What Type of Web Hosting Should Your Business Be Using: Shared, VPS, or Dedicated?

Your website sits on a server somewhere. That server belongs to a hosting company, and the type of hosting plan you choose determines how much of that server you control, how fast your pages load, and how much you pay each month. The three main options are shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated server. Each serves a different kind of business with different needs and budgets.

GreenGeeks has operated since 2009 and currently hosts over 600,000 websites globally. The company powers its infrastructure with 300% renewable energy and maintains data centers in Chicago, Montreal, Amsterdam, and Singapore. With over 55,000 customers and a BBB A+ rating, the provider offers all three hosting types. The question is which one fits your operation.

Shared Hosting Works Until It Doesn’t

Shared hosting means your website lives on a server with other websites. You share the CPU, memory, and bandwidth with those neighbors. This setup keeps costs low because the hosting company splits infrastructure expenses across many customers.

GreenGeeks offers three shared hosting tiers. The Lite plan runs $2.95/month promotional with renewal at $12.95/month. It covers 1 website with 25 GB storage and 50 email accounts. The Pro plan costs $4.95/month promotional, renewing at $17.95/month, and allows unlimited websites with 50 GB storage plus on-demand backups. The Premium plan is $8.95/month promotional, renewing at $29.95/month, adding 100 GB storage and a free dedicated IP.

All shared plans include free CDN, free SSL certificate, and daily backups. According to HostScore’s September 2025 review, this pricing is competitive for what you receive.

Shared hosting makes sense for small businesses, blogs, portfolios, and podcasts. If your site receives modest traffic and does not run resource-heavy applications, shared hosting handles the load fine. A local bakery showcasing its menu and contact information does not need VPS resources. Neither does a consultant posting occasional articles.

The limitation appears when traffic grows or when your neighbors on the server consume resources aggressively. Your site slows down because you cannot control what other customers do with their portion of the machine.

When Traffic Spikes Become Predictable

Businesses that run seasonal promotions or host annual sales events face a specific problem. Shared hosting buckles under sudden load increases, and VPS plans may lack the headroom to absorb a 400% traffic spike during a flash sale. A dedicated server gives you fixed resources that remain available regardless of what other customers are doing on adjacent hardware. GreenGeeks offers entry-level dedicated plans starting at $169/month with Intel Atom processors, scaling up to Xeon-powered Pro servers at $439/month.

The cost difference between VPS and dedicated hosting matters less when you calculate the revenue loss from a crashed checkout page. A site selling $50,000 worth of product during a 48-hour window cannot afford the 15-minute outage that shared or undersized VPS hosting might produce.

VPS Occupies the Middle Ground

VPS stands for virtual private server. Your website still shares physical hardware with others, but virtualization technology carves out dedicated resources assigned only to you. When traffic increases, you draw from your allocated CPU and RAM without competing for scraps.

GreenGeeks structures VPS pricing by resource allocation. The 2 GB plan offers 4 vCPU, 50 GB SSD storage, and 10 TB transfer for $39.95/month. The 4 GB plan adds more RAM and 75 GB storage at $69.95/month, which GreenGeeks labels as their best selling option. The 8 GB plan delivers 6 vCPU, 150 GB SSD storage, and 10 TB transfer for $129.95/month according to HostAdvice.

All VPS plans include cPanel, free SSL certificates, free website transfer, and a Softaculous license. You also receive full root access, which means developers can configure the server environment however they need.

Security features at this tier include DDoS protection, account isolation, and nightly backups. CyberNews reported in January 2025 that GreenGeeks deploys DDoS protection at both network edge and application layers, with response time for network filtering under 10 seconds.

The 2 GB plan suits small businesses or developers running resource-light applications. The 4 GB plan fits growing businesses with moderate traffic. When your monthly visitors push past what shared hosting can handle, VPS absorbs the increase without performance degradation.

Resource Isolation Changes Everything

On shared hosting, another customer running a poorly coded plugin can slow your site. On VPS, that cannot happen. Your resources belong to you alone. The distinction matters for businesses that depend on consistent performance.

Testing from Hostingstep in April 2025 showed GreenGeeks achieved 395ms in TTFB tests with 99.96% uptime. WebsitePlanet’s November 2025 review recorded fully-loaded times between 1.2 and 2 seconds. Cybernews measured LCP at 1.2 seconds and fully loaded time at 1.6 seconds.

Hostalog’s monitoring recorded 99.9977% average uptime, which translates to under 2.5 minutes of downtime per month. That exceeds the company’s 99.9% guarantee. For businesses where every minute of downtime costs money, these numbers matter.

Dedicated Servers for Complete Control

A dedicated server means the entire machine belongs to you. No virtualization, no shared resources, no neighbors. You control the hardware configuration, the operating system setup, and every application running on it.

GreenGeeks offers 4 dedicated server tiers according to Bitcatcha. The Entry Server at $169/month uses Intel Atom 330 Dual Core technology. Pricing scales up to the Pro Server at $439/month running Xeon E5-2620 2.0 GHz with hyperthreading. All plans include server-grade processors, memory, and at least 500 GB SATA drive with 10,000 GB transfer as reported by IsItWP.

Dedicated hosting fits high-traffic enterprise sites, large eCommerce stores, and custom applications that require specific server configurations. If your business processes thousands of transactions daily or runs software with particular system requirements, dedicated servers provide the foundation.

Matching Hosting Type to Business Stage

A startup with 500 monthly visitors does not need a dedicated server. That would be like renting an entire office building for a 3-person team. Shared hosting at $2.95/month covers the requirements and frees up capital for other expenses.

When monthly visitors climb past 10,000 and page load times start creeping upward, VPS becomes the appropriate step. The jump from $12.95/month shared renewal to $39.95/month VPS pricing reflects the added resources, not waste.

Dedicated servers enter the conversation when your business generates enough revenue that hosting costs become a rounding error compared to lost sales from downtime. A $169/month dedicated plan looks expensive next to shared hosting. It looks cheap next to a crashed checkout page during peak shopping hours.

Support Structure Across All Tiers

GreenGeeks offers 24/7 live chat support according to Quicksprout, with phone support available from 9:00 a.m. to midnight Eastern Time. Ticket-based support averages 15 to 20 minute resolution time according to IsItWP. Servers receive monitoring every 10 seconds by automated software and every 30 minutes by a human engineer.

Security applies across all hosting types. Real-time scanning protects against malware, and the support team will clean compromised sites without additional charges. An AI-based web application firewall guards against application-layer attacks.

All plans include a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Making the Decision

Start with what your website actually requires today. A portfolio site with 200 monthly visitors needs shared hosting. An eCommerce store processing 50 orders daily needs VPS at minimum. A SaaS platform serving enterprise clients needs dedicated resources.

Then consider where your business will be in 12 months. If you anticipate growth, factor in migration time and potential disruption. Starting on VPS costs more than shared hosting, but it eliminates the hassle of moving everything later when shared resources become insufficient.

The hosting type you choose affects site speed, uptime, and your ability to handle traffic surges. It also affects your monthly expenses. Balance current needs against growth projections, and select the tier that matches both without overspending or underprovisioning.

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