy the impatient —it can literally make or break sales. Research shows that many visitors will bounce if it takes longer than three seconds to load. For a small business, every lost visitor can mean lost revenue and a potential blow to your reputation.

Some other reasons why having a speedy site matters:

• User experience: People expect near-instant page loads. If they get stuck waiting, they might not come back.
• Conversion rates: A faster site can lead to higher conversions, whether “conversion” means a sale, a newsletter signup, or filling out a contact form.
• SEO: Search engines like Google prioritize faster sites. More speed can help you rank higher, which translates to more traffic.

VPS Hosting vs. Shared Hosting

You might already know the basics, but let’s clarify why you should choose VPS in the first place.

With shared hosting:

1. You share server resources (CPU, RAM) with many other sites.
2. If one site hogs resources, everyone else can experience slowdowns.
3. It’s cheaper and easier to set up, but there’s less control and performance consistency.

With virtual private server or VPS hosting:

1. You get your own virtual “slice” of the server.
2. Resources are more dedicated, and you have better control over configurations.
3. Scalability is simpler, so you can adjust resources as your site grows.

However, VPS hosting isn’t always plug-and-play. Sure, you already have more power and flexibility than you get with shared hosting, but you still need to optimize the server’s settings (and your site’s code) to see those blazing speeds.

👉🏼 Want to learn more? Check out our comprehensive comparison: Shared vs. VPS Hosting

What Is VPS Performance Tuning?

VPS performance tuning is the process of adjusting server configurations, software settings, and resource usage so your site runs as efficiently as possible. It can involve everything from updating your server software to tweaking database queries. The end goal is always the same: faster loading times and a smoother experience for your visitors.

What Issues Does It Solve

• Traffic spikes: Handles sudden surges in visitors without your site grinding to a halt.
• Resource bottlenecks: Prevents CPU or memory overuse that leads to slow load times or crashes.
• Custom needs: Tailors the server’s default settings to suit your specific website or application requirements.

Metrics To Watch

• CPU usage: High CPU usage means your server’s processor is working overtime, and could indicate the need for more CPU or better optimization.
• RAM usage: If you consistently hit memory limits, you might need to increase your RAM allotment or reduce memory-hungry processes.
• Server response time: Tools like GTmetrix measure how quickly your server responds to a request.
• Disk I/O: High input/output operations on your drive can slow things down if your site handles lots of read/write operations (for example, large media files).

Questions To Ask Before You Tune

Not every site speed issue is directly tied to VPS configurations. Sometimes, the fix might be as simple as compressing images. So it’s a good idea to check the basics and ask yourself a few questions before diving into advanced server tweaks.

1. Is your site slow at specific times?

Notice patterns like peak traffic hours. If your site only lags during certain windows, that may point to resource spikes or concurrency issues.

2. Have you optimized images and other media?

Massive image files or auto-playing videos can kill load times. Tools like TinyPNG or image compression plugins can help.

3. Are you using too many plugins or scripts?

In WordPress, especially, every plugin can add overhead. Disable or delete the ones you don’t truly need to boost your site’s performance.

4. Are you monitoring server resource usage?

Check your VPS dashboard or analytics to see if you’re consistently hitting CPU or memory limits.

5. Could you have a security issue?

Malware or spam attacks can hog resources and slow your site to a crawl. Periodically scan your site for vulnerabilities.

If everything above seems in order — and your site still lags — it’s time to roll up your sleeves for some VPS performance tuning. Head to the next section and follow the steps to get started.

Step-by-Step Guide to VPS Performance Tuning

If you’re new to server management, the idea of “performance tuning” might sound intimidating, but rest assured, these steps can be taken no matter your level of expertise.

Below, we’ll walk through each optimization strategy so you can take immediate action and see real improvements in your VPS-hosted site’s speed.

1. Update and Patch Your Server Software

Keeping your server’s operating system and software up to date means you have the latest performance enhancements and security fixes. Outdated software can become a bottleneck, or even a security risk.

What to do:

1. Log in to your VPS: Do this using SSH or your hosting control panel.
2. Check for updates: Depending on your setup, some components may auto-update. Still, check for available patches or recommended updates.
3. Apply updates: When prompted, confirm that you want to apply all upgrades. This might take a few minutes; avoid rebooting or closing your terminal mid-process.
4. Restart services: Once upgrades are done, you may need to restart services like Apache, NGINX, or MySQL for changes to apply.
5. Check for new updates periodically: And keep an eye on release notes to see if new versions address specific performance issues.

Humble Brag/Tech Tip: DreamHost VPS plans are fully managed. What does that mean? Well, users don’t need to worry about managing server-level software. Let us handle the core systems while you focus on continuing to build your business.

2. Configure Caching (Server-Side and Application-Level)

Caching prevents your server from doing the same work repeatedly. By storing frequently requested data in memory or on disk, your site can respond faster to requests.

What to do:

1. Install and enable caching modules: This will vary depending on your setup.
   • For Apache, consider enabling “mod_cache” or “mod_deflate.”
   • For PHP, make sure OPcache is running (often installed by default on newer PHP versions). You can check by creating a phpinfo() file or looking at your server’s PHP config.
2. Enable browser caching:
   • In your .htaccess (Apache) or server block (NGINX), set expires headers for static files (images, CSS, JavaScript).
3. Validate that caching is working: Use developer tools in your browser (Network tab) to see if files are being served from cache. Check your site speed using GTmetrix before and after enabling caching.
4. Experiment with different TTL (time-to-live) values to balance fresh content vs. speed: If you notice stale content issues, adjust cache rules or implement cache purging.

3. Optimize Web Server Settings

Your web server software might be using default settings that aren’t ideal for your traffic levels or site structure. Tweaking concurrency, compression, and other parameters helps your VPS serve pages more efficiently.

What to do:

1. Check your logs for clues: For example, error logs or access logs might show repeated 503 errors if your server is overloaded. You can adjust settings gradually based on what you see and test the impact each time.
2. Monitor CPU/RAM usage after each change you make: If your site experiences random spikes, consider implementing rate limits or throttling to handle malicious or excessive requests.
3. An idea for a place to start: Configure concurrency or enable compression.
   • Locate your server’s config file and increase or decrease worker processes/threads based on your RAM.

4. Fine-Tune Your Database

Databases can quickly become performance bottlenecks. Optimizing them means fast queries and efficient use of server memory.

What to do:

1. Optimize your config file: The exact process for doing this will vary depending on the type of database you use, but you’ll need to edit my.cnf, which is often in “/etc/mysql/” or “/etc/.” The value you use will depend on your VPS RAM. For example, don’t allocate 2GB if your entire server only has 2GB total.
2. Indexing and table maintenance: Use phpMyAdmin or MySQL CLI to run:

OPTIMIZE TABLE your_table_name;
ANALYZE TABLE your_table_name;

This reclaims unused space and updates index statistics. Then, remove old data, logs, or revision histories you no longer need.

3. Identify slow queries: Enable the slow query log by adding to “my.cnf.”

slow_query_log = 1
slow_query_log_file = /var/log/mysql/slow-queries.log
long_query_time = 2

Check the log file to see which queries exceed two seconds, then work on optimizing those or adding missing indexes.

4. Database still sluggish? Consider splitting read/write loads or switching to a more advanced engine if appropriate.

5. Enable CDN (Content Delivery Network) for Static Assets

A CDN offloads static files (like images, CSS, and JS) to multiple servers across the globe. When users visit your site, those assets load from the nearest server, reducing latency and boosting your site speed.

What to do:

1. Choose a CDN provider: Cloudflare is a popular option that offers a free tier.
2. Update DNS or integrate:
   • For Cloudflare, change your domain’s nameservers to Cloudflare’s. They’ll proxy traffic through their network.
   • For other CDNs, you might just add a CNAME (e.g., “cdn.yourdomain.com”) pointing to their servers.
3. Configure cache rules:
   • Decide how aggressive the CDN’s caching should be. Typically, you want images, CSS, and JS to be cached for at least a week or more.
   • Make sure dynamic pages (like cart or account pages) are not cached.
4. Use GTmetrix to compare load times before and after: You should see a noticeable drop in total request time, especially for users far from your origin server.
5. Check your CDN’s analytics dashboard to confirm it’s actively caching: If certain files aren’t being cached, update your rules or see if your code sets special headers that prevent caching.

6. Adjust PHP and Script Execution Limits

Your VPS may be running PHP scripts that occasionally need more memory or time to complete. Setting these limits properly prevents out-of-memory errors without letting rogue scripts hog all resources.

What to do:

1. Increase or decrease your memory limit: Find your PHP config file (often php.ini or .user.ini) and adjust “memory_limit.”
2. Tweak execution time: Look for “max_execution_time” or “max_input_time.” Setting them too high can lead to stuck processes; too low might break complex operations.
3. Check logs: If you see errors like “Allowed memory size of X bytes exhausted,” you might need a higher memory limit or more efficient scripts. If your site randomly times out, consider a slight bump to “max_execution_time.”
4. Your goal is to strike a balance: You don’t want to mask poorly optimized code by giving it unlimited resources. If certain scripts still hog memory, investigate or consult with a developer.

7. Audit Your Website for Bottlenecks

Even the best server optimizations can’t fix poorly coded themes or 100 uncompressed images. A thorough site audit will help you address front-end or application-level issues.

What to do:

1. Run speed tests: Do this using GTmetrix to see if heavy scripts or large images are the real culprits.
2. Minify and combine CSS/JS: Minification removes unnecessary characters in code. Some caching plugins do this automatically (e.g., W3 Total Cache, Autoptimize). Combining multiple CSS/JS files into a single file reduces the number of HTTP requests.
3. Enable lazy loading: For images below the fold, you can use a lazy load plugin or code snippet to load them only as the user scrolls.
4. Disable excess plugins and themes: In WordPress, go to “Plugins” and deactivate anything non-essential.
5. After each change, re-run your speed tests: Incremental improvements are easier to measure, and you’ll see which tweaks have the biggest impact. Maintain a clean site structure as you grow — keep an eye on new plugins or code to make sure they don’t re-introduce bottlenecks.

When To Upgrade Your VPS Plan

You might try all the above tricks and still find your site crawling at peak times. That’s a strong hint you’ve outgrown your current VPS tier.

If you see:

• Constantly high CPU or RAM usage: Even with caching and optimization, your resource graphs keep spiking.
• Frequent slowdowns or crashes: You’re still battling downtime during traffic surges.

It may be time to invest in a higher-tier VPS. Especially for e-commerce sites that rely on speed to keep customers engaged and coming back, this is an investment that will pay for itself.

DreamHost offers several VPS plans with varying RAM and CPU allocations. Each plan includes an easy-to-use dashboard and proactive alerts, so you can scale up instantly when you’re ready.

Improving your site’s loading speed isn’t about tinkering with random settings and hoping for the best. There’s a method behind the madness, which begins with basic housekeeping (compressing images and removing bloated plugins) and progresses to server-level optimizations (caching, database tuning, and CDN integration).

Ready to get more speed? Check out DreamHost’s VPS hosting plans to see how easy it is to manage and tune your server, complete with user-friendly dashboards and top-tier support. Because a faster site isn’t just a perk — it’s a business advantage you can’t afford to overlook.

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Your diners keep waiting for their food, not because of your slow cooking — but because you’re competing for stove space and ingredients. Oof, sounds frustrating, right?

This may happen if your business website shares resources with other sites on the same server, which can slow it down during peak traffic times.

Enter Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting. Think of it as your own dedicated kitchen space. While you’re still in the same building as other restaurants, you have your own cooking equipment and space. So, your service stays smooth and efficient even when another restaurant gets slammed with orders.

However, just like a private kitchen won’t automatically make you a better chef, switching to a VPS doesn’t guarantee better performance. You want to find the right hosting provider to accommodate your growing business needs.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to choose the best VPS hosting provider based on the factors you care about most, such as scalability, uptime, bandwidth, support, and more!

Let’s get cooking!

Why Should You Upgrade to VPS Hosting?

While shared hosting involves lower costs, a VPS offers increased flexibility, security, and scalability. You can add or remove resources as needed and configure the server settings to meet specific requirements.

Most importantly, your site’s performance doesn’t depend on the workload of other server users. Just as each business needs its own space to operate efficiently, your website needs dedicated resources to perform at its best.

Shared hosting distributes disk space and other resources among users. And the higher the number of users and the more resources they consume — the slower your site will load.

A VPS is also more secure than shared hosting because it simulates a dedicated server environment. So, if a neighboring site on the same physical server experiences security issues, your website will remain safe.

These features and others make VPS hosting ideal for growing websites and online stores.

If your site gets a lot of traffic or requires more disk space or certain configurations, like integration with CRM systems, then it might be worth switching. This transition can also be part of a bigger overhaul, like a website redesign.

What To Look For in a VPS Hosting Provider

The right VPS service for your business depends largely on your needs.

If, for example, you run a telehealth or medical website and have to comply with HIPAA, look for a VPS that prioritizes data security.

A secure hosting solution for online retailers, on the other hand, must deliver superior performance through high bandwidth, fast page load speed, and enough RAM (random access memory) to handle operations smoothly. Many top providers offer unlimited bandwidth, which is essential for managing high traffic volumes and hosting large media files like product videos.

These aspects are important for any website, but they’re absolutely crucial for e-commerce businesses, where slow load times, downtime, or security issues can lead to lost sales and harm your brand’s reputation.

To that end, here are 10 features of a good VPS service.

1. High Uptime

“Uptime” refers to the period during which a server and the websites hosted on it are operational.

The best VPS hosting providers guarantee 99.9% uptime, which translates to less than 10 minutes of downtime per week.

Although, it’s entirely possible you may experience downtime for reasons that have nothing to do with your web host.

According to a 2024 survey, 56% of downtime incidents are due to cybersecurity issues. Human error, software or hardware failures, and buggy code can cause downtime, too.

2. Adequate Server Resources

For lag-free performance, look for a VPS hosting plan that provides adequate CPU (central processing unit), RAM, and SSD (solid-state drive) storage to handle your website’s needs.

Let’s take RAM for instance. It determines the amount of data a server can store and access at any given time. How much of it you need depends on your:

• Website traffic
• Database size and queries
• The number of websites hosted on a VPS
• Your content management system (CMS)
• Type of website (e.g., a simple blog vs. a media-rich website)
• Development or staging environments

As a general rule, choose a web host that offers at least 2 GB of RAM. Make sure your website’s database doesn’t take up more than half of the available RAM, as it may cause performance issues.

Also, keep in mind that CMS platforms like WordPress, Adobe Commerce (Magento), or Joomla may require additional RAM for plugins and customizations.

3. Server Performance

Server performance refers to how efficiently a server processes requests, delivers web content, and handles traffic.

An important factor is the server’s speed, which determines how quickly web pages load for visitors and respond to requests. If the server is slow, your website will take longer to load.

The result? A poor user experience, high bounce rates, and low conversions. In the long run, a slow loading speed can hurt your SEO rankings as well.

In fact, improving mobile site speed by just 0.1 seconds can increase conversion rates in retail by 8.4%, and average order value by 9.2%. Plus, you’ll get more page views and keep visitors on your site longer.

With that in mind, pick a reliable web host with high-performance servers. Check for features like SSD storage, multi-core CPUs, ample RAM, and at least 99.9% uptime. 

Make sure you also take the steps needed to improve your core web vitals and optimize your site for mobile. These actions can speed up your site and make it more user-friendly.

4. Advanced Security Features

A cyber attack occurs every 39 seconds, so you need a VPS hosting plan that offers advanced security features such as:

• Full-stack server protection
• Automatic threat removal (e.g., DreamShield anti-malware)
• Firewalls and intrusion detection systems
• Secure Shell (SSH) access
• DDoS protection

You may also opt for managed VPS hosting, which reduces the time and effort required to maintain your server. Your provider will handle the technical tasks, including system updates, security patches, and server maintenance.

Unmanaged VPSs are cheaper, yes, but you’ll have to configure and maintain them yourself.

Think of it as an unfurnished house with no locks on the doors. You have complete control over how you secure it, but it’s completely up to you to install the locks, set up an alarm system, and keep the property safe.

5. Operating System Options

When it comes to web hosting, there are three main operating systems (OS) to choose from: Linux (the most popular), Windows, and Unix/BSD (though less common).

Before choosing a web hosting provider, decide what OS you want. Here’s what you need to consider: your technical expertise, security needs, and application requirements.

For example, Linux is often a better choice than Windows for online stores running on platforms like Adobe Commerce or WooCommerce. This lightweight, secure, and robust PHP, MySQL, and NGINX-enabled platform is ideal for optimizing the performance of your website.

Windows, on the other hand, works best for websites using Microsoft-based applications and frameworks, such as Microsoft SQL.

Most web hosts provide Linux VPS hosting, which may or may not be suitable for your business. So, see what options you have and sign up for a plan that supports your preferred OS.

6. Scalability

Your business needs may change in the future, so look for a VPS hosting solution that can scale up or down with your needs.

Let’s say you jumpstart a print-on-demand store. Your business is still new, so you have a small database and little traffic. Here, a VPS with at least 2 GB of RAM, 50 GB of SSD disk space, and 1 CPU core should do the trick.

But as your business grows, you’ll want to upgrade to a VPS plan with more RAM, CPU cores, and disk space for better performance. If your web host doesn’t offer this option, you’ll have to look somewhere else and migrate your site, which can be time-consuming and risky.

A migration can cause downtime, data loss, and the need to reconfigure your entire setup.

That’s why it pays to choose a hosting provider that offers clear upgrade paths and flexible resource allocation from the get-go.

7. Backup and Recovery

Almost all web hosting companies offer backup solutions — but their quality varies.

For instance, some web hosts provide automated backups, whereas others require manual backups. You also need to consider:

• How often backups are performed
• How long they are kept before being deleted or overwritten
• Whether your data is stored on the server, in the cloud, or offsite
• Ease of data recovery (e.g., can you restore data from backups with a single click?)
• Backup limitations and costs (if any)

Ideally, look for a VPS solution that includes automated daily backups of the entire server, not just individual files. If that’s not an option, choose a plan that supports one-click backups.

It’s also worth mentioning that some providers charge extra for automated backups, more storage, or advanced options, such as snapshots or incremental backups. So, check the fine print to see if these services are standard or add-ons.

DreamHost’s VPS plans include varying levels of services with no hidden fees. When you choose a package, you can see exactly what you’ll get.

8. User-Friendly Control Panel

The control panel allows you to manage your website’s database, email accounts, DNS settings, and more. It also displays the available disk space, RAM and CPU usage, and other metrics associated with your websites and applications.

This means you’ll need a control panel that’s intuitive and easy to use. Otherwise, you might end up spending hours trying to figure out how to manage your site.

DirectAdmin, VestaCP, FASTPANEL, and cPanel are ideal for startups and non-technical users, featuring a clean, easy-to-navigate interface.

For example, DreamHost features a proprietary control panel that can handle most tasks performed in cPanel. Besides being lightweight and easy to use, it supports one-click installations of popular apps like WordPress, Joomla, and Magento.

Plesk, Cloudron, and CyberPanel are popular control panels among developers and system administrators. These tools are great for building and deploying complex websites and apps. However, they require technical expertise.

9. Good Customer Support

No matter your technical skills, reliable customer support can be the difference between a minor hiccup and hours of costly downtime. When you need help with your website, you need the assurance that expert help is within reach.

An ideal VPS host provides 24/7 support across multiple channels, from live chat to email and ticketing systems. If you’re unsure about what support channels might work best for your business, consider:

• Live chat for immediate help during urgent issues
• Email support for detailed technical questions that require documentation
• Ticketing systems for tracking complex problems
• Phone support for situations where real-time communication is essential

While some services, such as phone support, may only be available with higher-tier plans, investing in better support access can pay for itself during critical situations. If your e-commerce site goes down during a busy sales period or your business email stops working before a big client meeting, having immediate access to technical support becomes super important. 

Choose providers who have a track record of resolving issues efficiently and have clear response time guarantees. Ask about their support team’s expertise with your specific technologies and whether they provide detailed documentation for common issues.

10. Competitive Pricing

In general, VPS hosting plans are priced according to the resources and features they offer. Here are the tiers you need to know to make the right choice:

Basic tiers: Entry-level VPS plans ($10-30/month)

• Suitable for small websites and blogs
• Limited resources but room to scale
• Basic support options

Mid-range tiers: Business-grade VPS plans ($30-60/month)

• Ideal for growing businesses
• More resources and features
• Better support options

Premium tiers: Enterprise VPS plans ($60-100+/month)

• For high-traffic websites
• Maximum resources
• Priority support and additional features

Many VPS hosting providers charge extra for server setup, dedicated IPs, data recovery, and other services. Check their policies and ask for a clear breakdown of costs before committing to a membership plan. 

Choose the Best VPS Hosting Provider for Your Business

By now, you should know exactly what to look for in a VPS provider. 

But remember, just because a web host offers 99.95% uptime or servers with unlimited resources doesn’t mean it’s right for your business. You don’t want to pay for stuff you’re not going to use, right? 

