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Let’s talk about couple of technical terms before we discuss this subject.

What is a bare metal server?

A bare metal server can be the cheapest option when working with an indie cloud hosting company.

A bare metal server, also known as a dedicated server, is a physical server which is assigned to a single user or business. Unlike the public cloud – AWS, Azure and Google Cloud – which shares hardware with other virtual machines – bare metal servers are exclusive.

By choosing a bare metal server, you essentially rent the entire physical server, including its processing power, memory, storage and network connectivity. Bare metal servers can be used to process large volumes of data, running online stores or web development environments.

What is a VPS and its benefits?

Essentially, independent cloud hosting providers offer a virtual private server (VPS). While a VPS is functionally a server, it doesn’t have defined hardware. Instead, a VPS shares the resources of one or multiple physical machines. This way, multiple VPSs can exist on the same physical server.

A cloud virtual private server (VPS) gives you the features and functionality of a dedicated server, but at a much lower cost. A VPS account is created alongside other virtual machines. You get full root access, cloud redundancy and failover, fixed resources, etc.

VPS is often said to be the middle ground between shared and dedicated server hosting. Resources are isolated, so you are at a lower risk of someone else on the server causing you problems.

Independent cloud providers can off the same service as the hyperscalers at a better price and with the same customer experience. They are just as dependable and reliable as the hyperscalers. the cost of Virtual Private Server is actually lower than maintaining a bare-metal server because you’re only paying for what you buy and use, plus there’s the lower admin cost of having to monitor your private server.

What is the difference between bare metal and VPS hosting?

Unlike a bare metal server, which has a set configuration of CPU, RAM and storage, a VPS server draws its resources from a shared pool. For this reason, the resources of a cloud server can be adjusted without needing to power down the hardware and perform physical upgrades, which would be needed on a traditional server.

Traditionally, you had a bare-metal service, which is renting a physical server of your own in a data centre. However, that’s being superseded by Virtual Private Server hosting, also known as infrastructure-as-a-service, which is linking up a shared pool of servers, so it’s a kind of best-of-both solutions.

These days, there’s very little need for a bare-metal server. Infrastructure-as-a-service or using a Virtual Private Server [VPS] is the future.