When switching some of our websites over to VPS Hosting with HostGator, we decided to write down out questions and ask HostGator to respond. We thought it would be great to share out experience with the Joomla Hosting Community.
We spoke with Sales Administrator, Larry at HostGator, and he responded with the following answers to our questions.
10 Questions Answered by HostGator
1. When considering Joomla, what are the advantages of HostGator VPS hosting over shared hosting?
Larry: There are no technical advantages in the way Joomla will process. The advantages that you would gain is on the Shared hosting you would have a 25 simultaneous process limit that you are able to set your own limits if any on your VPS. Also here is a list of the PHP limits on the Shared hosting that you would be able to control yourself on the VPS http://support.hostgator.com/articles/cpanel/php-settings-that-cannot-be-changed
2. What makes the HostGator VPS solutions better than other VPS hosting solutions?
Larry: Bottom line is the reliability and our support is 2nd to none.
3. How doest tech support work for VPS solutions? Is the user responsible for any server or non Joomla updates?
Larry: Our VPS servers are fully managed. Which means that Hostgator maintains the operating system updates and all of the pre-installed software on the server. You take care of everything else.
4. HostGator has 9 levels of VPS plans. Both disk space and bandwidth requirements can easily be determined. Memory usage requirements are a little more difficult to figure out. What is the typical amount of RAM needed for a Joomla site?
Larry: There is no right or wrong answer to that question. Each Joomla configuration is different. The performance of your site is geared more toward how large your database is and the number of simultaneous connections to the database.
5. Does HostGator have any guides or figures for estimating the amount of RAM needed based on amounts of traffic for Joomla installations?
Larry: No we do not have any estimates for the Joomla requirements but we do offer suggestions on optimizing the performance. You may find them here http://support.hostgator.com/articles/specialized-help/technical/optimizing-joomla
6. Which plan level is the best fit for a Joomla site that gets 15,000 unique visitors per month with 75,000 page views and runs cPanel?
(and)
7. What is the best VPS plan for 7-10 sites that get a total of 100,000 unique visitors with 500,000 page views per month and runs cPanel?
Larry: 6-7 combined. Refer to the answers earlier, the number of visits to your site would fit on any of the VPS packages. The optimal numbers would be how many users are connected at any given time and how fast those are processed.
8. HostGator now supports Google’s mod_pagespeed on Dedicated and VPS solutions, have many users opted for this? Are there any noticeable improvements when running page speed? Any other thoughts about Mod page speed and Joomla?
Larry: Currently there are only binary RPM packages available to install this, a 32-bit and a 64-bit version. There are a couple of dependencies, and to get the most out of the module mod_deflate, it will need to be compiled in via Easyapache. Entries will also need to be added to the Apache configuration file. Since this can take some time to configure properly we will be charging a fee of $35.00 for VPS and Dedicated customers who request this module
9. If you wanted to make a Joomla site run as fast as possible what set up would you go with?
Larry: For optimal performance you would want to make sure that you follow the suggested performance enhancement techniques described in#5
10. What is the process to upgrade or downgrade a VPS Hosting Plan?
Larry: You would simply fill out a request form https://secure.hostgator.com/addons/vpsupgrade.shtml