That said, here are some actionable tips for choosing the right VPS hosting solution:

• Decide on managed vs. unmanaged VPS hosting: Unless you have a background in software development, go for a fully managed VPS solution to save time and avoid technical issues. Unmanaged VPS services are better suited for users with complex needs and a high level of technical expertise. 
• Match resources to your needs: Review your traffic numbers, database size, and software requirements. And then look for a VPS plan that meets your needs. For example, media-rich websites would benefit from a server with NVMe (non-volatile memory express) storage, rather than standard SSD. The technology improves site speed and performance by providing ultra-fast data access.
• Look for developer-friendly features: If you want to have full control over your VPS or deploy custom software, make sure the web host offers root access. This feature also lets you create user accounts, set role-based permissions, and optimize resource allocation. 
• Consider your “must-haves”: Make a list of features and services you absolutely need, such as automated backups, built-in security tools, scalable resources, or Windows VPS hosting. If you have a WordPress website, look for a provider that offers free WordPress migrations. 
• Contact customer support: Reach out to the web hosts you’re interested in before you buy. This way, you can test their customer service and ensure support is available when you need it. 

You may be able to get a money-back guarantee from some web hosting providers. Some will also offer a free trial. To test the waters before diving in, sign up for this option. 

BTW, VPS Hosting Isn’t Your Only Option

Virtual private server hosting can be a cost-effective solution for small to medium-sized businesses, online stores, and growing startups. 

However, there are cases where it makes sense to look into other types of web hosting, depending on your business size and the services you offer.

• Shared hosting: If your website is new or you’re just starting your business, a shared hosting solution may offer more value than VPS hosting. This option is also suitable for small personal blogs and portfolio websites, which don’t require extensive resources. 
• Dedicated hosting: With this service, you’ll rent an entire physical server from a web host. Since you won’t be sharing resources with others, you’ll get maximum performance, full control, and top-notch security. It’s the best choice for large enterprises, high-traffic sites, and FinTech companies or businesses handling sensitive data. 
• Cloud hosting: If your site is getting a lot of traffic and uses extensive resources, consider switching to cloud hosting. You can expect high uptime, improved speed, and better overall performance since you’ll be hosted on a network of virtual and physical cloud servers. Plus, you’ll only pay for the resources you use.
• Managed WordPress hosting: This hosting solution makes it easier to manage, optimize, and secure your WordPress site. Our WordPress hosting plans include automatic updates, unlimited bandwidth, free domain privacy, and access to an AI-powered website builder. 
• Reseller hosting: Go for a reseller hosting plan if you’re a web designer, developer, or marketing agency offering hosting as an add-on service. This will allow you to sell hosting packages to your clients and generate extra revenue. 

For further insights, see our guide to web hosting. We’ll tell you more about the different types of hosting, their pros and cons, and how to choose a reliable service provider.

Power Up Your Website With VPS Hosting

A VPS hosting package provides you with the resources you need to grow and scale up your website. The service is ideal for businesses that want greater control, enhanced security, and higher performance without spending a lot of money on dedicated servers.

Take the time to assess your needs before making the switch. Decide on your must-haves, compare the best VPS hosting providers, and choose a plan that can grow with your business.

DreamHost’s VPS hosting plans can handle unlimited traffic, meaning you don’t have to worry about overage fees. Since they’re fully managed, we’ll take care of backups, software updates, OS upgrades, and other technicalities, so you can focus on doing what you do best — running your business.

Our VPS hosting comes with up to 12 GB of RAM and 360 GB of SSD storage, depending on the plan you choose. You’ll also get excellent support around the clock, plus access to the DreamHost AI Business Advisor.

Take a look at our hosting plans and choose one that suits your needs. We’ll be with you every step of the way — from website migration to maintenance and marketing.

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We Know You’ve Got Lots of VPS Options

Here’s how DreamHost’s VPS offering stands apart: 24/7 customer support, an intuitive panel, scalable RAM, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited hosting domains, and SSD storage.

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Well, it could be because your site is slow to load. People hate that.

One way you can improve your website’s performance is by using a content delivery network (CDN).

A CDN is a network of remote web servers spread worldwide, each of which contains a copy of your site that visitors can access. This setup takes some pressure off your host server, making your site faster. It can also reduce your bandwidth usage and make your website more secure.

Want to learn more? You’ve come to the right place.

What Is a Content Delivery Network (CDN)?

A content delivery network (CDN) is a system of multiple servers in different locations around the world.

When you use a CDN service with your site, all of those servers will be loaded with static versions of your files. That includes code like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with images, documents, videos, and other data.

But wait. This sounds a lot like web hosting…?

While the two may seem similar, a CDN is not the same as a web hosting service. Your host is the server where your site “lives”, and it is sometimes called the origin server.

In contrast, CDN servers simply copy static files from your origin server to deliver them to your visitors more quickly.

The Benefits of Using a CDN With Your WordPress Website

When a user visits your site, they would normally connect directly to the origin server through their browser, and download all the necessary files from there.

This is fine for users who live near the origin server. However, for visitors who are further away, the distance can cause significantly longer loading times (we call this latency).

Slow site speed can negatively affect bounce rates, which can be catastrophic for your conversions. And when all visitors are requesting the same files from one server, you might even experience downtime.

In other words, this is not a small issue.

That’s where a CDN comes in handy. When you use a CDN, visitors connect to your site via the server that’s closest to them. As a result, pages will load faster, and you see less strain on your origin server.

Using a CDN also:

• Makes your site more crash-resistant: If one CDN server goes down, your site will simply load from another. This setup lets your website handle more traffic.
• Improves the user experience: The fact that your site is effectively spread across the globe creates a more consistent experience for all visitors.
• Improves your SEO rankings: Website performance is factored into search engine rankings, so speeding up your site will make it more likely to appear higher in search results.
• Reduces bandwidth usage: Since your origin server doesn’t need to send as much data to each visitor, you minimize the bandwidth used.
• Helps protect against basic attacks: A CDN is designed to cope with large amounts of traffic, and it will defend your site against the most common types of malicious activity, such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

As you can see, using a content delivery network helps much more than just your website’s speed and reliability. The question is, how do you get started?

Let’s look at some of the best CDN solutions you can implement on your WordPress site.

10 Excellent CDN Solutions for WordPress

If you decide to set up a CDN, you will need to find a solution that suits your current needs and future ambitions.

Here are the most popular CDN solutions for small businesses to use alongside your WordPress site:

1. Cloudflare CDN: The Most Popular CDN for WordPress

Cloudflare is probably the best-known CDN solution for WordPress.

Not only does it have over 330 data centers, but it’s also one of the few CDN providers that offer a free plan. This makes it a smart option for site owners who want a reliable solution that’s also simple to implement.

Installing Cloudflare on a WordPress site is as easy as installing the plugin and creating a free account. Then, activate the default settings, and you’re good to go.

Key Features

• Easy to use alongside a WordPress website, with minimal configuration required.
• Automatically empties your cache when you update the site.
• Includes a web application firewall (WAF) on all premium plans.

You can also sign up for Cloudflare’s plans directly at cloudflare.com. Please note that you will need to modify your nameservers and manage your DNS records yourself.

Pricing: Cloudflare is free to use but offers several premium plans starting at $20/month. These include additional site services, such as image optimization, increased security, and prioritized support.

2. Bunny CDN: The Rising Newcomer

Over the past few years, Bunny CDN has earned a reputation as one of the most cost-effective CDN solutions available.

With over 119 points of presence worldwide and a straightforward pay-as-you-go model, it’s particularly appealing for site owners who want premium performance without premium pricing.

Setting up Bunny CDN with WordPress is pretty straightforward. While the dedicated plugin has mixed reviews, this CDN works with popular caching plugins like W3 Total Cache and WP Rocket. Once configured, it automatically figures out your content delivery settings.

