Business of any sort is increasingly competitive nowadays as nearly every industry seems to have more players than ever, and that’s natural considering population growth and urbanization trends. If you’re in business yourself there’s no getting around the need to compete, and having an optimized online presence for your business is always going to a central part of doing that. These days more often than not a customer finds a retailer or service provider through a web search, and your site needs to be coming back high up in their results.
The web hosting that is behind your site and making it visible and visitable on the web is a part of that, and it’s also an integral part of how the website functions as a whole. This leads to looking at Linux hosting benefits, because websites will have different architecture and the way they are built means they will function better with specific types of web hosting. The reason Linux hosting features are worth noting is because most websites have architecture that ‘fits’ better with the frameworks of Linux web hosting.
This is one of two primary reasons why most Canadian web hosting providers will have Linux web OS servers. The other reason is that it’s more cost-effective to do so because of the fact that Linux is an open-source and this means savings with what the customers need to pay for the best Linux hosting in Canada. But here we will focus exclusively on Linux hosting benefits that will have 90+% of websites functioning at their best for people who NEED that as part of being competitive in whatever business they’re in.
So let’s get right into a more detailed overview of Linux hosting benefits for business websites when those sites look to be very decisive factors in whether or not a business is successful and profitable to the extent owners will want it to be.
VPS is Always Best
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server, and it is increasingly the only viable web hosting platform alternative for websites, web applications, ecommerce stores and other solutions where visitor traffic can spike at certain times, or completely randomly as may be the case. Traffic spikes can overload web servers if the site seeing those spikes is on a shared web hosting arrangement, but if your website is an extension of your business then having a flood of visitors arriving and interested in what you have to offer is a problem you WANT to have. VPS web hosting in Canada is the solution, as the private server is yours exclusively and you get all the bandwidth and operational resources required to handle traffic spikes. Plus a whole lot more in the way of website performance and solidity.
Often VPS and Linux is the best pairing for business websites that are growing in step with the business itself. Linux hosting benefits extend beyond that, as with VPS you have an isolated virtual server environments with dedicated resources allocated from a physical server. As such it bridges the gap between shared hosting, and they’ll never be any scenario where hundreds of accounts run on a single server. Similarly, you won’t need to take on the huge expense of a dedicated server, which involves renting an entire physical machine.
Go with a Linux VPS and you’ll have guaranteed resources like CPU cores, RAM, storage and bandwidth allocated for website or web app exclusively. With it webmasters will have greater control, flexibility, security and performance in comparison to what they’d have with shared hosting. Consider as well that VPS plans are more affordable than dedicated servers since the provider can host multiple VPS instances on powerful physical servers.
It is fairly common to have pay-as-you-go pricing models that will also contribute to optimized costs based on actual usage. Indeed, the appeal of lower overall site operating costs is always a big part of Linux hosting benefits, and where this becomes most apparent is when you weigh Linux hosting features against those for Windows web hosting – the other most common type of web hosting but one that is very centric with optimal performance being exclusive to sites that are built with Windows (Microsoft) architecture.
Benefits of Linux VPS that include:
- Stability, security and flexibility resulting from worldwide community development
- Open source code and access to thousands of free tools
- Lower cost for licensing and ability to fully customize the server OS as compared to Windows
- Better scalability for improved handling of anything from small loads to enterprise-grade web apps
- A vast ecosystem of documentation and support resources online
With capabilities like user isolation, configurable resources, root access and support for open source stacks, Linux VPS hosting delivers immense value for businesses at an affordable cost. There are key advantages for businesses here, as exampled by popular use cases and applications, technical factors to consider, criteria for choosing a provider, and the standard cost comparisons with other Canada web hosting options.
Linux VPS Hosting Key Advantages
We’ve explained that Linux is the most preferred platform for VPS deployments, and most often because it’s a better performance ‘fit’ for sites based on the way they’ve been built. The first place we can look with Linux hosting benefits is flexibility and customization. Something that will always weight heavily in favour of a Linux VPS is the immense flexibility it provides to customize the server’s configuration and installed software. Some sites are going to have applications or workloads that require this.
Full root access is possible with Linux VPS, and you can choose your preferred Linux distribution, tweak system settings, install required packages, remove unnecessary components and tailor the VPS for optimal performance. That’s a level of customization not possible with shared hosting where you are limited to the web host’s server stack and there is very often not enough to go around, particularly if other sites there are growing and having increased needs like yours does.
Next is enhanced performance and scalability, with Linux being better designed for efficiency, stability and high performance no matter how heavy a workload can become. Resources like CPU cores, RAM, SSD storage, bandwidth can be upgraded seamlessly in real-time to handle spikes in application traffic or usage. Better performance in comparison to shared hosting results from this scalability. Plus the ability to fine-tune configurations delivers significantly better performance compared to shared hosting, especially for dynamic websites and web apps.
