VPS servers:
for those who have outgrown shared — not those who feel they have.
A virtual server gives you reserved resources and root access, and takes maintenance responsibility and roughly three times the price. This category helps you work out whether that trade is in your favour.
Do not buy a VPS because your site is slow.
On most sites slowness comes from the theme, the images and missing caching, and fixing those is free. A VPS solves a different problem: not enough resources, or needing a privilege shared hosting will not grant. The guide below gives you three questions that settle it — and the four-year cost.
If you read nothing else.
A VPS does not make your site faster by itself
It gives you more resources. A heavy theme and oversized images stay heavy and oversized.
Maintenance moves to you
Updates, security and backups become your responsibility. That is the largest cost, and it is not money.
Roughly three times the price
$443 against $143 over four years, at reviewed prices.
Both figures are rounded: $443.52 for Hostinger KVM 1 and $143.52 for the shared Premium plan, worked out from the promotional rate and then the published renewal price on each product page. Reviewed 12 August 2026; the full arithmetic is in the VPS guide.
Shared hosting is probably enough for you.
We bought 12 companies, ran them for 30 days and worked out the four-year cost, with the renewal price nobody advertises.