When to Move from VPS to Bare Metal Server

When you're just starting out with hosting, VPS might seem like the obvious pick. Cheap, fast to set up, and gives you enough to get your project running without spending a lot of money. But as your business grows, you’ll get more visitors, more transactions, and you will need tighter security. All these reasons begin pushing what a VPS can actually handle.

That's usually when companies start looking at bare metal servers.

#VPS vs bare metal differences

If you are currently running on a VPS, you don’t own the entire server, but you do get a fixed allocation of its CPU cores, RAM, storage, and bandwidth. These allocations are guaranteed by virtualization, so they stay available to you even when other tenants are active.

At the same time, a VPS still runs on a shared server. The hypervisor that makes virtualization possible always uses part of the system resources, and performance can drop if other tenants push their workloads hard.

Here’s how VPS and bare metal compare.

#Why do most businesses start with VPS?

Most companies don’t jump into bare metal right away. Most people start with VPS because it is simple to use in the beginning. Other than that,

• VPS is much cheaper.
• In the VPS plan, the license for the OS or the control panel is already included. You don’t need to buy a separate license or manage extra payments.
• A VPS can be created in a few minutes from the service provider's dashboard.
• VPS usually comes with options like backup, monitoring, or snapshots already ready.

But most businesses eventually outgrow VPS.

#Signs that VPS isn't enough anymore

Below are some of the most common signs that your VPS is no longer enough.

#When your VPS resources are consistently maxed out

One of the clearest signs your VPS can’t keep up is when resources are always at the limit. You check the panel and see CPU usage stuck around 80-90% even during normal load. RAM is almost always full. At peak hours, storage I/O slows down and pages take longer to load.

Most providers will also remind you by sending warning emails. Sometimes you even face throttling or extra charges. When this becomes routine, it means your VPS plan is simply too small. Running like this only leads to poor performance and downtime.

#When you are scaling VPS vertically too often

Another sign is when you find yourself upgrading VPS plans every few months. At first, adding more CPU and RAM feels like the easy fix. But if it keeps happening, it means that your workload is outgrowing the VPS model itself.

Teams keep paying for bigger plans until they hit the provider’s top configuration. Some even start running multiple high-end VPS instances, which together cost more than a single bare metal server.

#When performance becomes unpredictable

Another red flag is when your server runs fine one moment and crawls the next. You see response times swing up and down during the day. Database queries that used to finish quickly now drag on whenever the host’s server is under load. Sometimes applications even time out for no clear reason, even though you haven’t changed the code.

Pages slow down, checkouts take forever, and customers start leaving. The loss in sales is usually bigger than the cost of better hosting.

If this pattern repeats often, it is a sign that the VPS is no longer enough for your workload.

#When your business reaches certain traffic thresholds

Traffic growth is a good problem to have, but it can also push a VPS past its limits. Most VPS plans work fine for small to medium workloads, but once you reach certain numbers, performance issues start to appear.

If your site gets more than 100,000 page views monthly, a VPS might start struggling with consistent speed. During peak hours, having 1,000+ users online simultaneously can cause delays or even timeouts. For apps with heavy data usage, processing 10,000+ database transactions hourly often pushes the system beyond its limits. These are rough examples, not strict cutoffs; actual performance depends heavily on app optimization, caching, and code efficiency. A well-optimized VPS may handle significantly more.

At these levels, the issue isn’t about adding a bit more CPU or memory. The whole model of shared hardware starts to hold you back. That’s when businesses move to bare metal, where the full server is dedicated to handling this kind of load.

#When security and compliance requirements change

As businesses grow, security needs often grow with them. What felt safe on a VPS may not be enough when compliance rules or customer expectations change.

Some industries require dedicated hardware isolation to meet regulations. In these cases, running on a shared server is no longer acceptable. Security audits can also highlight risks in a VPS environment, especially around multi-tenant hosting. And customer contracts may demand guaranteed hardware and resource allocation, which a VPS cannot always provide.

When these situations come up, it’s less about raw performance and more about compliance. Bare metal gives you the single-tenant setup needed to meet stricter rules and reassure customers that their data is handled on isolated hardware.

#VPS vs bare metal cost comparison

Cost is often the first thing people look at when choosing between VPS and bare metal. A VPS almost always comes out cheaper. You can use a small plan for a few dollars per month and get enough CPU, RAM, and storage to run a modest site or app. Even larger VPS plans with more cores and memory usually stay under a hundred dollars.

Bare metal is different. You are paying for the entire server, so the monthly bill is much higher than VPS. An entry-level bare metal server often starts around $40-100, depending on provider and specs. High-performance servers with modern CPUs, high RAM, and NVMe storage can easily go up to several hundred per month.

