Some web hosting companies call a Virtual Private Server a Virtual Dedicated Server or the other way around. In both cases they do refer to the same thing. Companies have called the product Virtual Private Server for years now but since Virtual Dedicated Server is easier to understand for a normal user hosting some hosting companies have started to call it that instead.

If you are looking at a dedicated server or feel that a shared host might not be right for you then you should certainly look at a virtual private server. The price is right between a shared setup and a dedicated setup. You will have a more consistent site with a virtual private server than a shared server because a certain % of each resource is allocated to you meaning you do not have to fight the other hosts on the server to get access to those resources. A virtual private server is more secure than a shared system where one can actually figure whose site is hosted on the server. With a virtual private server no one can tell you are on the system and you cannot tell anyone else is on the system.

Virtual Private Server is more secure than a shared server due to how the file system is setup. Even though you are sharing CPU, memory, and network connectivity you do not share the same file system. This means if someone else’s virtual server gets broken into there is no way they can go from that virtual file system onto your virtual file system. In a shared system there is only one file system and users can go anywhere they want on it to see who else is on there so if someone were to break into a site on a shared system they would have access to all the sites on the server.