Is A VPS Right For You?

A VPS is perfect for small to medium-sized enterprises that need scalability, web developers who want a flexible testing environment, e-commerce sites that require increased speed and security, and high-traffic websites.

VPS is ideal for running robust applications and handling high-traffic websites, offering dedicated resources and improved performance as its key advantages.

Whereas shared hosting is perfect for beginners, personal blogs, or small business websites due to its affordability and simplicity, it can often feel restrictive for many users, particularly as their website traffic increases.

If you’re running a smaller site and VPS sounds like overkill, check out our recommendations for the best shared hosting providers.

If VPS is your next move, read on to discover our top picks for VPS hosting providers and why we chose them.

Why Trust Our Recommendations

At HostAdvice, trust and transparency are at the heart of what we do. We combine deep VPS expertise with real user feedback, ensuring our recommendations stand out for their quality and dependability. Our aim is clear: to confidently guide you to the top VPS hosting solutions that best fit your needs.

Check Our Favorite VPS Providers:

• Kamatera – Best Overall VPS Hosting Provider
• ScalaHosting – Best VPS Hosting
• Hostinger – Best VPS Hosting
• Ultahost – Best VPS for Flexibility
• Time4VPS – Best Windows VPS Hosting
• Stablehost.com – Best VPS for Customer Support
• IONOS – Best Linux VPS Hosting

Ranking comparison between the Top Providers

At HostAdvice, we have performed extensive research on the hosting providers to figure out the best VPS services, the features they offer, and what sets them apart from the rest. Our experts have tested 25 products in the Virtual private server VPS category in the past year. More importantly, we are dedicated to continually improving our review methodology. For instance, we have recently upgraded our uptime and speed monitoring processes. Each review process is based on real-time performance, meaning our experts purchase the plans, just as a regular customer would. This way, HostAdvice can compare the Best VPS host’s promise with measurable results. We give extra points for transparency – we like companies that stand true to their promises, regardless of what they are.

As you can spot, we’ve allocated specific percentages to different factors depending on their importance for VPS web hosting services. The higher the weight, the more critical the factor.

Read more about our rating system here.

HostAdvice’s AI technology has sorted the best Virtual private server providers dynamically based on several key factors:

• Types of Hosting Offered: Availability of managed, unmanaged, and semi-managed VPS hosting plans.
• Performance and Reliability: Does the Virtual private server come with an uptime commitment attached? What if you experience downtime? Does the web host take responsibility for this and compensate you in any way if it happens? You should not accept anything less than 99.9% uptime. A good VPS host will provide at least a 99.95% uptime guarantee and above.
• Site Speed: Site visitors leave if your site takes too long to load, and that’s why we analyze the site speed a VPS host can deliver, considering factors such as SSD drives, the number and dispersion of data centers worldwide, server locations, CDN, other security enhancements and real-time performance.
• Bandwidth and Storage: How many resources do you get with the VPS web hosting plans? Storage refers to how much content you can store on the Virtual private server, including images and files, while bandwidth determines how much data your visitors can view at a certain time. In other words, both are critical to the operation of your site, so you must get “enough” of the two.
• Traffic Volume: How many visitors can the Virtual private server handle? Usually, these servers can handle anywhere between 1,000 and 1,100 users per day, which is sufficient for medium-traffic sites.
• Scaling Potential: What happens when you exceed the resources included in your VPS plan? How easy can you upgrade? Will it take a lot of time and effort on your side, or will the Best VPS provider handle this task (for free)?
• Features Included: numerous OS options & API, free migrations, on-demand, and live backups, native IPv6 support, DDoS, firewalls, domains, etc.
• Ease of Use: does the Best VPS provider allow for a user-friendly control panel option or not? Is the VPS plan appropriate for beginners and first-time users?
• Customer Support: the availability and technical knowledge of the support behind the Best VPS plan – preferably dedicated, technical support, available 24/7 via live chat, email, or phone.
• User Reviews: Experiences from worldwide users, beginners, professionals, and everything in between. Thousands of customers worldwide have shared their real-life experiences with specific vendors so that you get first-hand advice and honest feedback on one’s quality.
• Starting Price: Not classifying the VPS hosting plans as cheap or expensive, but analyzing their price-value ratios. What is the lowest price of the vendor’s VPS services, and what does this offer include? Check out our VPS Pricing page for more insights.
• Money-back Guarantee: Is the Virtual private server vendor committed to customer satisfaction? If you are not happy with the service, can you get your investment back? If yes, how many days does this policy cover? The longer, the better!
• Other Factors: Awards, establishment date, brand reputation, past incidents considered.
  

