Developing a Professional Website

Developing a good looking website can all be well and good, but it is important that when creating a website that you take the content of the website into consideration as much as you may take the overall look and design of a website into consideration. If you want your website to look professional then you need to ensure that you design your site in such a way that it looks both professional but attractive at the same time; this kind of balance can be hard to achieve meaning that not many designers can create such an effect with ease. However, the quality of your written content is also important since visitors may be put off a website if the content is gramatically incorrect. If you want to develop a professional site for a client then you should also take into consideration the quality of your written coding since a good web developer should be able to ensure that all the clients wishes are fulfilled in as few lines as possible in both a web page and CSS style file. As a web developer, when building websites for yourself or for free for others you may not take into consideration how professional a website looks, but when developing websites for paying clients it is important that you make the website look as professional as possible.

To make any website look professional the content of it has to be written to a high standard to that all visitors can understand it and so that it makes sense; it is also important that website content doesn’t contain any spelling or grammar mistakes which may actually put visitors off from returning. When it comes to search engine optimization you will find that the content of a website will play a huge part in the ranking that your website achieves on any of the search engines around. Due to the internet being a very competetive place, it is important that any websites that you create are as optimized as possible for search engines since this will help make the website itself look more professional, but being higher up in search engine rankings will also help any website look professional. Other ways in which SEO may be able to benefit a website professionally could include:

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Basic cPanel VPS Security Measures

As server technology moves on and becomes more modern, the threats that face both Windows and Linux servers are becoming stronger meaning that they still pose a serious threat to even the most secure of web hosting servers. Many Linux based servers in the web hosting industry will be using the cPanel control panel so that clients of the web hosting providers concerned are able to manage their web hosting accounts, and so that the system administrators are able to manage the web hosting servers through a web browser. And as server technology moves forward and becomes cheaper, many users are upgrading their existing web hosting packages to VPS servers so that they can take advantage of the fact that they have their own resources; however, with this comes many users that are unable to secure their servers to such an extent that most attackers won’t be able to gain entry. Web hosting providers will in most cases offer you basic assistance when it comes to securing your server, but its the smaller things such as keeping your server software updated that can make a difference. However, whether you are good with managing servers or not there are still several different actions that you can take to ensure that your server is secure to an acceptable level.

The main steps that you will need to take to secure your cPanel VPS server to an acceptable level are really quite basic, and you may have software such as a firewall installed on your local desktop computer. If you are unsure as to any steps then your web hosting provider should have a support team that are able to install such security components for you. The main security components that you will be installing on your cPanel VPS will include:

• CSF Firewall
• RKHunter
• SIM (System Integrity Monitor)
• LES (Linux Environment Security).

We will also discuss the basic hardening of both PHP and Apache since if left unmodified both of these can be used to gain access to an insecure server. There are also measures that you can take to secure the MySQL database server.

Installing CSF, LES and SIM

CSF is a popular firewall in the web hosting industry since it integrates very well with the WHM side of the cPanel/WHM Linux control panel suite. When configured correctly CSF will block any IP addresses/hostnames that attempt to attack your VPS in any way; for example, you may find that a bot is trying to attack your server by trying to access a certain service using different username and password combinations - after a certain amount of failed logins, LFD (logon failure daemon) which comes with CSF will automatically block the attacking IP. Installing CSF really is a piece of cake; all you need to do for the basic installation is run the following commands in an SSH window:

• wget http://www.configserver.com/free/csf.tgz
• tar -xzf csf.tgz
• cd csf
• sh install.sh

Once you have done that, you will find that CSF has been successfully installed and can be managed through the WHM control panel. All you need to do is scroll down to the bottom of the left hand menu and select it from under the ‘Plug-Ins’ menu. However, in some cases you may find that your cPanel server already has another firewall combination install - APF and BFD; now, in order for CSF to work you will need to remove both of these, to do so you will need to run the following command from the CSF folder in your terminal window:

• sh remove_apf_bfd.sh

Once initially installed CSF will be running in what is called ‘testing’ mode which means that it isn’t doing its assigned job - protecting your server from malicious attackers. From here you will need to configure CSF yourself using the configuration file, and once you are happy with your modifications you only need to set the ‘TESTING’ variable in the configuration file from its current value of ‘1′ to ‘0′ which will then put the firewall into actions once it has been restarted.

