Choosing between Windows VPS and Linux VPS often becomes the first serious technical decision for a website owner, online service, or business project. Both options are virtual servers with dedicated resources, but they run on different operating systems and follow fundamentally different usage logic. To make the right choice, it is important not to rely on popularity or personal preferences, but to understand how exactly the server will be used and what tasks it is expected to solve.
The decision to move to a dedicated server is often perceived as a logical step “for growth.” A business expands, a website becomes more complex, more users appear — and it seems that having your own physical server will automatically solve all problems. In practice, however, a dedicated server is not always necessary. To avoid overpaying for resources and complicating the infrastructure without real need, it is important to objectively assess whether your project is truly ready for this level.
Many VPS users perceive a plan as a conditional “package” of services that can be freely increased or decreased depending on their needs. Upgrading a plan usually causes no issues: more resources mean more possibilities. However, when it comes to switching to a lower plan, clients often face a refusal and do not understand why the provider cannot simply “reduce” the server. In reality, this impossibility has not a commercial but a purely technical nature, related to how virtualization and server infrastructure work.
Random access memory, or RAM, is the resource where a server stores data that programs need to operate “right now.” This includes website code, databases, cache, operating system processes, and system services. Unlike disk storage, RAM works very fast but has a limited capacity. On a VPS, the amount of RAM is fixed by the tariff plan, and the server cannot automatically use more memory than it has been allocated. As a result, the stability of a VPS directly depends on whether there is enough RAM to handle the current load.
At the start of any project, the desire to save money seems logical. The business has not yet begun to generate stable income, the load is low, and the server appears to be just a technical background element that does not directly affect sales. That is why many companies choose the cheapest server solutions or minimal configurations “for now.” The problem is that a server is not a one-time purchase but the foundation of a digital business. Mistakes made at this stage rarely show up immediately, but they almost always become apparent when the project begins to grow.
API stands for Application Programming Interface, which is a software interface for interaction between different systems. Simply put, an API is a set of clear rules that allow one program to communicate with another, send a request, and receive a response. End users usually do not see APIs and rarely think about their existence, yet they use them constantly. Logging in with Google, paying by card on a website, displaying the weather, exchange rates, or delivery status — all of this works thanks to APIs.
A dedicated server is often perceived as a universal solution for any online project. It is associated with maximum reliability, full control, and performance headroom “for growth.” However, in practice there are many situations where such infrastructure is excessive. In these cases, it does not provide real advantages but instead creates additional costs, complicates administration, and can even slow down project development.
VPS is often perceived as a “clean” server where all resources are available only to a specific website or application. The user expects that if nothing unnecessary is running, the CPU, memory, and disk will be used minimally. In reality, even in a state of relative idle, a server is never completely empty. Dozens of processes constantly run in the background, invisible at first glance, but it is precisely they that gradually consume VPS resources.
Artificial intelligence has gradually ceased to be an experimental technology and has become part of everyday business practice. Today, AI is used for big data analytics, process automation, forecasting, and language and image processing. All of this creates new requirements for server infrastructure. If previously the main focus was on stability and data storage, now performance, scalability, and the ability to handle constantly growing workloads play a key role. It is in this context that IBM introduced Power11 — a new generation of servers designed to operate in the conditions of the AI reality.
When a website, mail server, or API runs on a VPS, it receives its own IP address — a unique numerical identifier on the network. For internet services, this address has its own reputation, similar to a company’s business reputation. IP reputation is formed based on the server’s behavior: what requests it sends, which services run on it, and whether spam, phishing, or other suspicious activity is detected from it. A poor IP reputation can result in emails not reaching recipients, websites being blocked by browsers, and external services refusing to work with it.