Licensing is another part of the equation. VPS plans often include the OS or control panel licenses in the price, but this depends on the provider. Some VPS providers bundle licenses (like cPanel, Plesk, or Windows), while others sell them as paid extras. Bare metal usually leaves those choices to you, which means additional cost if you need Windows or commercial software.

Another thing to consider is scaling and extra services. With VPS, you can move up one plan at a time, so the price increase is small. On bare metal, upgrades are bigger and often mean switching to a new machine. There are also hidden costs to watch for. Backups, monitoring, or managed support are often bundled with VPS but may come as separate charges on bare metal.

While the monthly bill is bigger, bare metal often reduces costs in other areas. Fewer crashes mean less lost revenue, and stable performance means less time spent troubleshooting. In the long run, those savings can outweigh the higher server fee. Therefore, once your business revenue is steady enough to comfortably cover a bare metal server, it is usually the right time to upgrade.

#Planning your VPS to bare metal migration

Moving from a VPS to bare metal isn't something you want to rush into. Need to plan the whole thing properly so your services don't go down and your new server actually performs better than before.

Good migration happens when it's smooth and controlled. Not when you're scrambling to fix things afterward.

#How to minimize downtime during migration

Downtime is the biggest fear in any migration. Even a short break can cost sales or damage trust. The first step is to pick the right time. Do the migration during off-peak hours when traffic is lowest. That way, fewer users feel the impact.

DNS settings matter as well. Lower the TTL value of your DNS records a day or two before the move. This makes changes spread faster when you point your domain to the new server. It avoids long waits, where some visitors still reach the old VPS.

You can also keep both servers running in parallel for a short time. Sync data to the new server and then cut over once everything is ready. Some use a temporary failover or load balancer to move traffic smoothly.

Before the final switch, test the migration on a staging setup. This helps catch problems early. Always keep a rollback plan ready. If something goes wrong, you should be able to switch back quickly without losing data.

#Data backup and transfer strategies

Before you move a single file, take a full backup of your VPS. Back up databases, application files, and configuration files. Test the backup to be sure you can restore it if needed. This is your safety net.

Use secure tools to transfer data. Rsync over SSH is common because it can copy files and also sync only the changes. SCP or SFTP are also safe choices. For databases, export them with tools like mysqldump or pg_dump, then import them on the new server.

A good tip is to sync most of the data ahead of time, then do a smaller final sync right before cutover. This way, the downtime window is very short. You should also copy over supporting items like SSL certificates, cron jobs, and environment files.

Set up the bare metal server with the same software stack as your VPS. Install the same versions of the OS, web server, and database. This avoids compatibility issues. Finally, verify integrity with checksums or test queries on the new server. That helps to verify that the data is complete and not corrupted.

#Post-migration performance optimization

Once the site or app is live on bare metal, your work is not finished. Now is the time to tune the system so it takes advantage of dedicated hardware. Start by disabling services you do not need. A clean system leaves more resources for your workloads.

Make changes to use the extra resources. Increase memory allocation for caching in databases. Adjust web server worker limits to match the number of CPU cores. If you have SSD or NVMe disks, use file systems and I/O settings that make the most of them.

Here's what you can think about in a checklist style.

• Bump up buffer sizes and cache pools in your database.
• Get disk usage optimized with the right file system and RAID configuration.
• Update network stack settings to fully use available bandwidth.
• Keep firmware, drivers, and OS patches updated for better stability.

After tuning, monitor the server under real traffic. Use tools like htop, iostat, or Prometheus to watch CPU, memory, and I/O. If you see one resource maxing out while others are idle, it points to a bottleneck. Fix these issues early.

Also set up monitoring and auto-recovery. Make sure critical services restart if they fail. Use alerts so you know right away if something goes wrong. With these steps, your bare metal server can stay stable and deliver the performance you need.

#Cherry Servers' bare metal hosting solutions

Most providers make you choose between speed and control. Cherry Servers tries to give you both. Our bare metal servers come with cloud-style automation, so you get direct hardware access without waiting days for setup. A pre-built server can be live in just 15 minutes.

You can pick from three main server types:

• Pre-built instant servers - ready in 15 minutes for quick deployment
• Custom servers - built with the exact hardware you need
• GPU-accelerated servers - designed for AI, rendering, and other compute-heavy workloads

All these run on next-gen AMD EPYC, Ryzen, or Intel Gold CPUs, with large memory pools and NVMe storage backing them up. They give you serious computing power for high-traffic apps, gaming, machine learning, or financial systems when you need it.

If you’re thinking about moving beyond VPS, Cherry Servers makes it easier with quick setup, powerful hardware, and the kind of control that bare metal is known for.