When would you switch to a dedicated server?
 

When would you, or did you, switch to a dedicated server? How many posts did your forum have? How many new posts per day?

Also, performance wise, is there a difference between shared hosting and VPS?

For me the decision to move to a dedicated server was not because of the number of posts or threads, it was because of the amount of concurrent users.

If you get a good VPS that is high spec and isn't partitioned too much, that should be enough. I'd say when you start to get 300+ users (members and guests) viewing the forum at once, you might want to move to a dedicated server.

Just keep an eye on your server loads. You should have enough control over your VPS to install things like XCache and modify your my.cnf file to increase performance. Also check out the vB Optimise mod. ;)

Okay so it's more about users on at one time rather than actual posts etc.

Normally idles at ~50-60 users at once with an average of 1000 posts a day or so.

Well I see it this way: I would never start out with shared hosting/virtual server again. I would always go for a dedicated server for my projects.

If money isn't the problem I would always opt for a dedicated server.

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