What Is VPS, and When Do You Need It?

VPS (Virtual Private Server) mimics dedicated server environments within a shared server. Thus, it combines the best aspects of the two – dedicated resources at an affordable price.

A VPS Hosts splits a single piece of hardware (the parent physical server) into multiple virtual servers using virtualization technology, called a hypervisor. In turn, it creates several separate servers on the Internet.

The best Virtual private servers grants users root access to change the hosting environment and install apps independently of other users, which isn’t possible with a shared web hosting plan.  In addition, VPS servers are much faster, more reliable, and secure than shared servers. At the same time, this piece of software that emulates dedicated hardware is much more affordable than dedicated servers.

In general, VPS makes a perfect choice for individuals or businesses that have begun their web hosting journey with a shared server but have eventually outgrown this plan. If you need more secure environments on a budget, a Virtual private server is the best choice for your website!

Virtual Servers Compared to Other Web Hosting Services

What makes Virtual private server worthy of your attention, time, and money? Let’s see how it compares against the two remaining most popular solutions – shared and dedicated web hosting.

• Shared Hosting: The web host handles everything with shared hosting, making it an excellent option for beginners in terms of ease of use and pricing. However, all users get the same “fair share” of resources, meaning you cannot isolate yourself from others. If another user on the same server experiences a spike in traffic or a security threat, your site will also go through issues. With fewer resources available, you will notice a decrease in speeds, inconsistent performance, or even adverse effects on your SEO rankings.
  Shared hosting is best for beginners in the niche, bloggers, websites with low traffic, or individuals on a tight budget.
• VPS Hosting: Virtual private server overcomes the issues of shared web hosting, allowing for dedicated resources, dedicated IPs, root access, overall better speed, performance, security, SEO rankings, and so on. Thus, it’s the perfect alternative for anyone willing to take the next step from shared hosting and has the budget to back it up!
  VPS hosting is best for medium to high traffic sites, programmers, game makers, and SaaS providers.
• Dedicated Hosting: While a Virtual private server is a middle ground, dedicated servers are the most advanced web hosting services available on the market. With a dedicated web hosting plan, you would get a physical server with all components, including CPU, RAM, and bandwidth, all to yourself. However, these advantages come at a price, making dedicated web hosting the most expensive solution.
  Dedicated hosting is best for high-traffic sites, enterprises, or anyone with a budget and tech skills to maintain their own “box.”

What Are the Benefits of Having A Virtual Private Server?

If you are still indecisive, here’s a summary of all that you can get with a Best VPS hosts:

• Dedicated or reserved resources isolated from other users on the same server
• Zero setup fee, making Virtual private server more affordable than dedicated web hosting
• Less hardware cost by considering a failover cluster to a single machine
• Instant allocation of server resources upon the server setup (including the operating system and CPU)
• Flexibility and scalability to increase your Web hosting resources to support the growth of your website
• Customization options for your resources depending on your needs (increase/decrease on-demand)
• SSH root access (like in a dedicated server) for complete control over the server configuration and application installation
• Better security levels than shared hosting due to virtualization technology separating you from others on the same server
• Use your OS and software (with a few exceptions, such as VPS web hosting providers that limit your use to Ubuntu)
• Access to high levels of storage and bandwidth, better reliability and uptime
• Transfer files from PC to Windows VPS through Remote Desktop
• Minimal user interaction with the servers (Managed Virtual private server solution offers pre-installed control panel and software)
• a Virtual private server can replace your physical computer with one running in the cloud

How Much Does A VPS Cost?

