What is VPS?

[kevinandskyforever80]

And what does it do?

[Derek]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_server

[pornophobic]

And what does it do?

Virtual Private Server.
It gives you more control over what you run for your website and better performance than shared or free hosting.

[riotgamer81]

also useful for keeping things online 24/7 365 days per year

[chanh.ong25]

VPS is a "virtual machine" inside a physical machine and the creator can set how many cpu and how many memory your VPS can have but those resources are still shared with other VPS on the same server.

So if the creator oversell the physical server resource and your VPS will still be subject to the same problem as share hosting.

The only benefit that you will get in VPS is you will have a "virtual" full control of your VPS like root access if they give, install your own, and you might probably need to install your own patches, firewall setting, security lock down, backup, etc.

So VPS might give you some control and freedom but come with responsibility and load of work to maintain!