Managed vs unmanaged hosting: who actually needs each
Managed hosting costs 3-5x more than unmanaged. Here's an honest breakdown of when that's a smart purchase versus when you're paying for handholding.
The actual difference
Unmanaged hosting gives you a server. You handle OS updates, security patches, web server configuration, monitoring, and backups. If something breaks at 2am, you fix it.
Managed hosting handles all of that for you. The host monitors uptime, applies patches, mitigates DDoS attacks, and gives you support staff who can debug application issues, not just say 'try restarting'.
Who should buy managed
If your time is worth more than the price difference — which is most people running a business — managed is the obviously correct call. A managed WordPress host at $30/mo saves you 5-10 hours a month of admin work.
Ecommerce sites, agencies hosting client sites, and anyone whose income depends on uptime should default to managed.
Who should buy unmanaged
Developers, learning environments, hobby projects, and anyone running non-standard stacks (Node, Go, custom Python). Unmanaged VPS at $5-10/mo gives you full control and a great learning environment.
Just don't run unmanaged production with no monitoring and no backup plan. That ends one way.