Bunny CDN is free today to all DreamPress users, and available as a paid upgrade to all other DreamHost customers.

Key Features

• Pay-per-use pricing model with no monthly commitments.
• User-friendly control panel for easy management.
• Flexible cache control options.

Pricing: Bunny CDN uses a volume-based pricing structure starting at $0.01/GB for traffic in North America and Europe, with a minimum spend of just $1 per month.

3. Jetpack Site Accelerator: Best WordPress CDN Integration

Chances are, you already have Jetpack installed. It’s one of the most popular and comprehensive WordPress plugins out there.

What you might not realize is that Jetpack contains a neat little CDN solution called Site Accelerator. This CDN serves all your images from a cloud network, to improve your site’s speed. It also optimizes and serves static files such as CSS and JavaScript.

It’s not the most advanced option here, but it delivers content perfectly well for smaller sites — and it’s free.

Key Features

• Requires no configuration.
• Automatically applies to all images and static files in your pages and posts.
• Improves website performance, particularly on sites with many images.

Pricing: Site Accelerator is included with Jetpack. Simply install the plugin for free and activate it on your website.

4. KeyCDN: Affordable Performance

Another solution that easily integrates with WordPress is KeyCDN. This provider has a network of servers in 40 countries, and it only uses SSD (solid-state storage), which improves performance and shortens page loading times.

KeyCDN’s payment plans are based on usage, so you can avoid paying more than you need. And it’s really easy to set up KeyCDN with WordPress using the free CDN Enabler plugin.

Key Features

• Uses only SSD servers for excellent performance.
• Includes free SSL and HTTP/2 support.
• Instantly empties your cache when the site is updated.

Pricing: KeyCDN offers a free trial and pay-as-you-go pricing plans that start at $0.04 per GB. It also offers a price calculator to help you get an accurate quote.

5. CDN77: Best Budget CDN

You can think of CDN77 as the friendly neighborhood CDN that grew up into a superstar.

This provider strikes a nice balance between power and simplicity. It’s also very affordable, making it a good choice for smaller businesses.

CDN77’s network of servers is spread across 147 locations, but there’s a high concentration in Europe — making it best suited to sites targeting that continent. You can add CDN77 to your WordPress site via the CDN Enabler plugin.

Key Features

• Really user-friendly control panel.
• No long-term contracts.
• Global presence, but particularly strong in Europe.

Pricing: CDN77 offers a free 14-day trial. After that, you’ll be on a custom pay-as-you-go plan. Prices start at around $0.02 per GB.

6. Sucuri: Best CDN for Security

Sucuri is actually a website security suite, but it has a good built-in CDN. According to Sucuri, you can expect a 60% bump in performance with this solution.

Sucuri also provides on-site security measures, such as malware cleaning and security alerts. These are useful features, although they may not be necessary, depending on your web host (DreamHost plans come with a built-in firewall, for example).

To activate the Sucuri platform, you need to use the DNS Manager. There, you can add your details to activate your firewall and CDN.

Key Features

• Protects against spam, malware, and attacks.
• Integrates into your existing CDN provider.
• Requires no installation and provides help when setting it up.

Pricing: The CDN solution comes packaged with Sucuri’s security plans, which start at $229 per year.

7. Amazon CloudFront: Strong Free CDN

Amazon CloudFront is one of the most prominent CDN options available and is famously used by both Spotify and Slack.

CloudFront isn’t the most user-friendly service on this list, but Amazon’s global network and security features help to keep your site running smoothly. It also offers full integration with its other AWS services and a really generous free tier.

CloudFront can be integrated with WordPress using a caching plugin like WP Super Cache. It’s a bit more effort than some names on this list, but still doable.

Key Features

• Provides trusted and reliable service.
• Includes full integration with all other AWS services.
• Has a generous free tier.

Pricing: AWS’s free tier includes 1TB of data transfer out per month. The premium plans for CloudFront are pay-as-you-go, with prices that depend on your location. For the United States, the prices start at $0.085 per GB once you exceed your free limit.

8. Fastly: Best CDN for Dynamic Content

Most CDNs focus on static content. But Fastly is great at handling dynamic content — the stuff that changes frequently on your site, like personalized content or real-time updates.

This means your WordPress site stays snappy even when you’re doing fancy things with WooCommerce or membership areas.

Setting up Fastly with WordPress is much easier now than it used to be, thanks to an official plugin. It’s still not as user-friendly as some options on this list, but the performance upgrades might be worth the hassle.

Key Features

• Super fast loading times, even under pressure.
• Easy to scale as your site grows.
• Handles traffic spikes like a champ.

Pricing: Using Fastly is free for the first $50 worth of usage per month. You can then jump on a subscription or pay as you go, with pricing starting at around $0.12 per GB.

9. Shift8 CDN: Made for WordPress

Shift8 CDN is actually designed specifically for WordPress (and Drupal) websites. So, it’s no surprise that this solution integrates perfectly with the world’s favorite content management system. The official plugin even holds your hand through the setup process.

The other stand-out feature of Shift8 CDN is pricing. It’s completely free for up to 1TB per month of bandwidth, and the paid plans offer extraordinary value.

Key Features

• Super simple WordPress plugin installation.
• Generous free tier.
• Handles image optimization.

Pricing: Free with limited features for up to 1TB of bandwidth across two URLs. Paid plans start at $5 per month, with generous usage limits.

10. Optimole: Best CDN for Images

If images are a big part of your website, then Optimole is worth a look.

Technically speaking, it’s more of an image optimization tool than a standalone CDN. But look under the hood, and you’ll find CloudFront technology serving up your files.

Optimole is another solution made specifically for WordPress, and it comes with lots of great performance-related features, from lazy loading and auto-scaling to intelligent compression.

Key Features

• Automatically optimizes your images for faster loading.
• Uses the power of Amazon CloudFront.
• Improves your site’s SEO.

Pricing: Optimole is a subscription-based service, with plans starting at $22.99 per month and discounts on annual payments.

How To Choose the Right CDN for Your Website

Phew, that’s quite a selection!

Picking out the perfect match for your website can seem a little daunting. Each provider offers something different, and it’s not like you can sample every solution.

To clarify the selection process, here’s a TL;DR buyer’s guide:

• Running a simple WordPress blog or small business site? Stick with Cloudflare or Shift8 CDN. They work seamlessly with WordPress, won’t overwhelm you with features, and offer useful free tiers. 
• Got a more dynamic site with lots of real-time updates, like an online store or membership site? This is where services like Cloudflare or Fastly shine. Yes, they’re a bit more complex to set up, but they handle dynamic content well and their security features are top-notch.
• Have an image-heavy website, like a design portfolio or a food blog? Optimole or Bunny CDN might be your best bet here. They’re great at image optimization and delivery, and they won’t break the bank.

And here’s a pro tip: don’t get caught up in the “bigger is better” mindset. Sometimes the simplest solution is the right one.

Focus on what your site needs right now, not on what it might need if you suddenly go viral. You can always upgrade later when your traffic explodes and you’re making it rain.

Speed Up Your WordPress Site

Adding a CDN to your WordPress site is a smart move.

Even the most basic solution is likely to upgrade the performance and security of your website. And as your site grows, the benefits will only multiply.

Just remember that CDNs work alongside your hosting. If you want to squeeze the best possible performance out of your website, it’s essential to choose a solid plan.

