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I have a website on shared server, which is been suspended , due to high traffic, Now I am planning some thing higher then shared server, I have never used or configure VPS. And after hearing about cloud servers performance and the cheap rates, I am confuse between them,

Should I go with Cloud Server or VPS?

I will be hosting a single wordpress site which will be having 500-1000 visitors per day,

One more thing, I have never configured a VPS or Cloud, so is it difficult to configure them and what OS in Linux, I have to select?

And is their any website for configuring a cloud server tutorial or something in basic to understand?

7 Answers 7

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I'd say the best way to find out your preference is to give it a try, one of the best features of VPS/cloud servers is that they are typically billed on a pay as you go, so you can spin up a new server try installing everything you want, run whatever tests you want on it and then delete it and it will only cost the hour or so you spent playing. I've used Rackspace Cloud in the past (as linked by Piers they have awesome documentation) their cloud servers start at $0.015/hour so you can setup a test server and play with it for 10 hours and it will only cost you $0.15.

http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hosting_products/servers/pricing/

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  • IMHO I think rackspace is just a mess with no price transaparency. I would rather go to buy a VPS on a flat plan, (there are millions of hosters offering such type of plans) where you know what you pay in advance. It's amazing how ISP companies go more and more towards flat plans for internet connection because they understood customers usually prefer price transparency, while these Cloud Hosters started back with these incomprehensible pay per hour plans.
    – Marco Demaio
    Jul 5, 2011 at 18:13
  • It really depends on your needs, if you have steady traffic then a fixed price is great, however, if your traffic sees big spikes due to promotions or some content suddenly going viral it's nice to have the option of scaling up when you need to then scaling back down when you can, on a fixed plan you'd either have to pay the higher rate (even when you don't need it) or run the risk of your server crashing. In terms of transparency the link I gave shows exactly what they charge and when (as do all cloud hosts I've used).
    – Joshak
    Jul 7, 2011 at 12:35
  • I thought at what you said, but still I don't see the point. If your plan have a big increase in visits, even on a VPS flat plan you can increase/decrease the server space/bandwidth by simply upgrading/downgrading the plan that you usually pay monthly. Moreover considering the huge amount of bandwidth/space a common hosting/VPS plan gives you nowdays I strive to see the need for a plan increase.
    – Marco Demaio
    Jul 17, 2011 at 14:24
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The more capable option to shared hosting would be a managed server while the VPS option you consider would rather be a more configurable option to shared hosting. You usually don't switch to a VPS to get more power but to tweak the system and run custom software.

The cloud thing really doesn't say much about the power or configurability, but about the fact that you can spin the service on and off on demand. A cloud server might be the equivalent to a VPS or an unmanaged server, but paid on an hourly basis.

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Take a look at these articles. There's some good general linux knowledge there

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There are only small differences. VPS hosting while it can be served via a cluster is commonly found on a single "beefed up" server. While cloud computing is generally found run on a cluster of servers that allow for redundancy and fail over. Additionally, you will commonly find that cloud computing is using ISCSI or other form of Network Storage for its storage space, while most of the VPS hosts I see are using local storage.

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A cloud or VPS server that is setup with cpanel (or your control panel of choice) will not really make any difference to you and should seem very much like the old shared hosting you used. Both will perform fine for 500-1000/day visitors, even when configured with a low spec,

If your not technical or interested in learning then the important part is to select a "Managed" service. This will give you access to the experts at the hosting company who will look after the server and software. An unmanaged service will leave you to take care of upgrades, security and configuration.

You can see the difference in support levels for Storm Cloud Servers

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A good VPS setup is essentially a cloud setup. But as mentioned above most VPS services run on single beefed up servers.

When choosing a cloud service get one that bill on monthly rather than daily or specific cycles. IF you have a high volume site it wont be that you get suspended but you get a bill you can never afford to pay.

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In a Cloud Hosting if a physical server fails, then there is an option of migrating cloud servers into another physical server without experiencing an outage ; in VPS hosting this is not available .Here it is seen that when any physical server fails all the VPSs on that server fails.

A cloud platform has multiple servers, so customers has the benefit of having unlimited storage, maximum bandwidth, managed load balancing service ; in VPS hosting storage is based on physical server limitations. Once the customer reach the maximum VPS capacity, he has to buy more space or look for some other options.

In cloud hosting one will be only paying for the services which he has used ;in VPS hosting if the traffic suddenly goes down the customer will end up also paying for the space he has not used.

Cloud server is scalable ,one can add more resources to the server like RAM,processors for data backup ; VPS is not scalable in this regard.

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