It is a very popular way of hosting the website, as it can be quite cheap and useful for small websites not spending alot of resources.

The main disadvantage of the shared hosting is that you are basily living in the same enviroment as other websites.

That can put a question of theoretical risk for your data security, for your emails going through (You all are sending it from one ip address, if one is spamming, all are considered spammers), resource measurment, etc...

If you would need a special software installed for your application, some hosting companies will install it for you on the shared hosting, but majority will not. The solution can be found in one more profound technology that is fastly growing in popularity.

So, what's VPS ?

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. It's basicly shared as well, but in terms of resources. On the shared hosting you will share the enviroment, services, etc., but on the VPS you will share the memory and CPU.

You will have "root" access to the machine, and will be able to install and configure your virtual server as you like.

Some of advantages of the VPS are:

- Server performance: All resources are equaily shared. One user cannot overtake the whole server with resources, so you are on the safe side there.

- Private mail server: You don't have to bother with the risk of being blacklisted because of other shared users

- Your distribution of choice: Basicly, there are quite a few hosting providers who allow you to choose between different Operating Systems. So you can continue to work on the distribution that you are used to working at home.

- Security: No one, except you, has access to your VPS server, and that minimizes the risk that your data will be stolen. You are practicly isolated in the enviroment with your own services and resources.

- Custom applications: You can install any application that you would like to be installed on your VPS, as long as it doesn't use more resources then you have.

There are number of advantages over Shared hosting, these mentioned are only a few.

If you are a user who is ex-shared hosting user, I would love to hear your opinion and experience with VPS enviroment.

Please feel free to comment.