At DreamHost, our shared hosting delivers 100% guaranteed uptime, unlimited bandwidth, and impressive speeds. We also offer managed WordPress hosting for even better performance and zero maintenance. Plus, it also comes with free Bunny CDN. Sign up today to give your website the speed boost it deserves!

WordPress Hosting

Optimize Your Business with DreamPress

Our automatic updates and strong security defenses take server management off your hands so you can focus on your customers.

Check Out Plans

This page contains affiliate links. This means we may earn a commission if you purchase services through our link without any extra cost to you.

The post How To Use a CDN With WordPress (Plus 10 Popular Providers) appeared first on DreamHost Blog.

The HTTP error “503 Service Unavailable” generally means that your server has run out of resources. But why this is happening is not always clear.

In most cases, the 503 status code pops up because WordPress is using too much memory or because your hosting service is experiencing unanticipated issues. To sort out this mess, you’ll probably need to reduce the amount of memory your site is using, or upgrade the resources on your hosting account.

Not sure where to start? Not to worry! In this quick guide, we’re going to show you how to resolve the overload and get your site back to top form.

Let’s go!

What Causes the 503 Service Unavailable Error in WordPress

The 503 error code isn’t actually specific to WordPress. In fact, it might appear before WordPress has even had the chance to start. So, what’s going on?

Like an application on your computer, a website requires a certain amount of resources to run. For example, it needs memory, processing power, and hard drive space. This is true no matter what type of hosting provider you have.

If your server starts to run low on these resources, it might struggle to handle the requests of visitors. The end result? Your site becomes temporarily unavailable.

With that in mind, here are the most common causes of 503 error messages:

• Your site is consuming an unusual amount of resources: This might be because a plugin or theme is operating incorrectly and demanding more memory, for example.
• You’re experiencing unusually high volumes of dynamic traffic: If a lot of people are on your site at the same time, your resources are being consumed much faster than they ordinarily would be. The good news is that you can avoid slow loading times and prepare for higher traffic levels in advance.
• Your web server could be experiencing difficulties: If your web hosting service recently upgraded its software, your site might not be properly configured or optimized. Your web host might need to restart one or more server processes to restore normal performance levels.

Regardless of the root cause, the HTTP 503 error isn’t something that you can ignore. Unless it’s a host-level problem, the error won’t resolve itself — and it’s likely to create significant issues for your site and visitors.

Why the 503 Error Can Cause Problems for Your Site

A server-side issue like the HTTP 503 response isn’t just annoying — it can have a measurable impact on your business.

Here are some of the scenarios to watch out for:

• Your site could become unavailable intermittently. 
• Your visitors might not be able to view your site at all.
• Specific pages on your site could become unavailable — usually the most resource-intensive ones.
• Search engines won’t be able to read and rank your website.
• Your site’s utilities (such as security scanning) won’t run properly or at their scheduled times.

As a general theme, the 503 error makes it difficult for both you and your visitors to use your site. Thankfully, it’s fixable!

How To Fix the 503 Service Unavailable Error in WordPress (5 Methods)

If you start seeing errors, it’s a good idea to begin troubleshooting by checking the status of your hosting provider. Every good host reports unexpected downtime and scheduled maintenance windows on their website.

Your web host’s servers may be down due to a planned service outage or an unplanned emergency. In that situation, you just need to wait until the server is back up and properly configured.

Once the server is back online, check whether your site is working again. If not, you can attempt to manually reboot your service to see if that resolves the issue.

No luck? It’s time to open your own investigation, Sherlock!

Here are some lines of inquiry you can try:

1. Turn Off Your Plugins

All plugins modify the way that a WordPress site works, which means they can sometimes cause problems. You might start seeing errors just after you install a new plugin. There are two reasons:

1. The new plugin utilizes too many of your server’s resources; OR
2. You have too many plugins running overall, and the newest plugin just so happens to be the one that’s tipped the scales.

The solution here is pretty obvious: you might need to deactivate the new plugin. To do this, head to your WordPress dashboard.

Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins. Then click on Deactivate under the plugins that you suspect may have caused the issue.

You can also check the box at the top to select all. Click on the drop-down menu in the top-left corner and select Deactivate from the list.

After that, try checking your site again to see if that has cleared the 503 response.

In some cases, you won’t be able to log in to your WordPress admin area due to the error. If that’s the case, you’ll need to try an alternative method.

What you’ll need to do is access your site via Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

First, download and open an SFTP program, such as FileZilla, and connect to your WordPress site using your hosting service’s login information.

Then, click on the wp-content directory, and find the plugins folder.

Rather than deleting the plugins, try renaming the directory — this makes it easier to restore your original setup if the plugins are not the culprits.

Once you’re done, refresh your site to see if this solved the issue.

If not, your plugins aren’t to blame. You’ll need to reactivate them through the WordPress admin page or by renaming the directory back to ‘plugins’ in your SFTP client.

Regardless of the outcome of this test, it’s worth taking a moment to think about plugin management. Ideally, you should only have as many as you strictly need.

Many third-party themes come with plugins to support both their design and functionality. You should be mindful of this when choosing a new look for your site.

Nerd Note: The HTTP 503 Service Unavailable response is sometimes caused by security and malware protection plugins. These tend to use loads of resources because they’re constantly scanning the files on your server. However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Actually, they’re pretty essential.

2. Change Your Theme

If you’re still experiencing issues with your site, your theme may be the one to blame. After all, it does have a big impact on the way your site functions.

To figure out whether your theme is causing the error, try reverting to a default core WordPress theme, such as Twenty Twenty Four.

These themes tend to have stripped-down designs that showcase current WordPress features. They also use way fewer resources compared to other themes.

To change your theme to one of these options, navigate to the WordPress dashboard. Then go into Appearance > Themes to select and activate your preferred theme.

If you no longer get the 503 error after completing this test, then you’ve found the gremlin in your system!

Third-party themes sometimes consume extra resources because of custom code or recent updates that weren’t properly configured. You can resolve this issue by permanently switching your theme.

As with plugins, you can also remove a WordPress theme through SFTP if you can’t access your dashboard. You will simply need to navigate to the /[yourdomain]/wp-content/themes directory and delete the theme you want to remove — or simply rename it.

3. Reinstall WordPress

If turning off your plugins and resetting your theme doesn’t work, you may need to reinstall WordPress.

Oh boy, that sounds like a hassle.

The good news is that you should only need to take this step if a WordPress core file has become modified — which it should never be — or corrupted. It’s not as scary as you think.

WordPress stores your uploaded files on your host server, and the rest of your data is safely housed in your site’s database. This means you can reinstall WordPress core files, and the rest should remain intact.

Even so, you may want to back up your files just in case.

Every good hosting service provides backup tools, which you can use to create a current backup or snapshot of your hosting account that you can restore later.

The easiest way to reinstall WordPress is through the dashboard. Go to Dashboard > Updates. Then click on Re-install version 6.6.2 (or whichever version happens to be running):

WordPress will reinstall itself on its own. Once it’s done, refresh your site and see if that’s made a difference.

If you can’t access your WordPress dashboard, you can also manually reinstall WordPress via SFTP. First, you’ll need to download WordPress directly from WordPress.org.

Then, unpack the .zip file and open FileZilla or another SFTP solution. Make sure the client is connected to your WordPress site. Then, upload your freshly downloaded WordPress files to the WordPress directory.

