Where you host a site shapes how fast it is, how much it costs, how much maintenance it needs, and who you call when it breaks. Here's how the three main options actually compare.
Shared hosting
Your site sits on a server with lots of other sites, sharing its resources. It's cheap — often a few dollars a month — and comes with a control panel that handles the basics.
Good for: brochure sites, low‑traffic WordPress, anything where a few hours of downtime a year is survivable and the budget is tight.
The catch: you're at the mercy of your neighbours. If another site on the box gets busy or misbehaves, you get slow, and there's nothing in your code to fix. Performance is inconsistent by design.
VPS (virtual private server)
A slice of a server that's yours alone — guaranteed CPU and memory, root access, configure it however you like. Costs more, from around $10–$40 a month for something useful.
Good for: sites that have outgrown shared hosting, apps with a database doing real work, anyone who wants control and has someone to exercise it.
The catch: it's an empty machine. Someone has to install the stack, secure it, keep it patched, monitor it, and handle backups. That "someone" is you or someone you pay. A neglected VPS is worse than shared hosting — same inconsistency, plus security debt.
Managed platform
Services like Vercel, Netlify, or managed WordPress hosts. You push your site; they handle servers, scaling, SSL, and CDN. Pricing varies but often starts free for small sites and scales with usage.
Good for: modern sites and apps, teams that want to ship and not think about infrastructure, anything where consistent speed matters.
The catch: you work the platform's way. Some things are trivial that would be fiddly on a VPS; some things are impossible that would be easy. And costs can jump if you hit their usage tiers unexpectedly.
The question that actually decides it
It's not "how much traffic do I have." It's "who is going to own this server?"
- Nobody, and the budget is tiny → shared hosting, eyes open about the tradeoffs.
- Someone competent who'll actually maintain it → VPS, and you get control and consistency.
- You want it handled and your site fits a platform's model → managed platform, and you buy back your attention.
The expensive mistake is picking a VPS for the control and then not doing the maintenance. If that's the likely outcome, choose managed — of either kind.
Not sure which describes you? We'll take a look at your setup and tell you straight.