Virtual Private Server hosting, or VPS, is the next step up from shared hosting.

With a small site, and not many visitors and not very heavy security requirements, share hosting is just fine, but if you begin to grow your site and/or begin hosting large video or image files, then you may want to upgrade to a VPS.

A VPS is a server that the hosting company divides into separate partitions, giving you your own separate partition. This is almost as good as having your own hard drive: you have root access, your files and traffic don't interfere with other hosting accounts, etc.

All you are sharing with others are the actual processing resources of the server: CPU, RAM, etc.

Of course, this is the major disadvantage of VPS. If you are still hogging resources, then you will need to go to a dedicated server, just for you.

Also, you will need to administer the software yourself: installing programs, upgrading, etc. You may require someone who knows how to administer a Linux or Windows host computer.

And this is one of the advantages as well: you aren't restricted by what programs the hosting company will allow. It essentially becomes your computer, to install whatever PHP or SQL or anything else that you please.

But it remains cheaper than having a dedicated server because you are still sharing the same physical hardware with somone else and the costs can be split.

What to look for in a VPS host

You will want to know how many other accounts will be sharing the same server as you, and you will want to know the hardware specifications of that server.

You will also want to know how the hosting company will divy up the hardware resources; if someone else is hogging the RAM, are you guaranteed a certain amount no matter what?