Your new WordPress files should completely replace everything in the old WordPress directory. In general, it’s a good idea to check your site’s performance after every major change.

4. Try a Little Debugging

If you’re happy to get a little more technical, you might find some clues by debugging your WordPress site.

First, check the error logs on your web hosting account. You’ll need to set up error logging to access this option. Look for entries that reference a particular plugin, theme, or file that’s causing problems.

You can also enable WordPress’ built-in debugging feature. To do this, access the wp-config.php file via SFTP and make a couple of edits.

Add or modify the following lines:

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );

To finish, save and upload the file.

WordPress will create a file named debug.log in the wp-content directory. Open up this file, and you should see a log of recent errors.

Pro Tip: Once you’ve solved the problem, disable debugging by setting WP_DEBUG to false. This makes sure hackers can’t get access to sensitive information buried in your WordPress site!

5. Upgrade Your Hosting Service

Still no luck? If none of the steps above worked, it’s time to accept that your site has outgrown your hosting plan.

You can fix this simply by upgrading to a plan with more resources. The tricky part is knowing exactly what you need.

Let’s break down how to figure that out:

1. Analyze your current resource usage: Most hosting providers offer tools to monitor resource usage. Look for metrics like CPU usage, memory consumption, and bandwidth. If these consistently hit their limits, it’s a clear sign you need an upgrade. If possible, run these checks during periods of high traffic.
2. Evaluate your website: A simple blog with static content eats up fewer resources than a complex e-commerce site with dynamic content, databases, and numerous plugins. 
3. Think about your specific resource requirements: Look beyond just CPU and memory. Consider storage space (especially if you have a lot of media), database performance, and bandwidth. If your site relies heavily on database queries, make sure any new hosting plan offers optimized database performance.

Man, that was a lot of thinking. If you would prefer just to get the problem fixed, consider switching to managed WordPress hosting. No muss, no fuss.

Bonus Method: Try Disabling Outside Services

Sometimes, 503 errors are caused by something outside your hosting server.

For instance, you might be using a content delivery network (CDN) like Cloudflare. And if that service is having problems, you may see error messages.

If you’re really struggling to clear a 503 response, it’s worth temporarily disabling your CDN and other outside services to see if they’re causing the issue.

Similarly, you might want to try limiting the WordPress Heartbeat. This API normally does all sorts of useful things, like auto-saving your posts and informing you about plugin updates, but it can cause a 503 error.

How To Fix Other Common WordPress Errors

Want to learn how to fix other technical issues on your WordPress website? We’ve put together several guides to help you troubleshoot some of the most common WordPress errors:

• How To Fix the 400 Bad Request Error
• How To Fix WordPress Error 404 Not Found
• How To Fix the 500 Internal Server Error in WordPress
• 9 Tactics For Fixing The 504 Gateway Timeout Error
• 10 Ways To Fix The ERR_CONNECTION_RESET Error (Chrome, Firefox, & More)
• Fixing The ERR_CACHE_MISS (Confirm Form Resubmission) Error
• How to Fix Fatal Error: Maximum Execution Time Exceeded
• How To Fix “Upload: Failed To Write File to Disk” WordPress Error
• How To Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection
• Fixing Image Upload Issues In WordPress
• Fixing the “White Screen of Death” in WordPress
• How To Fix Syntax Errors in WordPress
• How To Fix the WordPress Not Sending Email Issue
• How To Fix the Missed Schedule Post Error in WordPress (2 Methods)
• How To Fix White Text and Missing Buttons in WordPress Visual Editor
• How To Fix the Sidebar Below Content Error in WordPress
• What To Do When You’re Locked Out Of WordPress Admin Area

Check out our WordPress Tutorials section if you’re looking for tips and best practices for running a WordPress site. It’s a collection of expert-written guides, designed to help you navigate the WordPress dashboard like a pro!

Error Resolved

The 503 Service Unavailable error can be frustrating to deal with, but finding the solution shouldn’t take too long. Just remember to follow these steps:

1. Turn off your plugins.
2. Change your theme.
3. Reinstall WordPress.
4. Try debugging.
5. Upgrade your hosting service.

If you decide that upgrading is the best option, try hosting with us. Our shared plans come with generous resource limits, meaning you’re less likely to encounter errors. And our DreamPress Managed WordPress Hosting accounts have everything you need to launch a high-traffic website!

Sign up today and make the switch!

The post How To Fix the 503 Service Unavailable Error in WordPress appeared first on DreamHost Blog.

To be clear, we’re not really talking about generosity of spirit here. We’re talking about web hosting.

Shared hosting is great when you’re just starting out. But as your business grows, you can soon find that your site is begging for more resources — a sure sign that it’s time for an upgrade.

A different hosting plan may offer faster loading speeds, less downtime, and better security. The trick is to find the right hosting option for your website.

Both, virtual private server (VPS) and dedicated hosting, give you a customizable server of your own, separate from other websites. VPS is the more affordable option, acting as a middle ground between shared and dedicated servers. In contrast, dedicated hosting can provide more extensive resources to handle high web traffic.

In this post, we’ll go through all the key differences between VPS and dedicated hosting. Then, we’ll show you how to choose the best hosting plan for your needs.

Let’s get started!

VPS Hosting: Shared but Better

Even before you start building and designing your website, it’s worth thinking about web hosting.

When you sign up with a hosting provider, you’re essentially purchasing space on a server to house your site. Countless types of hosting plans are available, each offering something a little different.

Many beginners start with shared hosting. This places your website on the same server as several other sites, a bit like living in an apartment block. A shared hosting plan allows you to share resources with other users, making it the least expensive option.

One step up from shared hosting is a virtual private server.

Like shared plans, VPS hosting involves sharing a physical server. However, the provider will install a virtual hosting environment on top of the server’s operating system (OS). This setup gives your website its own dedicated resources — the equivalent of a virtual condo.

A VPS works by using a hypervisor to create virtual machines for each website on the server. Put simply, your site is on shared server space, but it has its own partitioned resources.

With VPS hosting, you get many of the same benefits as a dedicated server without the higher price, making it a cost-effective option for growing websites. VPS plans may also include unlimited bandwidth, dedicated disk space, a personal OS, and scalable random-access memory (RAM).

Pros:

• More cost-effective than dedicated hosting
• Better performance than basic shared hosting
• Scalable resources (e.g., RAM)
• Often includes unlimited bandwidth
• Personal operating system
• Suitable for growing websites

Cons:

• Still shares a physical server with other users
• Less control over hardware compared to dedicated hosting
• Potentially lower performance than dedicated hosting

Dedicated Hosting: Your Own Private Space

A VPS still means sharing a server, but a dedicated hosting account means taking control of an entire server. It’s like renting your own tropical island with all kinds of resources.

Although it’s a relatively expensive option, this type of setup can significantly improve your loading speeds — giving your customers a satisfying site experience. In fact, faster loading can have a direct impact on your conversion rate.

You can also customize the software and physical hardware of your server to match your website hosting needs.

The main downside of dedicated hosting is its high cost. Purchasing a dedicated server can be expensive, especially compared to shared and VPS hosting’s affordability. Plus, you’ll be responsible for the configuration and maintenance of your server.

