Hosting Reviews & Comparisons
Shared vs VPS vs Dedicated Hosting: Architecture & Decision Guide
Last reviewed
Summary: Shared hosting puts many customers on one operating system; a VPS gives you your own operating system on shared hardware; a dedicated server gives you the whole physical machine. Start on shared for a small site, move to a VPS when you need guaranteed resources or root access, and choose dedicated only for sustained heavy workloads or strict isolation needs.
How tenants are separated
01
Hardware
02
One Linux OS
Shared kernel, web server, PHP
03
Account A · Account B · Account C…
Separated by users, CageFS or similar
01
Hardware
02
Hypervisor
KVM or similar
03
VPS A (own OS) · VPS B (own OS)
Separate kernels and memory
01
Hardware
02
Your OS
All CPU, RAM and disks
Side-by-side comparison
| Shared | VPS | Dedicated | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Account-level | Virtual machine | Physical |
| Root access | No | Yes | Yes |
| Guaranteed resources | No; limits on CPU, RAM, inodes | Yes, RAM and disk; CPU often shared | Yes, everything |
| Who patches the OS | Host | You (unless managed) | You (unless managed) |
| Scaling | Upgrade plan | Resize in minutes | Hardware change; hours to days |
| Typical fit | Brochure sites, small blogs | Web apps, multiple sites, custom stacks | Large databases, high constant load |
Signs it is time to upgrade
- Your host reports you hitting CPU or entry-process limits ('508 Resource Limit Reached').
- You need software the host will not install (Node.js, Redis, Elasticsearch).
- Uncached TTFB is consistently slow even after optimisation.
- You need to meet a security requirement that rules out shared operating systems.
Estimate your real requirements with the bandwidth and storage calculator, then compare developer VPS options or return to the Canadian hosting guide.
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