One of the most common questions we hear from businesses setting up FileMaker hosting is whether to go virtual or dedicated. There's no single right answer — but there are clear signals that point one way or the other, and we'd rather you make the right call for your situation than upsell you to something you don't need.
What's the difference?
A virtual private server (VPS) shares physical hardware with other tenants. Each VPS gets its own allocation of CPU, RAM, and storage — completely isolated from other customers — but the underlying physical machine is shared. Think of it as a self-contained flat in a building.
A dedicated server is yours alone. Every core, every gigabyte of RAM, every IOPS of disk performance belongs to you. Nothing is shared with anyone else.
When a VPS makes sense
For most small-to-medium FileMaker deployments, a well-specced VPS is the right choice. Modern VPS infrastructure is far removed from the sluggish shared hosting of years past — on quality hardware, a properly sized VPS performs excellently for the vast majority of FileMaker deployments. Consider a VPS if:
- You have fewer than 30–40 concurrent FileMaker users
- Your usage is relatively predictable without extreme peaks
- Budget is a consideration — VPS typically costs 40–60% less than equivalent dedicated hardware
- You want to start lean and scale later as your business grows
When dedicated makes sense
Dedicated servers come into their own when you need guaranteed, consistent performance and complete resource isolation. This matters if:
- You have 50+ concurrent users running scripts simultaneously
- Your solution processes large datasets or runs computationally heavy scripting in real time
- Security or compliance requirements demand full infrastructure isolation
- Your operation simply cannot afford any performance impact from neighbouring tenants on shared hardware
Our Belgium Rail deployment — 360 users, six servers, 50+ modules — is dedicated infrastructure. At that scale, there's no other sensible option.
What about the "noisy neighbour" problem?
The concern with VPS hosting is that heavy usage from another tenant on the same physical machine could degrade your performance. This was a genuine problem a decade ago. On modern enterprise hypervisors with proper resource guarantees, it's largely mitigated — but not entirely eliminated. If consistent, predictable performance under sustained load is non-negotiable for your operation, dedicated removes the question entirely.
Our recommendation
Start with a VPS sized correctly for your current user count and database, with sensible headroom. If you outgrow it, migration to a larger VPS or a dedicated server is something we handle without data loss and with minimal downtime.
We'll always tell you which is the right option for your situation — even if that means recommending the lower-cost choice. If you're not sure, get in touch and we'll talk it through.