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
| Infrastructure | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 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.
- New York
- Toronto
- Los Angeles
- Montréal
- Chicago
- Vancouver
- Calgary
- Houston
- Edmonton
- Phoenix
- Ottawa
- Philadelphia
- San Antonio
- Winnipeg
- Québec City
- San Diego
- Dallas
- Hamilton
- Austin
- Kitchener
- Halifax
- San Jose
- Jacksonville
- Victoria
- Saskatoon
- Seattle
- Denver
- Regina
- Boston
- Mississauga
- Atlanta
- Brampton
- Miami
- San Francisco
- ‘Ewa Beach
- ‘Ewa Gentry
- Abbey Wood
- Abbotsford
- Aberdare
- Aberdeen
- Aberdeen
- Aberdeen
- Aberdeen
- Aberystwyth
- Abilene
- Abingdon
- Abington
- Abington
- Abu Hayl
- Accrington
- Acocks Green
- Acton
- Acton
- Acworth
- Ada
- Adams Morgan
- Addison
- Addison
- Adelaide city centre
- Adelaide Hills