Isolating applications in their own VPS containers with dedicated resources then means performance and uptime are shielded from the negative impacts of other users on the server. The last of the primary advantageous Linux hosting features we should point out before moving onto secondary ones is improved security and isolation. That security is paramount for any business application or platform is to be expected, and Linux provides inherent security advantages over Windows-based VPS options. Specifically with:
- Fewer vulnerabilities and malware risks than closed-source Windows
- Isolation between VPS instances to prevent one site from impacting others with targeted exploitation
- Ability to configure OS-level firewalls, access controls, encryption and other protections
- Absence of licensing costs means added budget resources directed towards security measures
- Known vulnerabilities being patched quickly by the Linux community
This isolation and control over security measures ensures your critical business data and infrastructure are protected on Linux VPS deployments.
Less Expense for VPS Web Hosting Customers
Cost savings compared to dedicated servers is a huge part of the appeal of VPS hosting, and especially when the entirety of performance needs are met for a site that has more of them. Renting dedicated physical servers with fixed hardware capacity can become very expensive for businesses as their infrastructure needs grow. The pay-as-you-go nature of VPS hosting provides huge cost savings.
For starters, you will only need to pay for the actual resources used rather than paying for over-provisioning of expensive dedicated servers so that peak loads can be handled with no chances of the site being unavailable to visitors. It also means that scaling up or down is quick, incremental and aligned to infrastructure needs month-to-month.
It is much simpler to migrate to higher configurations or servers when you are on a Linux VPS hosting plan, and it is fairly standard for Canadian web hosting providers to have options like one-year reserved instance plans that offer discounted rates. Most of the time Linux VPS is the right mix of balance of control, resources and affordable costs.
We can also look to the way the Linux web hosting OS is better for leveraging the open source ecosystem, as one of its biggest advantages is being open source and maintained collaboratively by a huge global community of developers and users. The benefits stemming from this are a huge part of Linux hosting benefits, and include:
Thousands of top quality open-source software packages made available for free, including web servers, programming languages, databases, monitoring tools and more
- No expensive proprietary software license fees or vendor lock-ins
- Ability to leverage open source code, modify and contribute back as needed
- Active forums for easy reference of documentation and supports for issues you may face
- Avoid expensive proprietary software license fees and vendor lock-in
Plus on top of that there is the way the thriving Linux ecosystem is conducive to significant cost savings and promotes faster and more thorough development efforts. With Linux VPS, your business has access to a vast open community.
Popular Linux VPS Use Cases and Applications
The flexibility and performance advantages you have with Linux VPS hosting makes it a good fit for hosting a diverse variety of workloads, from lightweight websites to enterprise-grade applications. There are many use cases we can point to here that and each of them will support the advantages that comes with Linux hosting features. Hosting CMS platforms is as good as any of them, and Linux is the go-to choice for hosting popular open source CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and others. The LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack running on Linux servers is best for these applications.
Linux VPS hosting lets you optimize the environment specifically for your CMS, add modules and extensions, and scale up resources to handle traffic surges without any chance of website inaccessibility for visitors. Many specialized CMS hosting providers offer streamlined Linux VPS configurations optimized for WordPress. Next is the way it is so much better for hosting dynamic web applications, and especially when a webmaster is using frameworks like React, Angular, Node.js and others that have dynamic resource requirements.
This is because when usage patterns change a scalable hosting platform is of the highest importance. With Linux VPS, you can upgrade CPU, RAM, storage and bandwidth anytime as needed and without any need to make retroactive changes or backtrack. Advanced capabilities like load balancing across instances and container deployments provide the robust hosting environment needed by data-driven web apps.
Hosting ecommerce stores and platforms is also better with Linux VPS, and the predominance of those in today’s online business world makes this another big part of Linux hosting benefits. Ecommerce sites only enjoy optimal performance and uptime when they have flexible yet robust hosting infrastructure behind them. A Linux VPS provides that in the best way possible by effortlessly scaling resources to manage usage spikes during promotions, holiday sales or marketing campaigns.
The security and isolation advantages are also crucial for ecommerce businesses to protect sensitive customer data and transaction information. Linux VPS allows merchants to focus on growing their business without any performance of functionality shortcomings in web hosting.
Application Development & Testing Environments
Developers are always big on Linux VPS too because of the way it offers isolated and portable environments that are better suited for developing, testing and staging applications before deployment.
Multiple configurations mimicking production infrastructure can be spun up easily for testing application compatibility and performance on different operating systems, web servers, databases etc. Tuning resources to simulate production-scale traffic during load tests is simple and reliable too, and then there’s the fact that Linux is also best for hosting big data platforms.
Modern big data frameworks like Hadoop, Spark and distributed data pipelines will run better on Linux as the scalable infrastructure provided by VPS better accommodates the demands of big data analytics. Data science teams like how computational resources like CPU cores and RAM can be dynamically added to speed up data processing jobs and workflows and it’s easy to see how this agility accelerates the pace of development.
Virtualization and container deployments are better with Linux too, and it is the go-to platform for open source virtualization solutions like KVM, Xen, Docker, Kubernetes and others that are increasingly integral supports for modern cloud-native app architectures. The hypervisor running on the Linux VPS hosts the guest VMs or provides the management plane for container lifecycle operations, and this lets companies use Linux VPS to better build and operate virtual machine and container-based workloads.
