Managed or unmanaged hosting: which do you need?

A managed plan and an unmanaged plan can run on exactly the same hardware. The difference is the work around it: who applies security updates, who notices when something breaks, and who fixes it.

Who does what

Task	Managed	Unmanaged
Operating system updates	Host	You
Web server and PHP setup	Host	You
Firewall and security hardening	Host	You
Backups	Usually host	You
Monitoring and alerts	Host	You
Fixing a server that will not boot	Host	You, with the host’s console
Your website’s code and plugins	You	You

Notice the last row. Even on managed hosting, your site’s software is yours. A host will not usually fix a broken plugin or a theme bug.

What unmanaged really means

You get a fresh operating system, an IP address and root access. From that moment, the server’s security is your responsibility. That means at a minimum:

• Locking down SSH. See SSH keys.
• Turning on a firewall. See firewall setup.
• Keeping packages updated. See automatic updates.
• Taking backups that live somewhere else. See server backups.

None of these is hard, and the Your first VPS path walks through them in order. What matters is that they are done before the server holds anything important, and kept up afterwards.

Questions to ask about a “managed” plan

“Managed” covers everything from a full operations team to an automatic update script. Before relying on it, find out:

• Which software do they keep updated: just the operating system, or the web server, PHP and database too?
• Are backups included, how often are they taken, where are they stored, and who restores them?
• What response time do they commit to when the server is down?
• Can you still get root or SSH access, and does using it void the support?