Do I really need a VPS?

[mike406]

I'm sure this gets asked quite frequently, but I'm still rather new to finding the "best" type of hosting option. My forum gets a few hundred visitors a day, at peaks times around 150-200 people are browsing the site at once. Currently we're on a Linode VPS, but it's a friend's server, who I currently pay $40/mo for space, which is starting to become a bit of a burden for me. Would a premium or business shared hosting type package be sufficient?

Thanks,
Mike

[Panni100]

Most likely, I've had similar amount of visitors on hostgators basic package of about 90 dollars a year.

[wat3v3r]

100 users online simultaneously ? If so then yes you need a VPS as a shared host will not tolerate that much load for long...

[alemcherry]

Around 200 visitors at the peak is good enough traffic for a mid level VPS. You could have problems with shared hosting, especially if you have lots of plugins etc. Most shared hosts oversell, but you should be lucky to be on a shared hosting without breaking the CPU limits with that kind of traffic. Most business / premium packages do not offer any more CPU than basic hosting and the extra benefits normally would be more add-on domains etc.