Choosing between a VPS and a dedicated server
Quick answer
Choose a VPS if you need to launch fast, scale flexibly, or don't need full hardware control. Choose a dedicated server if you need guaranteed, unshared resources, a specific hardware configuration, or have compliance requirements that call for physical isolation.
The core trade-off
| VPS | Dedicated Server | |
|---|---|---|
| Resources | Shared physical host, allocated slice | Entire physical machine |
| Delivery | You create it yourself in Portal | Each listing shows a time to deliver: instant delivery or custom delivery |
| Scaling | Resize vCPU and RAM; the primary disk can be grown, not shrunk | Fixed until you order different hardware |
| Performance consistency | Good, shares underlying hardware | Fully predictable, nothing else runs on it |
| Hardware choice | Fixed vCPU, RAM and disk per size | Chosen from the available server listings and configurator options |
| Typical fit | Web apps, dev/test, variable workloads | Databases at scale, compliance-sensitive workloads, high and steady traffic |
Questions worth asking yourself
- Do you know your peak load yet? If not, a VPS lets you find out without committing to fixed hardware.
- Does your workload need guaranteed I/O or CPU? Noisy-neighbour effects are a shared-hardware risk; dedicated removes that variable entirely.
- Do you have a compliance requirement for physical isolation? Some regulatory frameworks require it, check yours before assuming either option is fine.
- How fast do you need to be live? You create a VPS yourself in Portal. Each dedicated server listing shows a time to deliver, either instant or custom delivery, so check that before you commit.
Worldstream's Flexible VPS comes in five sizes, x-Small, Small, Medium, Large and x-Large, each with a fixed vCPU, RAM and disk allocation. You choose a size on the Create VPS form when you deploy a VPS, and every size includes a managed firewall (with VPN and HA failover), always-on DDoS protection, and your first IPv4 address at no extra cost. Live migration also moves your VPS off a host during platform maintenance without downtime.
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