Shared Hosting to VPS Migration

The Problem

Shared hosting is capping your site's performance or flexibility — you can't install the software you need, you're sharing resources with hundreds of other sites, or you've simply outgrown it — but setting up a VPS from nothing and moving everything across safely is a bigger job than it looks.

About this problem

Shared hosting trades control for convenience: the hosting company manages the server, but you're limited to whatever software, resource limits and configuration they allow, and you're sharing hardware with many other accounts. Moving to a VPS gives you full root access and dedicated resources, but it also means you're now responsible for everything the shared host used to handle invisibly — web server, PHP, security updates, backups.

This move usually happens when a site hits a resource limit, needs software the shared host doesn't support, or when performance under shared hosting's noisy-neighbour effect becomes a real problem.

What's Included

• Setting up the VPS from scratch with a web server, PHP, database and control panel (if wanted)
• Migrating your website files and database across completely
• Recreating email accounts, cron jobs and SSL certificates on the new server
• DNS cutover planning to minimise downtime
• A basic security baseline (firewall, SSH hardening) on the new server before go-live

What's NOT Included

• Ongoing server management/maintenance after the migration (can be arranged separately)
• Paying for the VPS itself — that's a separate cost with your chosen provider
• Performance tuning beyond sensible defaults (see dedicated optimisation services if needed)

How It Works

1. Set up the base VPS: OS hardening, a web server (Nginx or Apache), PHP, and a database server matching what your site needs.
2. Transfer website files and export/import the database, checking for any shared-hosting-specific paths or settings that need adjusting.
3. Recreate SSL certificates (Let's Encrypt or otherwise), cron jobs, and any email accounts that need to move too.
4. Point a test subdomain or hosts-file entry at the new VPS and fully verify the site works end to end.
5. Switch DNS to the new server once verified, keeping the old shared hosting active briefly as a fallback.
6. Do a final live check and confirm mail and site are both stable on the new VPS.

In practice: you buy the service, send over whatever access or details the job needs, I investigate and do the work, and you confirm it's resolved before we call it done.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is moving from shared hosting to a VPS worth it for a small website?

It depends on why you're moving — if you need specific software, more resources, or better performance under load, yes; if the site is small and shared hosting already handles it fine, the extra responsibility of running your own server may not be worth it yet.

Do I need technical knowledge to run a VPS after migration?

Not day-to-day if a control panel (like Plesk or CloudPanel) is set up, but you (or someone) need to handle updates and occasional maintenance that a shared host used to do automatically.

Will my site be faster on a VPS than on shared hosting?

Usually yes, since you're not sharing CPU and memory with other accounts, but the gain depends on how under-resourced the shared hosting was to begin with.

Can email migrate along with the website?

Yes, mailboxes can be recreated on the new VPS as part of the same migration, or left on the shared host if you'd rather handle email and hosting separately.

What happens if something goes wrong during the migration?

The old shared hosting account stays untouched and active until DNS is actually switched, so there's a safe fallback the whole way through.

How long does a shared-hosting-to-VPS migration take?

A straightforward single-site migration is usually done within a day once VPS access is available, though DNS propagation afterwards can take a few hours.