LES and SIM aren’t as important to use as CSF may be, but both still have their uses when it comes down to the security of your server and the monitoring of it. The purpose of LES is to prevent any environment based attacks, i.e. attacks which may root from bugs or security holes that may exist in files that are hosted on your cPanel server. SIM is responsible for the monitoring of your system resources and the important programs that you may have running on your system and will notify you of any problems.

Installing and Configuring Rootkit Hunter (RKHunter)

Rookit hunter is probably one of the most useful applications that you can have installed on your cPanel VPS server. Although rootkits can’t be removed in most cases simply because they are installed into system files, RKHunter will still notify you of any rootkits that may exist in your system so that you can take the necessary steps to reload your cPanel server. Rootkit hunter is both easy to install and configure, and the best thing about it is that you can configure it to do daily scans to ensure that if any rootkits are discovered they aren’t able to affect your server too much. The main steps for installing RKHunter are:

• wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/rkhunter/rkhunter-1.3.2.tar.gz
• tar -xzf rkhunter-1.3.2.tar.gz
• cd rkhunter-1.3.2
• ./installer.sh

Once you have RKHunter installed it may be useful to schedule it to do daily scans and to update itself on a regular basis so that you don’t have to. In order to schedule it to do a daily scan you should follow these steps:

• vi /etc/cron.daily/rkhunter.sh (press ’shift + I’ to make the file editable)
• (/usr/local/bin/rkhunter –update && /usr/local/bin/rkhunter -c –cronjob 2>&1 | mail -s “RKhunter Scan Details” email@domain.com) - (replace email@domain.com with your own email address)
• press ‘esc’ and then type ‘:wq’, and your file will be saved
• chmod 700 /etc/cron.daily/rkhunter.sh

By following the steps above you are able to configure RKHunter to run a daily scan which will then be emailed to you but the same script will also do a daily update check.

Securing the /tmp Partition

Some of the attacks and exploits that can take place against any Linux server normally take place within the /tmp directory which is why it is incredibly important that you secure this one directory/partition. If you are running cPanel on a dedicated Linux hosting server then you simply need to run the following command to secure /tmp:

• /scripts/securetmp

However, it is a different matter on cPanel VPS servers since the above script doesn’t work on most Virtuozzo based VPS servers. In order to mount/secure /tmp on a cPanel VPS hosting server, you will need to add the following line to ‘/etc/fstab’:

• none /tmp tmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0

By mounting /tmp with noexec and nosuid we are able to ensure that no executables are able to run in the /tmp directory.

Securing Apache/PHP

There are certain measures that you can to ensure that any installations of PHP or Apache that you may have are secure. The most obvious measure you can take is to ensure that any installations that you have of either are up-to-date so that any security holes that there may have been in older versions have been healed on your own server. In terms of Apache you should ensure that you have specific modules installed such as mod_security which will prevent any web based injection attacks and mod_evasive which will prevent any web based brute force attacks.

Mod_security can be installed by recompiling Apache through the ‘EasyApache’ interface which is now included with all new cPanel installations. By re-compiling Apache you can also update PHP to the latest version that is available. Through EasyApache you can also re-compile PHP with SuHosin which will add another layer of security to any PHP scripts tha you may be hosting. Another important step to carry out is the enabling of PHP SuExec which can be done through the WHM control panel by following these steps:

• under the ‘Service Configuration’ section of the left menu select ‘Apache Configuration’
• select ‘PHP and SuExec Configuration’
• under ‘Alter Configuration’ set Apache SuExec to ‘On’

You should also disable certain dangerous PHP functions on your cPanel server to ensure that any unsecure PHP scripts that you are hosting won’t be able to compromise the security of your entire server. In order to do so, you should follow these steps:

• php -i | grep php.ini
• vi /usr/local/lib/php/php.ini
• in your PHP configuration file you should look for the ‘disable_functions’ line
• once you have found it, change it to: ‘disable_functions = “system,passthru,exec,popen,proc_close,proc_get_st atus,proc_nice,proc_open,proc_terminate,shell_exec ,highlight_file,escapeshellcmd,define_syslog_varia bles,posix_uname,posix_getpwuid,apache_child_termi nate,posix_kill,posix_mkfifo,posix_setpgid,posix_s etsid,posix_setuid,escapeshellarg,posix_uname,ftp_ exec,ftp_connect,ftp_login,ftp_get,ftp_put,ftp_nb_ fput,ftp_raw,ftp_rawlist,ini_alter,ini_restore,inj ect_code,syslog,openlog,define_syslog_variables,ap ache_setenv,mysql_pconnect,eval,phpAds_XmlRpc,phpA ds_remoteInfo,phpAds_xmlrpcEncode,phpAds_xmlrpcDec ode,xmlrpc_entity_decode,fp,fput”‘
• save the file
• restart Apache (service httpd restart)

You should also set a MySQL root password through the ‘Set Root Password’ option that is located under the ‘SQL Services’ menu.