Pros:

• Full control over an entire server
• Significantly improved loading speeds
• Customizable software and hardware
• Ideal for high-traffic or resource-intensive websites

Cons:

• Relatively expensive option
• Higher maintenance responsibility
• Requires more technical knowledge for configuration
• May be overkill for smaller websites or businesses

VPS and Dedicated Hosting: A Head-to-Head Comparison

So far, we have shaken hands with VPS and dedicated hosting. They are just acquaintances at this point.

Before you start a committed relationship with either hosting plan, it’s worth getting to know them better. Let’s do that now!

1. Security and Performance

Both VPS and dedicated hosting plans offer a higher level of security and performance than regular shared hosting. The difference is the size of the upgrade.

With a VPS hosting plan, you get a partitioned space on a server and a dedicated set of resources. This means you can expect faster page loading times and less downtime.

VPS hosting is also generally secure, especially if you choose a managed hosting plan. But because you are sharing server hardware with other accounts, you’re still vulnerable if other sites on the same server suffer from security breaches.

In comparison, hosting your site on a dedicated plan is significantly more secure. Since you have isolated server hardware and software, there can be no cross-contamination from other sites. Plus, you can implement your own security measures, such as firewalls, anti-malware systems, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection.

This is important in a business context, especially because cybersecurity breaches can be very costly — whether it’s unauthorized access to intellectual property, or sensitive customer data being stolen. This alone can be reason enough to invest in an isolated hosting environment.

Dedicated hosting also offers advantages when it comes to performance. A dedicated server is the best option for handling high web traffic and customer transactions because you’ll have personal use of CPU output, RAM, and bandwidth.

To help you quantify the differences, here are some typical packages:

2. Customization

Customizing your web hosting space is essential if you have big ambitions or if your site is growing rapidly.

VPS-hosted websites offer more flexibility than shared hosting. After setting up a virtual private server, you can access your files and install any software you need to run your website.

This is a good start. However, you may need much more customization for larger, more complex web projects.

With dedicated hosting, you can adapt your server to your specific needs. For example, you can switch out your server software and adjust the hardware configurations. You can even install a completely different OS.

In other words, running a dedicated server is essential if you have large-scale or very specific requirements.

Let’s look at some specific examples. Here’s what VPS customization looks like:

• E-commerce: As your small online store grows into a popular brand, you might want to install specialized e-commerce software and optimize your hosting account for product catalogs.
• Custom web apps: You can use a VPS to install and configure specific programming languages, frameworks, and databases, like Python, Django, and MySQL.
• CMS optimization: While most popular content management system (CMS) platforms run smoothly on shared hosting, VPS hosting allows you to optimize your plan for your chosen system.

Meanwhile, dedicated hosting would be a good choice for these use cases:

• High-traffic websites: News websites, online gaming platforms, or large e-commerce stores that need to handle peaks in traffic. With a dedicated server, you can customize hardware configurations and install specialized software for load balancing, caching, and content delivery networks (CDNs).
• Complex web applications: Enterprise-level applications with complex requirements (like real-time data processing) often need the kind flexibility that dedicated hosting provides. 
• Specialized needs: Some businesses need unique hardware or software configurations for daily operations. For example, a scientific research institution might need a server with specialized graphics processing units (GPUs) for data analysis.

3. Scalability

If you’re looking to grow your website, you’ll need a hosting package that can keep up with demand.

On a virtual private server, you can increase CPU, storage space, and memory as required. This can be a great option for medium-sized websites that want to expand over time. Using VPS hosting, you can scale your server resources without upgrading your subscription.

For example, DreamHost VPS hosting plans come with different RAM availability. Although you’ll initially receive 2GB of RAM, there are additional plan options that can scale with your needs.

Now, when you can’t scale your VPS anymore, it’s time to consider a dedicated server. Dedicated hosting has a significant resource allocation, so you likely won’t need to upgrade your plan. With a dedicated server, you can focus on reliably maintaining your web traffic rather than increasing your server capabilities.

However, it’s still possible to move to a larger server or extend a dedicated server’s resources if needed. When you configure your server, you’ll be able to choose the amount of RAM you’ll need to handle your web traffic. You can select one RAM size above your current needs, giving you room to grow.

4. Price

In many cases, the most meaningful difference between VPS and dedicated hosting is price. The costs of web hosting can vary widely based on which plan you choose.

VPS plans are generally pretty affordable. With multiple websites on the same server, hosting providers can offer server space at a discount.

That said, VPS plans cost more than shared plans. You can see that when comparing our shared web hosting and VPS hosting prices on our website.

Dedicated hosting includes an entire personal server, so the costs are accordingly higher. Our DreamHost dedicated servers can be an effective option for larger websites that need more performance, control, and versatility.

Even our lowest dedicated hosting tier comes with 16GB of RAM, DDoS protection, and a 100% uptime guarantee. With full root and shell access, you can easily start customizing your server to meet your needs.

As you can tell, there’s a small chasm between the price of VPS hosting and dedicated hosting. For this reason, some SMBs opt for the middle ground of cloud hosting.

This type of web hosting solution gives you access to a network of virtual servers with scalable resources, and you only pay for what you use. It’s a great way to unlock greater resources without the ongoing maintenance cost of an entire physical server. But that’s a topic for another time.

How To Choose Between VPS vs. Dedicated Hosting

Even with all this information, making a decision between these two popular hosting plans can be tricky. To help make the choice a little clearer, here’s our summary of each option:

Why Choose VPS Hosting?

• You have a small to medium business website.
• Your online traffic exceeds shared server visitor limits.
• You need an affordable middle ground between shared and dedicated hosting.

If you choose VPS hosting, remember that you’ll share server hardware with other websites, so you might be more at risk for security breaches.

Why Choose Dedicated Hosting?

• You own a high-traffic website such as an e-commerce or business site.
• Your website has grown beyond VPS resource allocation.
• You’re comfortable with configuring and maintaining your own server.

Dedicated hosting is powerful but expensive. We recommend considering purchasing a dedicated server only after using up the scalable resources of a VPS plan.

Upgrade Your Hosting Plan Today

A shared hosting account is a great way to dip your toe into the web hosting world. If you’re setting up a website for the first time or keeping things compact for the time being, there’s no reason to spend more money.

However, if you have grand designs, shared hosting might not have the performance, security, and storage you need in the longer run. By choosing a VPS or dedicated hosting plan, you can build the perfect digital space for your business website.

As a reminder, here are the four key differences to consider:

1. Security and performance: Dedicated hosting plans have the edge here because they offer faster loading, advanced security, and more resources to handle traffic.
2. Customization: Although both VPS and dedicated hosting are flexible, you can customize a dedicated server’s hardware to meet your specific needs.
3. Scalability: If you’re looking to slowly grow your website with an affordable server, VPS hosting can be a better option. But dedicated hosting has higher limits on resources.
4. Price: VPS hosting offers a much lower price point because it shares the same server hardware as other websites.

Whether you choose VPS or dedicated hosting, you can find a DreamHost plan to keep your website performing at its optimal level.

Check out our plans for managed VPS and dedicated server hosting today!

VPS Hosting

We Know You’ve Got Lots of VPS Options

Here’s how DreamHost’s VPS offering stands apart: 24/7 customer support, an intuitive panel, scalable RAM, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited hosting domains, and SSD storage.

Change Your VPS Plan

The post VPS vs. Dedicated Hosting (4 Key Differences) appeared first on DreamHost Blog.