Virtual Private Server (or VPS) web hosting is considered a performance and control upgrade from shared web hosting, but is not as powerful as hosting using a dedicated web server.
With VPS web hosting, your account still exists on the same physical hardware as other clients of your hosting provider. However, differing from shared web hosting setups, your hosting account has its own operating system, which gives you much more flexibility with using the hosting account. Also, the performance of a VPS server tends to be higher than with a shared web hosting account.
VPS hosting solves the problems associated with shared web hosting by setting up multiple operating system and hosting environments using virtual machine (or computer system emulation) software so that one physical server can be used to look like multiple, separate computers. However, the physical elements (including the memory, CPU, network interfaces, and other elements of the physical computer) of all of the virtual private servers existing on one machine are still shared, making it so that there is still a possibility of being affected by other hosting clients that share the physical hardware on which your VPS account exists. The risk of poor performance of VPS web hosting accounts is still much lower than with shared web hosting accounts.
The cost of VPS web hosting ranges from as little as $10 per month to around $100 per month. Pricing for VPS web hosting packages is normally based mostly upon how much memory (RAM) comes with the VPS host and how much disk space comes with the VPS account. Other factors that affect VPS host pricing include bandwidth (essentially how much network traffic is allowed for your VPS account) and other special hosting features that VPS hosting providers often use to differentiate their products from competitors.
VPS web hosting is available from most major web hosts, including almost all of the most popular ones. The largest and most popular web hosts almost always offer several hosting different options to their customers, including: