Managed Hosting vs. VPS: A Developer's Dilemma

Online, a recurring discussion has emerged among developers: should one move away from simplified hosting services like Vercel or Netlify in favor of a Virtual Private Server (VPS)? This article takes a closer look at that debate and offers a perspective on this important question. But before we dive in, let's clarify what exactly a VPS is, as understanding it is crucial to judging whether it's a superior alternative to managed hosting providers.

Understanding the Virtual Private Server (VPS)

So, what is a VPS? A VPS, as the name implies, is ultimately a server—a computer configured to host your web applications. While it could theoretically run any kind of application, such as a utility script that executes hourly, we will focus on the web application and website use case for this discussion. It is a server that allows you to host your website, but it's not a physical computer you own. Instead, it's a managed service provided by a cloud provider.

These providers own, operate, and configure the hardware, offering it to you as a service. Well-known examples include: - AWS (with its EC2 product) - Azure - Hetzner (which has gained significant traction recently) - Linode and numerous others

You, as the customer, can rent these virtual private servers, connect to them, and deploy your applications onto them.

It's important to understand that a VPS is not an entire physical machine. Instead, it is a fully isolated portion of a larger machine. You and many other customers share a single powerful computer, with each user receiving a partitioned, isolated section. This isolation ensures that your application and data cannot be accessed by others on the same machine. Furthermore, software solutions guarantee that each user gets a specific allocation of CPU and network bandwidth, making it feel almost like a dedicated computer that you own. In essence, a VPS is an isolated part of a computer in the cloud.

The Hands-On Approach: Setting Up Your Own VPS

If you opt to go for a VPS, you must make several initial choices. You'll need to select a configuration that determines how powerful your VPS will be. Most cloud providers offer various tiers, allowing you to choose the number of virtual CPU cores, network bandwidth, and more.

Once you've chosen a configuration, the setup process involves multiple steps:

1. Operating System: You may need to choose the operating system or system image to be installed on your VPS by the provider. On a platform like EC2, there are multiple options, and you can even configure a custom image for future use.
2. Software Installation: After the initial setup, you will need to connect to the server, typically via SSH, to install any necessary software. This could include a specific version of Node.js for your application or any other required dependencies.
3. Code Deployment: You must get your website's executable code onto the server. This can be done using protocols like FTP, transferring it via SSH, or by installing Git on the VPS to pull your code from a repository like GitHub—a very popular solution.
4. Network Configuration: You will likely need to open specific ports to define which traffic should be accepted. Setting up SSL to support HTTPS connections is also a critical step.
5. Scaling and Load Balancing: For applications expecting traffic that a single VPS cannot handle, you may need to deploy your application across multiple servers. This requires a load balancer to distribute incoming traffic evenly across all instances.

As you can see, depending on your website's complexity, this can become a lot of work, and there's a significant risk of misconfiguration. You carry a great deal of responsibility with a VPS solution because while the hardware is managed for you, most other aspects are not.

The Alternative: Managed Services like Vercel and Netlify

Services like Netlify or Vercel take a different approach. They are typically built on top of cloud providers like AWS, acting as wrappers that abstract away much of the underlying complexity. They handle these services under the hood to give you an easier time spinning up your website.

For example, they remove the burden of choosing an operating system or configuration. They simplify the deployment process, often making it as easy as connecting a GitHub repository and letting the service handle the rest. The core idea behind these platforms is to provide a managed experience that eliminates the complexities you would otherwise face.

However, as a downside, they can become quite expensive. While many offer a free starting tier, you can quickly accumulate a significant bill. In certain situations, such as a sudden spike in traffic, you might face unexpectedly high costs. This is one of the primary reasons for the discussion about switching away from them. Of course, you pay more because you get that management and reduced complexity. To replicate all the features you get from Vercel and Netlify—such as logging, load distribution, automatic scaling, and security—by only using a provider like AWS or Hetzner, you would have to do a great deal of work on your own.

How to Choose: Key Questions to Ask Yourself

It's important to recognize that depending on the application you're building, you might not need all the extra features for which you're paying. You might not need load distribution if your website can be easily served by a single VPS. You might not need 100% uptime and could be fine with it going down temporarily during an update, especially if it's not a mission-critical website. Let's be honest, most of us have simple blogs or websites that aren't that complex to host.

Even more complex sites, like an online shop, might not get millions of visits every day. In that case, it might be acceptable if the site is down for 10 minutes per month. It's not ideal, but it might be okay.

Therefore, the actual question you have to answer is this: is your website so complex that you need all these advanced services? - If it is, you might be willing to pay more for Vercel or Netlify, or you might be willing to invest the time to learn AWS. - If you have a simpler website, you might be fine with just a VPS without all the added complexity.

On the other hand, even with a simple website, you might still prefer a service like Vercel because, despite the higher cost, you have virtually no complexity to deal with. Even though it might not be super hard to spin up your own VPS, you might not care whether you pay, for example, around $80 to $100 per month on a managed service versus as low as $10 to $15 per month if you roll your own. Depending on your business, that difference might not matter much, and the time saved could be worth it.

These are the kinds of questions you have to answer to decide what's best for you. You should definitely be aware that as your application gets more complex, hosting it on a VPS will also typically get more complex. In that scenario, the cost comparison of $15 versus over $100 might not be accurate anymore. But for many of us, our websites are not that complex.