Technical Considerations with Linux VPS Hosting
A Linux VPS will provide immense flexibility but configuring, securing and managing it optimally will require key technical decisions that may not comes to easily to a lot of people tasked with making those decisions. This doesn’t take away from Linux hosting features, but it does mean webmaster need to make informed choices about with which Linux Distro (distribution) they choose to use. Some of the best ones for Linux VPS hosting are:
- Ubuntu – The consensus most user-friendly distro with long term support releases and proven for site / app stability
- CentOS — Derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Stable, secure and perfect for servers and also has the appeal of significantly lower end-user costs
- Debian — Known for being versatile and robust and has a strict focus on free open source software
- Fedora — Backed by Red Hat and comes with more regular upstream releases and frequent incremental updates
It is advisable to factor in support timelines, availability of security updates, hardware compatibility, ease of configuration, and the types of software packages required when choosing a Linux Distro
Provisioning optimal server resources is a part of this too, and it’s fairly common to have webmasters lauding the way that they have better sizing options for CPU cores, RAM size, SSD storage, network bandwidth and more when they are with a Linux VPS. This is also a big part of Linux hosting benefits, as it is another central aspect of how optimal performance for the expected workload and capacity for future growth are better with a Linux web host OS.
Effective Management of the Linux Server
Mastering command line skills and using tools like webmin or Cockpit simplifies you management of the VPS when creating users, configuring firewalls, putting system monitoring in place and more. You will also have the option to go with managed VPS solutions if you prefer offloading server administration tasks to experts. Being able to focus on apps instead of infrastructure is very appealing to a lot of individuals who are hand-on with the performance of their website.
Smoother migrations are another checkmark in favour of Linux, making it more doable to assess compatibility of existing apps and their dependencies with the target Linux distribution you have opted to go with. Webmasters can test and validate the complete migration process on a staging server before initiating the switch although you will still need to plan downtime windows carefully to minimize the extent that users are disrupted.
Best security practices will always need to be a part of this too, and you can better solidify your site when you have a Linux web host OS behind it. This is done with using SSH keys for authentication, installing fail2ban, enabling the firewall, automating security patches and other means that improve website security. You can also monitor user activity, implement role-based access control, take regular backups, use VPNs and consider DDoS protection to further strengthen security.
Consider automation tools like Ansible, Chef, Puppet and Terraform too to allow programmatically managing of the Linux VPS lifecycle. You’ll likely find you’re better able to provision resources, install and configure software, deploy apps, etc. Plus storing infrastructure-as-code templates in GitHub enables version control and collaboration for environment consistency.
Monitoring and Optimizing Performance
A Linux VPS is better for monitoring metrics like CPU usage, disk I/O, and bandwidth to proactively optimize and properly size the infrastructure and set alerts for critical thresholds. Linux does enable more here, along with making prudent technical choices is key to unleashing the full potential of Linux VPS hosting for your workloads.
We’ll conclude here by providing something of a checklist with what you should look for when choosing a Canada Linux VPS hosting provider, and much of what you’ll see here will reflect the Linux hosting benefits we’ve covered:
Robust and high-performing infrastructure
This has everything to do with data center, network architecture, and hardware as the backbone of the VPS infrastructure. Speed and reliability are dependent on it.Look for providers using cutting-edge components — fast multi-core CPUs, SSD storage, premium memory etc. 1 Gbps network is a minimum for demonstrating strong connectivity.
Managed support services
Look for 24x7 fast response support via live chat, phone and ticketing. Platform management services like migrations, monitoring, optimization will go a long way to improving site uptime and performance.
Flexible and fast resource scaling ability
The ability to upgrade computer, memory, storage and bandwidth is very in line with pay-as-you-grow economics. Web hosting provides that restrict flexible resource expansion are not going to be a good choice for you.
Reliable data protection & backup
Proactively safeguard against data loss and disasters through regular encrypted VPS backups. Verify backup frequency, retention policies and restoration processes.
Global infrastructure across regions
A geographically diverse network of data centers close to users is better for improved performance and much lower redundancy. You should be certain the provider has an infrastructure presence suitable for the markets you will be targeting.
Competitive yet transparent pricing
Upfront published pricing allows accurate cost planning, and less of a chance of hidden costs. Look for pricing models that offer flexibility and maximize value for money.
Usage and in-depth monitoring visibility
The ability to track fine-grained VPS utilization metrics helps optimize workloads and infrastructure efficiency. Robust monitoring is hugely beneficial with VPS hosting.
Reputation and technical expertise
Verify testimonials, client reviews and the provider’s track record in managing Linux VPS infrastructure at scale. When you can trust in the technical expertise of the people tasked with this at your Canadian VPS web hosting provider it goes a long way with convincing you that your business website is in the best of hands from the hosting end of the equation.
Prioritizing these parameters helps evaluate offerings and select a Linux VPS provider that best matches your application needs and business priorities. For the best Linux hosting in Canada you’re in the right place here at 4GoodHosting.
