The most expensive mistake in my career wasn’t a line of code; it was a “yes.” Years ago, on a client project, I said “Okay” to the proposal “Let’s rent X servers for more scalability and redundancy,” not realizing how unnecessary cost we were about to incur. Today, with 20 years of systems architecture experience, I can say this clearly: most of the time, a single powerful VPS is more than enough.
This article pushes back against the “best practice” recommendations that often add unnecessary complexity and cost. Rather than dry technical details, I draw from my own experience to explain why less is often more—the “one VPS is enough” philosophy.
The Trap of Unnecessary Complexity and Cost
In large‑scale projects, especially at the outset, “scalability” and “redundancy” are spoken about as if they were holy scriptures. Those concepts are certainly important, but they often lead to over‑engineering far beyond actual needs. When we need a few servers, adding multiple load balancers, clusters, complex database replications, and automation tools creates massive upfront cost and operational overhead.
ℹ️ A Note from My Experience
I once managed the entire infrastructure of a medium‑scale e‑commerce platform on a single powerful VPS. Even on high‑traffic days, with simple optimizations and proper configurations, the server never exceeded 60‑70% utilization. In contrast, a similarly sized project that had multiple servers and components unnecessarily provisioned became a heavy burden both administratively and financially.
One of the biggest advantages of using a single VPS is simplicity. It’s easier to manage, faster to troubleshoot, and cheaper. Of course, the “single point of failure” concern may come to mind. However, modern VPS providers offer high‑availability features, and we can apply simple redundancy strategies (e.g., regular snapshots) to minimize that risk.
When Does Real Scalability Matter?
Scalability is often planned based on assumptions rather than actual demand. Predicting how much traffic an application will receive or how much data it will process is difficult. Therefore, instead of over‑provisioning from the start, it’s smarter to monitor performance and scale when needed. Scaling a single VPS—by adding more CPU, RAM, or disk—is usually far simpler and faster than provisioning new servers. Most VPS providers let you increase resources with a few clicks.
⚠️ Risk of Over‑Engineering
On one project, before we even had a user base, we spent weeks trying to set up a complex Kubernetes cluster. In the end we realized that for the simple web application we were running, that level of infrastructure was unnecessary and made management even harder. It was a perfect example of what we call “over‑engineering for no reason.”
True scalability is about the architecture of the application. If your app is modular and can run as independent services, you can host those services on separate VPSes when needed. That doesn’t mean you need them from day one. The “build first, scale later” principle is often the most sensible approach.
Simplicity and Efficiency: My Preference
Twenty years of experience have shown me that even the most complex problems usually have the simplest solutions. The same holds true for system architecture. A single powerful VPS can host all services (web server, database, cache, background workers, etc.). This makes inter‑component communication easier, reduces network latency, and simplifies debugging.
💡 What Can You Do with a Single VPS?
On a single powerful VPS you can successfully run:
- Web Applications: FastAPI, Node.js, or PHP‑based apps behind Nginx or Apache.
- Databases: Robust databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, or MongoDB.
- Cache Systems: In‑memory caching solutions like Redis or Memcached.
- Background Workers: Message queues (RabbitMQ, Kafka—for smaller scales) and worker services.
- Container Orchestration: Manage multiple services with Docker Compose.
Of course, this isn’t universal. Very large, globally distributed systems or workloads that require specialized hardware may not fit this model. However, in the vast majority of the projects I’ve encountered, a well‑configured single VPS has been the most cost‑effective and manageable solution.
At its core, this philosophy is about avoiding unnecessary complexity and using resources as efficiently as possible. Fewer servers mean less maintenance, fewer points of failure, and lower costs.
What do you think? What experiences have you had where a single VPS was sufficient?
