How to move from shared hosting to a VPS in a weekend (2026)

This is the compressed version of the shared-hosting-to-VPS story. If you're technical enough to Google Linux errors, you can do this in a weekend for a WordPress or PHP-based site. This guide breaks it into a Saturday afternoon (setup) and a Sunday morning (cutover) with realistic time estimates.

Prices as of 2026-09-22.

Prerequisites (30 minutes Friday evening)

• A VPS account. Hetzner CX22 at $4.60/mo is the recommended default. Sign up at console.hetzner.cloud.
• SSH key on your local machine. ssh-keygen -t ed25519 if you don't have one.
• A backup of your shared hosting site (via cPanel → Backups, or via WordPress plugin like Duplicator).
• A quiet weekend where you can afford 30 minutes of scheduled downtime.

Saturday afternoon: build the VPS (3-4 hours)

Hour 1: Provision and harden

Log into Hetzner Cloud Console. Create a server:

• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• Type: CX22 (Falkenstein for EU, Ashburn for US)
• Add your SSH key.
• Create.

SSH in as root. Basic hardening:

```bash

adduser deploy

usermod -aG sudo deploy

mkdir -p /home/deploy/.ssh

cp /root/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/deploy/.ssh/

chown -R deploy:deploy /home/deploy/.ssh

chmod 700 /home/deploy/.ssh

sed -i 's/^#PermitRootLogin./PermitRootLogin no/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config

sed -i 's/^#PasswordAuthentication./PasswordAuthentication no/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config

systemctl restart ssh

ufw allow OpenSSH

ufw allow 80

ufw allow 443

ufw --force enable

apt update && apt upgrade -y

apt install unattended-upgrades -y

```

Hour 2: LEMP stack

```bash

apt install -y nginx php-fpm php-mysql php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-zip mariadb-server certbot python3-certbot-nginx

mysql_secure_installation

```

Create the WordPress database:

```bash

mysql -e "CREATE DATABASE wp; \

CREATE USER 'wpuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'CHANGEME_strong_password'; \

GRANT ALL ON wp.* TO 'wpuser'@'localhost';"

```

Hour 3: Nginx config

Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com:

```nginx

server {

server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;

root /var/www/yourdomain.com;

index index.php;

location / {

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;

}

location ~ \.php$ {

include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;

}

location ~ /\.ht { deny all; }

}

```

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

nginx -t && systemctl reload nginx

Hour 4: Import your site

Download your shared hosting backup to your local machine. Extract the public_html folder and the SQL dump.

Upload to VPS:

```bash

scp -r ~/Downloads/public_html deploy@vps-ip:/tmp/

scp ~/Downloads/db.sql deploy@vps-ip:/tmp/

```

On the VPS:

```bash

sudo mv /tmp/public_html /var/www/yourdomain.com

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/yourdomain.com

mysql wp < /tmp/db.sql

```

Update /var/www/yourdomain.com/wp-config.php with the new DB name (wp), user (wpuser), password, and host (localhost).

Test with hosts file (before DNS cutover)

Add to your local machine's /etc/hosts:

```

YOUR.VPS.IP.HERE yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com

```

Visit yourdomain.com in your browser. If the site loads correctly, you're ready to cutover tomorrow.

Remove the hosts entry when done testing.

Sunday morning: DNS cutover (30 minutes downtime max)

30 minutes before: drop DNS TTL

At your DNS provider (Cloudflare, Namecheap, wherever): change the TTL for your A and AAAA records to 300 seconds (5 minutes). Save.

Wait 30 minutes for the old TTL to fully expire from resolvers.

Cutover time

1. Take a final backup on shared hosting. cPanel → Backups → Download.

2. Put the shared hosting into read-only mode or a maintenance page (optional; helps prevent split-brain writes).

3. Change DNS A records at your DNS provider to point at the Hetzner IP.

4. Wait 5 minutes for the low TTL to propagate.

SSL

Once DNS is pointing at Hetzner:

```bash

sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com -d www.yourdomain.com

```

Certbot will detect the Nginx config, issue Let's Encrypt certs, and configure HTTPS redirect. Auto-renewal is set up automatically.

Verify

Visit yourdomain.com (in a new incognito window to avoid stale DNS cache). Site should load with a green lock. Check:

• Homepage.
• Login.
• Comments / contact form.
• Any password-protected areas.

If everything works: you're done. Total downtime: 5-15 minutes.

After the migration

Set up backups

Cron a nightly backup:

```bash

sudo nano /etc/cron.d/wp-backup

```

```

0 3 * root mysqldump wp | gzip > /root/backups/db-$(date +\%Y\%m\%d).sql.gz

0 3 * root tar czf /root/backups/files-$(date +\%Y\%m\%d).tgz /var/www/yourdomain.com

0 4 * root find /root/backups -mtime +14 -delete

```

Better: install rclone and sync backups to Backblaze B2 or DO Spaces so they survive VPS destruction.

Uptime monitoring

Sign up for UptimeRobot (free). Set a monitor for https://yourdomain.com. You will now know if the site is down.

Cancel shared hosting

• Download a final backup for insurance.
• Cancel the shared hosting.
• Keep the backup for 60 days.

Total cost comparison

• Shared hosting (Bluehost Choice Plus renewal): $18/mo → $216/year.
• Hetzner VPS after migration: $4.60/mo → $55/year.

Annual saving: $161 for a weekend of work. And every subsequent year saves another $161.

Related guides

• Shared hosting to plain VPS migration — the deeper version of this guide.
• Shared hosting to Cloudways — if you'd rather stay managed at $14/mo.
• Best hosting for a WordPress site — the options in one place.

Prices as of 2026-09-22.