Hosting advice

Managed Cloud vs Self-managed VPS

Compare Managed Cloud Hosting and self-managed VPS by administration, support scope, backups and resources, rather than server size alone.

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The short answer

Giraffe Hosting’s VPS service is self-managed and provides root access. Managed Cloud is a separate service. Choose between them by who will run the server, what management covers and which resources your application needs.

Our team will explain the management included with your chosen service. Website development, plugins and external services may need support from your developer.

Questions for your server choice

Requirement	Self-managed VPS	Managed Cloud
Who administers the server?	You or your server administrator	Confirm the provider-managed responsibilities
Who applies patches?	Your administrator manages OS and service updates	Agree the patching scope and schedule
Who maintains the application?	You or your developer	Confirm application support and exclusions
Who monitors failures?	Arrange monitoring and an incident process	Confirm monitoring, alerts and response arrangements
Who restores data?	Arrange backups and test restoration	Confirm backup frequency, retention and recovery scope
How do resources grow?	Choose or change the VPS resources for the workload	Discuss a resource and scaling plan

Choose self-managed VPS when

You need root access and control, and have the time or technical support to administer the environment. Include licences, monitoring, backups and administrator time when comparing total cost.

Discuss Managed Cloud when

You want cloud resources with a defined management relationship. Share your application, traffic patterns, database activity, uptime requirements and deployment process. Ask for the service scope before ordering.