Shared hosting is where most websites start, and for a brochure site with a hundred visitors a day it is fine. The trouble begins when the site starts to matter: a shop that loses sales every time the page takes four seconds, a Laravel app that needs a PHP extension the host will not install, a client site that goes down because someone else on the same server got popular. A VPS fixes all of that for a few euros more than a good shared plan. This article explains what a VPS or VDS gives a WordPress, Laravel or static site, why people host theirs with RS Computers, and how to get from "I ordered a server" to a live, HTTPS-secured WordPress in about twenty minutes, with no Linux experience required.
Shared hosting vs a VPS: what actually changes
| Shared hosting | VPS or VDS at RS Computers | |
|---|---|---|
| Resources | Hundreds of accounts share one server; a neighbour's traffic spike slows your site. | Your own KVM virtual machine with memory and NVMe disk that are yours alone. |
| IP address | Shared with everyone on the server, including whoever sends spam. | A dedicated IPv4 address plus IPv6, with a clean reputation you control. |
| Software | The PHP versions and modules the host chose. | Root access: any PHP, Node.js, Python, Redis, Elasticsearch, whatever the project needs. |
| Traffic | "Unlimited" with a fair-use clause, throttled when you grow. | Unmetered on a 1 Gb/s port, 10 Gb/s on VDS plans. |
| Location | Wherever the provider's data centre happens to be. | Your choice: Prishtina, Amsterdam or Dublin. |
| Backups | Often a paid add-on, or none. | Free weekly backups of the whole server, restorable from the client area. |
| Isolation | One compromised site can affect the server. | Your sites run in their own virtual machine, behind your own firewall. |
Why host your website with RS Computers
- NVMe storage on every plan. WordPress is a database application: every page view runs dozens of queries. NVMe drives answer them many times faster than the SATA SSDs or spinning disks behind most shared plans, which is why the admin dashboard and the shop checkout feel instant.
- A location next to your visitors. If your customers are in Kosovo and the Balkans, a server in Prishtina reaches them over short local paths; if they are across Europe, Amsterdam and Dublin are two of the best-connected hubs on the continent. The plans page shows which locations currently have capacity.
- Your own IP address. A dedicated IPv4 means your SSL certificate, your email reputation and your firewall rules are not tied to strangers. IPv6 is included as well.
- Unmetered traffic. A viral post or a product launch is good news, not an overage invoice.
- Full control of the stack. PHP 8.3 with OPcache, Redis object caching, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, Brotli compression, image optimisation at the server level: the tuning that makes WordPress fast is all available because the server is yours.
- Free weekly backups. Every plan includes an automatic weekly backup of the entire server that you can restore yourself. Combine it with a WordPress backup plugin for daily off-site copies and you are covered twice.
- Linux or Windows. Debian, Ubuntu, AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux for the usual stack, or Windows Server on VPS Mini and all VDS plans for ASP.NET and IIS sites.
- Deployed in minutes, supported by people. The server is built automatically after payment and the login details arrive by email. When you have a question, you reach us on Telegram or by email, in your time zone, with a 24/7 NOC watching the network and hypervisors behind it. We have been serving Kosovo since 2018.
- Grow without moving. Start on a small plan and upgrade vCPU, memory and disk from the client area when the site grows; your files, database and configuration stay exactly where they are.
Which plan for which site?
| Plan | Typical use |
|---|---|
| VPS Nano (1 vCPU, 1 GB, 20 GB NVMe) | One small WordPress site, a portfolio, a landing page, or any number of static sites built with Hugo, Astro or Next.js export. |
| VPS Micro (2 vCPU, 2 GB, 40 GB NVMe) | A busy WordPress site or a small WooCommerce shop with Redis caching, or three to five small client sites behind a control panel. |
| VPS Mini (4 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB NVMe) | Agency hosting with ten or more sites, Laravel or Symfony applications with queues and workers, staging copies next to production. |
| VDS Small to Large (4 to 16 vCPU, 8 to 32 GB, up to 960 GB NVMe, 10 Gb/s) | High-traffic shops, large WordPress multisite networks, media-heavy sites, or a web agency's whole client portfolio on one machine. |
Getting a server
- On the VPS & VDS plans page, pick your location and click Get on a plan.
- Choose Debian 12 or Ubuntu 24.04 as the operating system. Optionally paste an SSH public key; otherwise a root password is generated for you.
- Pay. The server is built automatically, usually within a couple of minutes, and you receive an email with the IP addresses and root password.
- At your domain registrar, point an
Arecord forexample.comandwww.example.comto the server's IPv4 address, and anAAAArecord to the IPv6 address if you want IPv6 visitors served natively.
WordPress in 20 minutes with a free control panel
You do not have to type Nginx configuration by hand. CloudPanel is a free, modern control panel that installs Nginx, PHP 8.x, MariaDB and Let's Encrypt for you and adds WordPress with one click. It runs on Debian 12 and Ubuntu 24.04 and is comfortable even on VPS Nano. Log in to your new server first:
ssh root@YOUR_SERVER_IP
apt update && apt full-upgrade -yStep 1: Install CloudPanel
Download the installer, compare its checksum with the one printed on the CloudPanel installation page (the hash changes with each release, so copy it from there rather than from this article), then run it:
curl -sS https://installer.cloudpanel.io/ce/v2/install.sh -o install.sh
sha256sum install.sh
bash install.sh --db-engine=MARIADB_11.4After five minutes or so the installer prints the panel address, https://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8443. Open it, create the admin account, and you are in.
Step 2: Lock the firewall down
CloudPanel manages the firewall for you. In Admin Area → Security, keep ports 80 and 443 open to everyone and restrict port 8443 (the panel) and port 22 (SSH) to your own IP address. If your IP changes often, leave 22 open but switch SSH to key-only login.
Step 3: Add the WordPress site
Click Add Site → Create a WordPress Site, enter your domain, a site title and the admin login, and choose PHP 8.3. CloudPanel creates the database, installs WordPress and configures Nginx. Once the DNS record from the previous section has propagated, open the site and click SSL/TLS → Actions → New Let's Encrypt Certificate. Your site is now live on HTTPS.
Step 4: Make it fast
- In the site's Vhost settings, enable the built-in Nginx page cache (or install Varnish from the panel) so anonymous visitors are served from memory.
- Install the Redis Object Cache plugin; CloudPanel ships Redis, so it works immediately and takes most of the load off the database.
- Serve images as WebP or AVIF with a plugin such as Converter for Media or ShortPixel.
- Put the free Cloudflare plan in front of the domain for a global CDN, HTTP/3 and DDoS protection; keep the origin on your VPS.
- Set PHP memory to 256 MB and OPcache on (both default in CloudPanel), then stop: a lean theme and a short plugin list beat any amount of tuning.
Prefer no panel?
If you are comfortable in the terminal, WordOps gives you a tuned Nginx, PHP-FPM, MariaDB and Redis stack with a one-line site creation command, and Caddy plus PHP-FPM is the simplest possible setup for a single site with automatic HTTPS. Laravel projects usually pair best with a plain Nginx and PHP-FPM install plus a Supervisor-managed queue worker, all of which you can apt-install on your server. If you would rather run each site in its own container with its own PHP version, see our Docker on a VPS guide.
Moving an existing site from shared hosting
- Lower the DNS TTL for your domain to 300 seconds a day before the move, so the final switch is quick.
- Create the empty WordPress site on the new server as described above, using the same domain.
- Copy the site across. The simplest way is a migration plugin: install All-in-One WP Migration, Duplicator or UpdraftPlus on the old site, export, then import on the new one. For large sites, export the database with phpMyAdmin or
wp db exportand copywp-contentwith SFTP or rsync, then import the database and updatewp-config.php. - Test before you switch. Add a line to your computer's hosts file pointing the domain at the new server's IP, browse the whole site, log in, place a test order. Nobody else sees the new server yet.
- Switch DNS to the new IP, request the Let's Encrypt certificate, and watch the server logs for a day.
- Keep the old hosting for a week in case you find a forgotten file or email address, then cancel it.
Site email is the one thing not to move to the VPS: use your mail provider or a transactional service such as Postmark, Mailgun or Brevo through an SMTP plugin, so WordPress notifications and shop emails land in the inbox instead of spam.
Keeping it secure
- Enable automatic security updates on the operating system:
apt install unattended-upgradeson Debian and Ubuntu. - Use a long admin password and a two-factor plugin on WordPress; rename or hide the default
adminuser. - Keep WordPress core, themes and plugins updated, and delete what you do not use.
- Restrict
wp-login.phpandxmlrpc.phpat the Nginx level or with a plugin such as Wordfence or Solid Security. - Run a daily off-site backup with UpdraftPlus to object storage, in addition to the weekly full-server backup included with your plan.
- Use SSH keys, and restrict the control panel port to your own IP.
Frequently asked questions
Is a VPS harder to manage than shared hosting?
With a control panel the day-to-day work is the same: add a site, install WordPress, click for SSL. The extra responsibility is keeping the server updated, which the steps above automate. If you would rather not touch any of it, ask us for a managed setup.
How many websites can I host on one VPS?
As many as the memory allows. A typical small WordPress site needs about 200 to 300 MB under load, so VPS Micro comfortably hosts a handful and VPS Mini or a VDS can carry an agency's whole portfolio.
Can I run WooCommerce on a VPS?
Yes, and it is one of the best reasons to move. Start on VPS Micro with Redis caching; shops with thousands of products or heavy traffic belong on VPS Mini or a VDS.
Do you offer Windows hosting for ASP.NET sites?
Windows Server 2019, 2022 and 2025 are available on VPS Mini and all VDS plans. Install IIS and your .NET runtime and host as many sites as you like.
Can RS Computers migrate my site for me?
Yes. Send us a message on Telegram or email info@rscomputers-ks.com with the site's address and current hosting, and we will quote a migration or a fully managed setup.
Conclusion
A VPS gives a website the three things shared hosting cannot: resources that are yours, a stack you control and an address that belongs to you. With NVMe storage, a dedicated IP, unmetered traffic, free weekly backups and a data centre close to your visitors, an RS Computers VPS or VDS is a straightforward upgrade for any WordPress, Laravel or static site that has outgrown its first home. Choose a plan, install a control panel, and your site is on its own server this afternoon.