What does VPS stand for? VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. Why do people need it? Because people need web hosting. For your website to run, the files must be somewhere and able to be accessed over a network. The VPS is the server that has an operating system installed on it as if it were a separate computer, isolated from other virtual servers, and it hosts your files. These files are what run your website so they need to be secure, and fast. That is why people choose a VPS over shared hosting, you get more security because you don't share the server with others, the VPS is an isolated environment.