Module 67: Hosting Technologies
Shared hosting and VPS revisited
🏠The everyday picture
A furnished room in a managed hostel, versus an unfurnished flat of your own. The hostel is cheap and looked after, with house rules; the flat is yours to arrange, and every repair is yours too.
📘What it really is
- Shared hosting (Module 7, Lesson 2), like your Hostinger plan:
- cheapest; managed for you (updates, web server, email, control panel);
- excellent for static sites, PHP and WordPress, and increasingly Node.js;
- limits on long-running processes, memory, custom software and root access;
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good for: your test site, marketing pages, the built React frontend.
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VPS (Module 7, Lesson 3):
- your own virtual server with root access; install anything;
- predictable monthly cost (from a few hundred rupees a month);
- you are the system administrator: updates, security, backups, monitoring (Course 6.1 skills);
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good for: Node.js APIs, databases, background jobs, learning.
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Managed VPS options exist in between: the provider handles some maintenance for a higher price.
- Size a VPS from measurements: start small (1–2 vCPU, 2–4 GB RAM), watch CPU, memory and disk (Module 65), and resize when needed. Most providers resize in minutes.
🖱️Try it
Compare your Hostinger plan with two VPS plans (Hostinger's own, and one other provider such as DigitalOcean, Hetzner or an Indian provider). For each, note price, CPU, RAM, storage, bandwidth, backups included, data-centre location and what you must manage yourself.
✅Quick check
What's the main trade-off between shared hosting and a VPS?
Show the answer
Shared hosting is cheap and managed but limited; a VPS gives full control but you must maintain and secure it.
How should you choose the size of a VPS?
Show the answer
Start small, measure real use, and resize when measurements show a need.