E-commerce & Retail

Server infrastructure for Online Stores

Sized from the workload rather than sold as a plan name: what Online Stores actually run, what that needs, and which tier it belongs on.

Recommended builds by size

Three sizes of operation, each sized from an assumed traffic figure.

Small

1–10 people · ~5,000 visits a month


VPS

  • Single Core
  • 6 GB RAM
  • 80 GB storage

A single site or team, with traffic that arrives in a predictable working-hours pattern.

Medium

11–50 people · ~50,000 visits a month


VPS

  • Single Core
  • 12 GB RAM
  • 150 GB storage

A growing business running several systems, where an outage now costs real money.

Large

51+ people · ~500,000 visits a month


VDS

  • 6 Cores
  • 48 GB RAM
  • 500 GB storage

Multiple sites or a busy platform, with traffic that spikes and an obligation to stay up.

Which tiers suit Online Stores

InfrastructureVerdictWhy
Shared Hosting Managed space on a shared server Workable Fine for a first storefront with a small catalogue, but checkout under load is where shared hosting shows its limits.
VPS Flexible virtual infrastructure with full root access Recommended Enough headroom for a catalogue, a cart and a payment gateway, with the caching layers a store needs to stay quick.
VDS Virtual server with resources pinned to you alone Recommended Guaranteed CPU is what keeps checkout responsive during a sale, when traffic arrives all at once rather than evenly.
Dedicated Server An entire physical server, configured to your specification Recommended The right tier for a high-traffic store, or one whose database has outgrown what a virtual instance can cache.
Bare Metal Physical compute for sustained, demanding workloads Workable Reserved for very large catalogues and enterprise commerce platforms running their own search and queue tiers.

Online Stores workloads you can host

Checkout is the only page that must never be slow: a timeout at payment is a sale that does not come back.

  • Storefront
  • Product catalogue
  • Cart & checkout
  • Payment gateway
  • Order management
  • Abandoned-cart email

Online Stores hosting by city

Each page names the closest of our 24 data centres and how far away it actually is.

Related industries

Online Stores hosting — FAQs

What server specification do Online Stores usually need?
It depends on volume more than on the industry. A medium-sized operation working from about 50,000 visits a month lands around single core, 12 GB of memory and 150 GB of storage.
How were these figures worked out?
From an assumed traffic level, the number of requests each page makes, and how much data the application keeps warm — then rounded up to a build we actually sell. They are assumptions stated out loud rather than measurements of your business.
Can we change size later?
Yes. Memory, cores and disk can all be raised on the same server, usually within the hour, with no rebuild and no new IP address.