Conclusion

Now that you have followed the basic steps to secure your cPanel VPS, you can be safe in the knowledge that malicious attackers are highly unlikely to be able to gain access to it in any way. However, it is still down to you to ensure that all the security software amongst other programs that you have installed on your VPS server is kept up-to-date. You should also monitor your VPS hosting server externally since then you will know if your VPS crashes but most importantly if anyone gains unauthorised access to it. If you are the only one using the server then you should also ensure that any PHP files of scripts that you are running are unaffected by any security features that you enforce but mainly that the actual coding itself is secure and can’t be injected.

Switching from Courier to Dovecot in cPanel

Dovecot and Courier are two IMAP servers that can be used in conjunction with the cPanel/WHM server control panel suite. Both represent reliable IMAP server solution for web hosting provider who wish to allow their clients to download email from their web hosting account using the IMAP protocol. Although both IMAP servers are reliable, Dovecot was recently introduced to cPanel/WHM in version 11.2.4 to give system administrators a choice over which IMAP server that they wish to use on their servers. Some web hosting providers may prefer to use one IMAP server to the other for reasons such as improved reliability or the specifications of their hosting servers may prevent them from using one.
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PCI Compliant Web Hosting

The PCI DSS program originally began as five different programs from different card providers that were designed to protect consumers who were using their cards online. The basic idea of the PCI standards is to ensure that all businesses and individuals who are accepting and processing credit/debit card payments through their websites secure their servers and databases to an extent that the information is being stored and processed as securely as possible. PCI compliant web hosting services tend to come in the form of either VPS hosting servers for dedicated hosting servers. By using PCI compliant web hosting services, you are able to assure your customers that their private information is being stored in a secure web hosting environment that malicious attackers will be unable to gain access to. Although the PCI standards are designed with the main aim of ensuring that credit and debit card information processed online is stored securely, you can use such standards when it comes to the securing of other personal information such as someone’s name and address. Finding PCI compliant web hosting isn’t hard since all you need to start off with is a blank VPS server or dedicated server that you can then build up on; once you have done that you can start to secure your new server to PCI standards.

The PCI standards set out different measures for different areas of ecommerce in which cardholder information is being handled, and these different measures can be taken in different situations. The main actions you can take to ensure that your dedicated hosting environment conforms with PCI standards include:

• the building and maintenance of a secure network - this in theory means that you should install a software firewall on your server to block any unwanted connections and that you should customize certain security rules and any passwords that you may have on software applications since you may find that you are still using the original default passwords
• the protection of cardholder data - to protect any personal information of others that you may be holding on your systems it is recommended that you use anti-virus software that will detect any trojans that are trying to steal such data, and you should also ensure that such information is encrypted so that if a malicious attacker does gain access to it that it is no use to them - you should also use SSL certificates so that any personal information that is being communicated between your sevrer and a client computer is encrypted
• system and network monitoring - you should regularly monitor all the traffic that is coming and going from your network, most specifically the traffic that may be accessing or trying to access any personal information you are holding, more notably your databases
• practical methods - you can use more practical methods such as ensuring that only those who need access have access to the personal information that you are storing, and that each different user who needs access to your computer network has their own logon ID.

Once you have secured your dedicated hosting environment to an acceptable level which meets PCI requirements you do have the option of having your server evaluated by a independent evaluator who will then be able to pass your server as being PCI compliant. Although this may not do anything for you financially, end users will be safe in the knowledge that the personal information which they are sharing with you is stored in a secure environment and is unlikely to be compromised.

