When you get shared hosting you upload files via FTP. When most people move to their own hardware/virtualized hardware they install an FTP server and continue as before.
However there's no need whatsoever to install an FTP server – SSH provides one for you! All you need to is add a new user & set a password:
useradd <username>
passwd <username>
Then just give them a home directory to write to (by default they'll be able to read the entire filesystem):
usermod -d <directory> <username>
And login with an SFTP client (Cyberduck on OSX) using those details – FTP without the FTP server!