As mentioned, a Virtual private server costs less than dedicated servers but more than shared hosting plans. However, the cost of VPS hosting can vary greatly, depending on several factors.

It would be best to differentiate between Managed VPS vs. Unmanaged VPS (but more on that later). While you can pay approximately $5 for an unmanaged VPS, managed VPS prices range between $20 to $100 and more per month, depending on the configuration.

Even so, pricing is a subjective matter, and what might be cheap for you can be expensive for another user. So, that type of classification makes no sense. What you should focus on instead is the trade-off between price and quality.

Initially, you might get a cheap Virtual private server provider but pay for the service in other ways. For instance, you can experience a limited feature set, have to pay for many add-ons (included for free in the best VPS plans), a slow website, and insufficient levels of customer support. In the end, you might lose customers due to worse performance, harm your SEO rankings and overall profitability.

On the other hand, you can pay excessive amounts of money – but “expensive” doesn’t always equal “superior.” The solution is to find the proper balance between price and value. And the best way of doing so is to rely on sound research on hardware components, level of support, and overall performance of the Best VPS hosting provider.

Read more about VPS pricing here.

How Does VPS Work?

VPS (Virtual Private Servers) utilizes virtualization technology, such as KVM (for Linux) and Hyper – V (for Windows), to provide users with dedicated resources on a server with multiple users. The VPS hosting provider uses the hypervisor, which defines CPU, memory, and disk allocation to divide a single dedicated server (bare-metal server) into dozens of virtual machines.

A Virtual private server is similar to shared web hosting because it hosts multiple users on a single physical machine. However, these users don’t have to compete with others for bandwidth, space, and storage.

Instead, they get their own reserved share of resources. In turn, a Virtual private server is similar to dedicated web hosting because it offers reserved resources, privacy, speed, and security.

However, VPS customers get a single share of the dedicated server, virtually (not physically) separated from other users.

The main advantage of the virtualization technology is that other users on the same server cannot hog your resources if they experience a traffic spike.

They have a limit on their components or resource usage, and even if they exceed it, they cannot use up yours (which is the case with shared hosting).

In addition, VPS provides you with a dedicated IP address, meaning if another of your server neighbors experiences a security attack (say DDoS), your site will remain unaffected. Furthermore, you can add to your privacy with custom firewalls settings.

Managed vs. Unmanaged VPS Hosting: Which One Should You Choose?

Are you deciding between getting a managed or an unmanaged VPS for your business? The question you should ask yourself, at this point, is, how much control do you want, or are you comfortable having?

The key difference between managed and unmanaged VPS is who assumes the core server maintenance and management responsibilities.

If you go for a managed VPS plan, you will be able to take the hands-off approach, meaning the web host will take care of all technical aspects of your server. On the other hand, you would have to take on this responsibility with the unmanaged option. That’s why unmanaged VPS plans are significantly cheaper than managed solutions.

What Is Unmanaged VPS Hosting?

With an unmanaged VPS, you will get a bare and flexible server with no pre-installed software, applications, or operating system.

The Best VPS provider is responsible for maintaining the hardware and performing system-level health checks. On the other hand, you would have to assume server management and maintenance responsibilities.

And since you receive no licenses or support, you must have some advanced skills for this option, such as managing Linux CLI, Secure Shell (SSH), Security information and event management (SIEM), Web server software management, or Disaster Recovery (DR), specifically backup and snapshot management.

What Is Managed VPS Hosting?

A managed VPS comes with a pre-installed server administration software on a predetermined operating system, such as Web Host Manager (WHM) or cPanel on a CentOS server, or Plesk, DirectAdmin, or Virtualizor for Linux.