The Importance of Backups

When looking at the specifications of web hosting packages you may notice that some web hosting providers mention that any web hosting accounts that they host are backups daily to external servers. Although this may not mean much to you, it means that if the server you are hosted on crashes for some reason any data that you held in your web hosting account is still safely backed up on an external server - this means that you hopefully won’t lose any data. However, many web hosting providers still stress the importance of having your own backups since their own external backups can’t always be relied on; in the case of VPS servers and dedicated servers it is normally required that you take your own backups since they are classed as forms of dedicated hosting and are out of the reach of your web hosting provider. If you have important information contained within your web hosting account in any form it is still important that you have your own backups as well as those of your web hosting provider; this means that if a backup provided by your web hosting provider is too outdated, you still have your own more up-to-date version which you can rely on as and when needed.

Web hosting providers will set their servers to take backups automatically at some point; such backups are normally daily, weekly and monthly to reduce the risk of any data loss. However, in some cases you may find that the backups which they have provided you with are either corrupt or don’t contain data that you may have added shortly after the last backup; because of this it is important that you make use of the control panel with which you are provided access to so that you can take your own backups.

Server-Side Backups

As a web hosting provider you will probably see it as your responsibility to take regular backups of your client web hosting accounts, although true it is still important that you urge your clients to take their own backups on a regular basis. When taking backups you will probably be taking backups of your own server configurations as well; although this may not seem as important as your customer data, it still represents an important point since when you restore your backups you will only need to restore a system wise backup rather than having to rebuild your server and then reinstate individual accounts. In order to create reliable backups of both your servers and hosting accounts, you should take the following measures to ensure that the backed up data is safely stored:

• use servers with RAID - you should try and ensure that you backup any data to servers which have hard drives in a RAID array - this ensures extra safety of any backed up data since it means that if the server’s primary hard drives fails there is at least one other hard drive in the array that is an exact mirror of that failed hard drive
• use rsync technology - on your Linux servers you can make use of rsync technology to synchronise the data between your server and the backup server - this can make for better results than standard FTP backups since it means that the data concerned can be kept in constant synchronisation
• compress backups - when backing data up you may find that it can take a long time for backups to be transferred from your server to the backup server, because of this you should make use of folder compression technologies such as tarballs on Linux servers and zip files on Windows servers - by doing this you are able to reduce the physical size of any backup folder, therefore meaning that it shouldn’t take as long to transfer it over.

Using such technologies to optimize your backups is a good idea since it means that they are more likely to be reliable when it comes to needing them. Compressing backups is also a good idea when it comes to storing them on your backup server since it means that they will be taking up less disk space; this in theory means that you can store more backups on your backup server, but it also means that you can use your backup server to serve more hosting servers.

As a web hosting provider you can also make use of the backup features that you have built into the control panel that you are using for your web hosting clients. Both cPanel and Plesk support the automatic backup of web hosting accounts to external servers, and the cron job is normally run at night as to ensure that there is minimal disruption to any websites that you are hosting.

Client Side Backups

As a client you should note that it is incredibly important that you take your own backups. Most web hosting providers use either the Plesk or cPanel control panels to offer their web hosting services, and lukily for you they both offer a client side backup option that will enable you to download backups of your own web hosting account. Instead of storing these backups on an external server, these control panels will allow you to download the contents of your web hosting account through your web browser.

cPanel

Taking account backups through cPanel is an easy process; first off you will need to login to your web hosting account using your existing user account details. After that you can make use of either the ‘Backups’ or ‘Backup Wizard’ options that are presented to you within the ‘Files’ subcategory.

[screenshot - ref above]

The difference between the two options is that the ‘Backups’ option will allow you to take more specific backups of different segments of your web hosting account - i.e. databases and website files; it will also allow you to restore any segment specific backups that you have downloaded previously. The ‘Backup Wizard’ will allow you to backup your entire web hosting account as well as restore any existing backups that you have downloaded. For now we will use the ‘Backup Wizard’ to generate a full backup of your web hosting account since this will be the best option for many.

To begin with you will want to select the ‘Backup Wizard’ from the home screen and select the ‘Backup’ option.

[screenshot]

You will then be presnted with a screen from which you can choose either a full or partial backup; for now we will make a full backup.

[screenshot]

From there you will be able to select where you want the generated backup to be stored. You can choose for it to be stored in your web hosting account’s home directory for download later, or alternatively you can have it uploaded via FTP to an external backup server.

