Is Hostwinds Business Hosting a VPS or a shared-hosting upgrade?
The short answer
It is shared hosting. Hostwinds describes fewer customers per server, LiteSpeed and higher resource allowances than standard Shared Hosting, but no root access. Business Hosting may suit a website that needs more room within that environment; software requiring system-level control calls for a VPS or dedicated server.
In more detail
Basic Business still shares server resources with other websites. Its higher allowances do not make it a private virtual server or give you unrestricted software installation. Hostwinds points customers who need administrator or root privileges to VPS and dedicated options.
For a conventional site that fits a managed cPanel environment, compare Basic Web Hosting and Basic Business against the resource the site needs more of, such as memory or concurrent work. A Linux VPS is also worth comparing if you want more system control or need custom services, with administration and licensing included in the cost comparison.