Have you ever experienced that the pages on your website seem fast to you, but you're situated a lot further away from the server and it's felt slow? That’s where edge hosting shines. Instead of hosting your site from one server, edge hosting utilizes servers that are distributed across the globe, so any one visitor is connected to the nearest server. Pretty cool, huh?
Now, let’s compare that to a VPS (virtual private server). A VPS is hosted in one area. It is robust and reliable, but if many people are trying to access your site from countries far away, slow load times will occur.
So is edge hosting just the next evolution of the VPS? Let’s unpack that a little more.
• Faster load times — Since visitors are connected to the nearest server.
• More reliable — If one server goes down, another server nearby can pick up the load.
• Easier highway to scale — It handles a sudden spike in traffic a lot easier than a VPS.
Sounds great, right? However, there are a couple things that VPS still has going for them.
• More control—You set it up.
• Fixed monthly price—You know what you'll pay month to month.
• Good local usage—If your audience is situated in one country, VPS could possibly do the job.
I still use VPS on certain projects. For me, edge hosting is about as fast as a sports car—very fast, but only good for very special needs. VPS is more like a well built family car— Reliable, slow, and steady.
It's similar to when streaming came out - we didn't see cable disappear overnight, and both Technologies shined until 'we' decided what we liked best.
What Is Edge Hosting?
You can think of edge hosting as having multiple little data centers all over the world! The visitor doesn’t have to ‘wait’ for that data to load from the server that might be thousands of miles and many more milliseconds away; they only connect to the server nearest to them.Now, let’s compare that to a VPS (virtual private server). A VPS is hosted in one area. It is robust and reliable, but if many people are trying to access your site from countries far away, slow load times will occur.
So is edge hosting just the next evolution of the VPS? Let’s unpack that a little more.
Why Is Everyone Loving Edge Hosting?
I tried an edge hosting solution with a smaller website once, and to be honest, it was a night-and-day difference. It's pretty easy to see why people are now jumping on the edge hosting bandwagon:• Faster load times — Since visitors are connected to the nearest server.
• More reliable — If one server goes down, another server nearby can pick up the load.
• Easier highway to scale — It handles a sudden spike in traffic a lot easier than a VPS.
Sounds great, right? However, there are a couple things that VPS still has going for them.
Reasons VPS Hosting Isn't Going Away.
So just why do so many people still use VPS? Easy:• More control—You set it up.
• Fixed monthly price—You know what you'll pay month to month.
• Good local usage—If your audience is situated in one country, VPS could possibly do the job.
I still use VPS on certain projects. For me, edge hosting is about as fast as a sports car—very fast, but only good for very special needs. VPS is more like a well built family car— Reliable, slow, and steady.
Is Edge Hosting replacing VPS?
Not really. Edge hosting is changing things up, but VPS isn't going away. In fact, many businesses will probably use a combination of both VPS for their main setup and edge hosting for speed around the globe.It's similar to when streaming came out - we didn't see cable disappear overnight, and both Technologies shined until 'we' decided what we liked best.