Plesk

You can also use the domain manager in Plesk to download backups of any domains that you have hosted on a Plesk web hosting server. To begin with. you will need to select the ‘Backup Manager’ option from your domain’s home screen.

[screenshot]

With the Plesk Backup Manager you have the ability to generate backups and store them in your web space for download at a later date; you can also choose to have them automatically uploaded to an external FTP backup server.

[screenshot]

Backup Hosting

Once you have your backups generated, you may be thinking of where you can store them to ensure that the data which you have backed up is stored in a safe place. Many web hosting companies offer backup hosting packages which are only usable via FTP to ensure that you only store files in them; however, they generally come with generous amounts of disk space and bandwidth to ensure that you can easily store large backups in your account.

If you are a large company looking into backing up entire servers then you may want to consider your own in-house backup servers so that you are able to get the large amounts of disk space that you will require as well as the fast connection that you will be after. However, if you are after more reliable backups that are unlikely to be affected by a datacentre wide problem then you may want to consider purchasing an off-short backup account. Although the connection speed may be slower, it ensures that if there is a problem that is affecting both your hosting and backup servers there will be an external server that you can still make use of.

In conclusion, backups are important to take since if you find that one of your servers crashes then you may find yourself with clients asking where their data has gone. Although it is also the responsibility of your clients to take their own backups, you are still responsible for backups of your server configuration where appropriate so that you can restore your systems in the event of a crash or similar problem. As a web hosting customer you can make use of your web hosting provider’s control panel to take your own backups which you can then download or upload to an external FTP server.

VPS Hosting vs. Dedicated Server Hosting

VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting are both forms of dedicated hosting that are offered by many web hosting providers as a more reliable and practical web hosting solution when compared to standard shared hosting services. Although both services may cost more than your average shared or reseller web hosting package, the benefits that you will receive from having your own dedicated environment will benefit both you and your website, especially in terms of reliability and uptime. Although VPS hosting can still be classed as a form of shared hosting because of the fact that the physical server is shared with other VPS servers, it still shares many of the same features and advantages that dedicated servers come with, however the only let down may be the overall CPU allocation thar your VPS will receive. Both VPS servers and dedicated servers provide you with a dedicated environment in which you can install any programs that you wish to without affecting the performance of other VPS servers; this also means that you can carry out any custom configurations that you may require in order for any websites to function correctly on your server. Although you are expected to have some knowledge on how to manage servers, if you purchase a managed server hosting package then you can rely on your web hosting provider’s support team to offer you the help you need when you need it.

Resources

Like all web hosting packages VPS servers and dedicated servers come with their own allocated amounts of disk space and bandwidth, however with server hosting services you will also find that you will also have a specific amount of RAM that you can use and in the case of VPS hosting, you may find that you have been allocated a certain percentage of the hosting node’s CPU for your use only. In the case of VPS servers you will also find that you have been assigned a certain amount of ‘burst RAM’ to your server; this is generally RAM which you can use for a short period if you run out of guaranteed RAM on your server, but burstable RAM isn’t always guaranteed since it is normally shared between all the VPS servers hosted on one physical hosting node. However, in summary the main resources that you would expect to find with any VPS hosting server or dedicated server should include:

• disk space - all servers come with a certain amount of disk space that you are allowed to use up, this being virtual with VPS hosting and in the form of a physical hard disk drive with dedicated server hosting - the advertised amounts are normally the total that you have meaning that you should subtract the space that the operating system you want to use will take up as well as that which any applications will take up
• bandwidth - the amount of bandwidth that you have assigned to your server in general is the amount of traffic that you are allowed to have transferred between your server and any client computers that try and access your server in any way - this doesn’t necessarily have to be applied to web traffic only, but of course it does depend on the purpose of your server - for example if you are running a media server then it can also be applied to that
• RAM - the amount of RAM available to your server is the amount of spare memory that programs on your server have available to access if they need to - i.e. larger amounts of RAM may be required when running many programs since all these programs will require their own share of RAM - large amounts of RAM are normally required in servers because of the large number of websites that are being hosted.

When it comes down to which is better resource wise, you will find that dedicated servers are able to offer better value for money since the hardware itself within a dedicated server is physical whereas a VPS server’s resources are virtual assignments of the hosting node’s physical resources. Although the resources that you have assigned to your VPS hosting server can be upgraded very quickly and in some cases almost instantly, you are still limited by the physical resources of the hosting node, but even then the resources of the hosting node are being used up by other VPS which are hosted on it.