With a managed VPS, the VPS hosting provider takes on server maintenance and management responsibilities, such as server monitoring, technical support, software updates, malware protection, or DDoS protection.

Better yet, you can benefit from 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone, or email and get technical assistance if some issues affect your server.

What Is Semi-Managed VPS Hosting?

A semi-managed VPS is a middle ground between managed and unmanaged VPS hosting.

The Best VPS provider grants you a bare server with core software installation and support, such as operating system updates and patches, security enhancements, full web server support, proactive response, and restoration of monitoring events.

However, you will not receive control panel support, updates, patches, virus and spam protection, or external migrations (which is the case with a managed Virtual private server).

Linux VPS vs. Windows VPS: Which Is The Best Option For Hosting On A VPS?

If you are running a Python or an ASP.NET application, you should opt for Windows VPS. The Microsoft technologies will only work with Windows servers.

However, if your web application is developed with PHP/Node/Ruby, Linux VPS will be the best choice for you. PHP is much harder to configure on Windows. So, you must ensure that the Virtual private server runs a user-friendly control panel, like cPanel, especially if you have no extensive experience or skills. Another great option would be the customized solutions, such as Scala Hosting’s SPanel and Webdock.io’s feature-rich control panel.

If you’re using a Node application, you will be set with Ubuntu. With this option, you can customize the webserver based on your preference.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) vs. Google Cloud Platform (GCP): Which One Offers The Best Hosting For Virtual private server?

Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud offer VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) services. It’s similar to a Virtual private server; only VPC provides all resources on-demand in the cloud, utilizing different network technologies, such as encryption, tunneling, and virtual LANs (VLANs). In turn, VPC delivers isolated cloud environments.

AWS and GCP are both top-rated solutions, but AWS has a lower average latency error than GCP, accounting for faster performance. For instance, GCP exhibited three times the network latency compared to AWS and Azure when connecting Europe to India, says BunnyShell.

Besides, the CPU of AWS can compute more operations per second. The read/write and network speeds are much higher than GCP.

How To Choose The Best VPS Hosting?

Best VPS hosting requires profound expertise to run well. When choosing a quality Virtual private server service, you should consider several factors, including hardware components, your skill level, project needs, and budget. Essentially, your choice of the Best VPS hosting provider will determine the performance and reliability of your website.

Here are the key factors you need to dedicate special attention to when choosing a Virtual private server.

1. Get A Managed (or Unmanaged) VPS

The first thing you should consider is the type of VPS you need. It will define your ease of use and the scope of services you can expect.

With an unmanaged VPS, the web host takes on the responsibility of ensuring that the Virtual private server works and is connected to the network, but that’s all there is. If, however, you select a managed VPS hosting provider, you can expect and analyze several other factors.

2. Match The Virtual Private Server With Your Project/Website Needs

While shared hosting is more oriented to beginners, Virtual private server resembles dedicated servers more closely. So, if you have decided to upgrade from your shared hosting plan, it’s essential to approach the Virtual Private Server as a professional.

You should consider the hardware components. Whether you select managed or unmanaged VPS, you will need to analyze the machine’s hardware specifications: CPU, RAM, and Bandwidth.

• CPU (Central Processing Unit): It’s better to go for a processor with more cores and modest clock speeds than the fastest processor available. For example, 2xCPUs with 2.4 GHz and ten cores can grant you better performance than 2xCPUs with 3 GHz and four cores.
• RAM (Memory): You need at least enough memory to support the number of workloads you run on the system. Less memory can compromise your consolidation or your performance. However, adding more will only overspend your money. If you have a total of 40 threads of potential workloads (as in the example), and each workload requires 2 GB, you will need at least 80 GB of memory on your server. The closest binary equivalent to this number is 96 GB.
• Bandwidth: The adequate amount depends on the size of your website, the number of visitors, and the number of pages they visit. 5 GB of monthly bandwidth is sufficient for an average-size page of 50KB, 20,000 monthly visitors, and five pages per visitor.
• Storage Space: You need sufficient storage to support your site. While calculating the total size of your website isn’t very straightforward, you can use a web page size checker tool to estimate your storage needs. Usually, 5GB is sufficient for small sites, while 50GB works for regular eCommerce sites.

