Shared vs VPS vs cloud hosting: which do you need?
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Every hosting company sells the same three or four kinds of hosting under different names. Picking the right type matters more than picking the right brand: a great shared plan will still struggle with a busy online store, and a powerful VPS is wasted on a five-page portfolio.
Shared hosting
Your site lives on one server alongside hundreds of other sites, sharing its CPU, memory and disk. The host manages everything — updates, security, backups — and you get a simple control panel.
- Good for: blogs, portfolios, small business sites, your first WordPress site
- Watch out for: “unlimited” plans still have limits; a busy neighbour can slow your site
- Typical cost: the cheapest option, but check the renewal price
WordPress and managed WordPress hosting
WordPress hosting is usually shared or cloud hosting with WordPress pre-installed and tuned: caching, staging sites and automatic updates. Managed WordPress goes further — the host looks after performance, security and backups for you, at a higher price.
VPS hosting
A virtual private server gives you a fixed slice of a physical server — your own CPU cores, RAM and disk — plus root access. You can install anything, but you are also responsible for the server unless you add a panel such as Coolify, CloudPanel or a managed service.
- Good for: several sites, apps like n8n, developers, agencies
- Watch out for: security updates and backups are your job on an unmanaged VPS
Cloud hosting
Cloud hosting runs your site on resources you can resize in minutes, often from providers like AWS, Google Cloud or DigitalOcean. Managed cloud platforms add a dashboard so you don’t touch the server yourself. It suits sites whose traffic grows or spikes.
Side by side
| Shared | WordPress | VPS | Cloud | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who manages the server | The host | The host | You (or a panel) | The host or platform |
| Resources | Shared | Shared or dedicated | Dedicated slice | Dedicated, resizable |
| Root access | No | No | Yes | Usually no |
| Best for | First sites | WordPress sites | Many sites & apps | Growing sites & stores |
When to upgrade
Move up from shared hosting when pages slow down under normal traffic, when you hit resource-limit warnings, or when you need software the host doesn’t allow. Check your host’s resource usage page before you pay for more.
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