Dedicated servers aren’t really limited by anything in terms of resources. You are able to upgrade dedicated servers so that they are of a much higher specification than any VPS server will ever be able to meet. Such expandability allows dedicated servers to be deployed into an environment where regular upgrades may be needed or physical access to a server may be needed.

In terms of CPU allocation, with VPS servers some web hosting providers will share the CPU between all the hosted VPS on a fair share basis meaning that if one server uses up too much of the CPU, the server concerned will be stopped by the VPS daemon. With dedicated servers you have your own dedicated CPU and this means that along with the other resources which you have installed on your server, you are the only one who will be able to make use of them. If the node that your VPS is hosted on has one or even two powerful CPUs then you are unlikely to notice any performance issues, this also means that you can afford to have a less powerful CPU in a dedicated server, but of course it does all depend on your requirements as well as what you plan on using the server for.

Cost

It is common knowledge within the web hosting industry that dedicated servers can cost more than VPS servers, however high end VPS servers are now starting to meet low end dedicated servers when it comes down to overall costs. If you can afford to have a low end dedicated server rather than a high end VPS server then you may see benefits from it, such as increased performance CPU wise since you aren’t sharing it with any other users. Most of the cost of VPS servers and dedicated servers goes into paying the bandwidth bills that many web hosting providers receive; hardware and software costs also have to be factored into the overall costs of VPS servers and dedicated servers. However, using a managed server hosting service as an example you should be able to receive benefits such as:

• full support - if you choose to use a managed server hosting service then you will find that you are entitled to receive full support from your web hosting provider - if you are a beginner then you will find that this will benefit you greatly since it will mean that any issues or enquiries that you wish to make about your server will be taken of in a quick and timely manner that is more than likely to suit you needs
• advanced server monitoring - as a managed hosting customer, you will find that your web hosting provider will actively monitor any VPS or dedicated server that you have with them to ensure that they can provide you with the greatest amount of uptime and reliability that is available to you - if you are running a mission critical or business website then you will certainly appreciate how important reliable and high uptime web hosting services are to you as the consumer
• higher priority over other users - if you are a managed hosting customer then any support requests that you file are more likely to be prioritized by those which are for example filed by users who are on unmanaged hosting services - being able to communicate with an experienced support team in a timely manner may be important to your business since it can help iron out any issues that you may be facing very quickly.

VPS servers can range in price meaning that you can pick up a cheap one for less than £10, and although it will probably be unmanaged it will still provide you with a dedicated environment in which you can run your own applications without affecting the performance of other user’s servers. As you go up the price scale you will find that VPS servers come with greater amounts of certain resources meaning that you can use them for more resource intensive tasks thay may otherwise be only doable on dedicated servers. When you reach the high end of the price scale you will find managed VPS servers which come with the same kinds of resources that you will only ever be able to find on high end dedicated servers, but the key to this is that such servers normally cost the same amount as a low end dedicated server would.

Although dedicated servers may seem more expensive than VPS servers, you are paying for performance that is just not possible on any other form of web hosting. Although you are given your own dedicated environment with a VPS hosting server, you will find that you still have to share the node’s CPU with the other VPS servers which can have an adverse affect on the performance of your own. As you have your own dedicated hardware and the machine which you are using is physical, you will find that you don’t have to share the resources with any other users unless you explicitly wish to. Larger amounts of certain resources are also found on dedicated servers which means if you are running a large website which uses large amounts of disk space for example, then you may want to consider a dedicated server with multiple hard drives.

Which is better?

The decision on which is better is only one that you can make, and although you may be swayed towards one on the grounds of cost or reliability then you should check your requirements as well as your overall budget. VPS hosting servers are a good starting point for anyone but it is inevitable that some larger websites may need to go straight into dedicated server hosting. Managed web hosting services are the way forward for you though if you have the budget but feel that you may not necessarily have the time or skills to manage a server properly.

In conclusion, VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting are two forms of web hosting that are very similar in what they are able to offer users as well as in terms of cost. However, the one thing that sets them apart is the fact that VPS hosting is only a form of virtual hosting whereas with dedicated server hosting you are purchasing your own physical server. All web hosting packages are equal and the choice of which is better is one that each individual can make personally since everyone has their own thoughts and expectations of a web hosting service.