When should I upgrade to VPS hosting?

Updated on 23 Apr 2026

Web hosting beginners often get started with a shared hosting plan, which gives them everything they need to host a small blog or portfolio site. However, as their online projects grow and their needs change, shared hosting likely won’t cut it anymore.

For these hosting customers, the natural next step is to upgrade to VPS (virtual private server) hosting. With a VPS, customers will benefit from dedicated resources, better security and the ability to fully customise their server environment. But how do you know when it’s time to make the jump from shared hosting to a VPS? In this blog post, we’ll discuss all of the possible indications that you need to upgrade your hosting plan, as well as showing you the benefits you’ll gain from this switch.

Shared hosting vs VPS

Before we dive into the signs you need to upgrade, it’s important to first understand what shared and VPS hosting are and how they differ. 

With shared web hosting, you share a server with other hosting customers from your chosen provider. This means you have to share server resources, including CPU, RAM and disk space, and you won’t have root access to the server because it isn’t your own dedicated environment. You also won’t be able to host high-traffic websites because you don’t have access to all of the server environment’s resources. But the key benefit is that because the cost of the server is shared amongst many users, you can purchase a shared hosting plan for just a few pounds per month. 

Shared web hosting is best for:

• Small business websites
• Personal sites and blogs
• Online portfolios 
• Small testing projects
• Simple HTML sites or WordPress sites with lightweight themes
• Sites with up to several thousand monthly visitors

A VPS is considered the step above shared hosting but below a dedicated server, offering superior power compared to a shared server at a much lower cost than dedicated hosting. 

To create a VPS, a physical server is partitioned into multiple virtual server environments, each with their own dedicated resources, dedicated IP addresses, dedicated storage space and full root access for server customisation – as well as benefitting from server isolation (which is important for data privacy and security). This makes a VPS much more powerful, and since you also won’t be affected by the resource usage of other customers on the same physical server, you can host larger projects and higher-traffic websites on VPS hosting.

VPS hosting is best for:

• Ecommerce websites
• More popular blogs
• Medium-sized businesses
• Application development and testing
• Higher-traffic, dynamic websites
• SaaS platforms
• Sites with tens of thousands of monthly visitors 

Signs your website needs to upgrade to VPS hosting

Shared hosting is more limited than VPS hosting in terms of resources, server configuration, privacy and security, but it’s tempting to stick with it because of the fantastic price. However, if you start to notice the signs below, your website’s performance could be severely affected – and visitors will start to notice and potentially avoid it.

1. Slow loading

As your website develops and starts to gain more traffic, it can outgrow your resource allocation on a shared server. In particular, if it cannot access the memory it needs, then visitors will experience frustratingly slow loading times, prompting them to use other, faster websites instead. 

However, even if your website has enough resources in theory, you can still experience poor performance if other users’ websites on your server use more than their fair share. The unpredictability of these spikes in resource usage can be off-putting if you hope to grow a business and encourage customer loyalty.

2. More frequent downtime

Another problem with resource scarcity on a shared server is that it can cause more frequent periods of downtime, which is where users can’t access your site. Traffic surges on your site or another site on the same server can trigger temporary inaccessibility, hampering your ability to do business or attract more visitors.

3. Lack of server customisation

As explained above, you won’t be able to customise your server environment to suit your personal needs because there are other hosting customers also using the same server for their own projects. Instead, the shared server is configured, managed and maintained by your hosting provider.

Whilst this lack of management responsibility may be a positive for less experienced hosting customers, it can become limiting for those who want their server to be more tailored to their needs. If you find yourself getting frustrated that you can’t choose your own software to install or tweak settings yourself, it may be time to upgrade to a VPS so you can benefit from full root access – which means complete control over your server configuration.

4. Less robust security and privacy

Although shared hosting plans from reputable providers will have many security measures built in, the fact that you’re on a shared server means that breaches on other sites on the same server could potentially affect you too. If you want to be totally private and isolated from other sites, you should upgrade to a VPS. And since a VPS will give you full root access, you can choose exactly what security measures you want to implement too.

These security concerns are particularly relevant if you have an ecommerce site. Due to the risks mentioned above, it’s not recommended that you use shared hosting if you need to securely collect sensitive information like payment data from customers. The total privacy and heightened security of a VPS is much better suited to hosting ecommerce sites.

5. Resource limit warnings

Finally, if you haven’t already upgraded to VPS hosting to resolve performance and security issues, warnings on your control panel or emails from your hosting provider about resource limits will give you the push you need to make the switch. 

To ensure that the server isn’t overloaded and there’s a fair distribution of resources between users, hosting providers will often impose resource limits on shared hosting plans. If you start to exceed these limits (such as by gaining more visitors to your site), you will receive resource limit warnings telling you that you’re hitting or exceeding these thresholds, reinforcing the fact that you’ve outgrown a shared server environment.

When should I upgrade to VPS hosting?

If you’re still wondering “when should I upgrade to VPS hosting?”, here’s a brief summary. Shared web hosting is a great option for those who don’t expect more than a few thousand monthly website visitors, helping them save a lot of money on hosting costs in return for dependable performance. However, as your site grows and starts to exceed the resource and security capabilities of a shared server, it’s best to upgrade to VPS hosting as soon as possible – preferably before you notice severe performance issues and resource limit warnings!

A VPS should be more than enough for your needs for a long time, or perhaps forever if your business website or ecommerce store remains medium-sized. However, if you ever think you may need enterprise-level hosting capabilities, check out our guide on when to move from a VPS to dedicated hosting.

Unsure how to upgrade your hosting? Read our blog post on migrating from shared web hosting to VPS, or contact us at any time for expert guidance.