And that’s not where it ends. Instead of entirely relying on the promises of the Best VPS provider, you should also review what happens in practice. At this point, you should also review real-time results and measurements, including reliability (uptime) and stability (response time over a period).

3. Measure The Best VPS Performance and Reliability

Your Virtual private server should be able to handle traffic spikes, and you can estimate this ability using two performance metrics of your potential VPS host:

• Uptime Rate: how much time of the total your server will stay up, which ideally should be 100%. In reality, you can expect anywhere around 99.9% backed up with a Service Level Agreements (SLA). You should check how much uptime the provider guarantees and avoid anything below 99.95%. Keep in mind; scheduled maintenance won’t qualify for the uptime commitment.
  
  Warning

  Warning: Even a 0.01% difference can amount to a couple of hours of downtime, so consider the disaster this type of outage can cause for your website.
• Response Time: the time it takes the server to respond to a request, measured by TTFB (Time to First Byte) or how many milliseconds it takes to receive the first byte of the page after sending an HTTP request. The rule of thumb is the faster, the better. Still, it would help if you did not accept anything below 600ms – anything above is considered sufficient.

In addition, you can test the Virtual private server performance / perform server benchmarking using various scripting tools. This way, you can fetch various information about the server, including CPU and RAM, and perform various tests, including Sequential Disk Speed Tests, iperf3 Network Speed Tests (IPv4 and IPv6), and Geekbench 4 Benchmark Test.

4. Ease of Use and Support

While managed VPS can significantly facilitate your user experience, it doesn’t end there. Different VPS providers allow for different features and support. The best option at this point is to get an easy-to-use control panel, such as the cPanel. It grants complete access to essential features that significantly enhance the website’s performance.

At this point, you should also consider the help and support you can get. Customer support is an issue that’s easy to overlook while choosing your Best VPS plan. However, if something goes wrong with your site, you’ll soon regret not giving this more consideration.

So, whether you get a managed or an unmanaged VPS, make sure that the Best VPS host offers 24/7 customer support. The support team must have highly experienced professionals with years of experience in the industry to promptly fix technical issues. Also, make sure that they respond to the queries quickly. Try making a test call or chat with the support team to analyze their responsiveness and proficiency.

5. Set Of Features and Pricing

The Best VPS service’s set of features and customization options can either make it or break it. You should take a close look at the feature set before subscribing to any VPS plan. Does the Virtual private server provide root access? What are the security features that it offers? Can you benefit from free migrations? Can you choose from several operating systems? And so on.

If you choose a Managed VPS hosting plan, look at the additional features it offers, including free migration, free remote backups, server optimization, automatic patching, and a LiteSpeed webserver.

After all, different users have different needs and preferences. So, it would be best if you found what works for you. Ensure you are not paying extra for add-ons that you can get for free with other VPS hosting providers, and you will be good to go!

Best VPS Hosting: Final Recommendations

You can choose from so many virtual private hosting solutions to suit your needs.

However, you will have to make several choices along the way. Both managed and unmanaged VPS solutions have their respective pros and cons. So, which one works better for you?

Make sure to match the best VPS provider with your project/website needs, skill, experience, and budget.

Also, don’t overspend on resources you don’t need! After all, the main benefit of a Virtual private server service is that you can start small and scale as your site needs grow.

Clearly, there’s no one-size-fits-all, and there’s no winner in the race. Which is the best virtual sever provider in 2023? It depends on your needs! The best way to know what works for you is by testing.

So, why not get the provider and see how it goes? After all, these VPS hosting providers come with money-back guarantees so that you won’t spend a dime in the process!

Resources

• Trustpilot
• Allied Market Research
• HostAdvice MarketShare
• HostAdvice VPS Pricing Page