How to Pick the Best VPS Hosting

If you’re going to have a business website or a personal site that you want to monetize, picking a web hosting service is one of the most critical things you can do. There are different hosting services that might appeal to you, but VPS hosting is one of the consistently most popular options.

In this article, we’ll explain what VPS hosting is, and we’ll also give you a brief crash course in picking the proper VPS host that makes the most sense for you.

What Exactly is VPS Hosting?

Neil Patel suggests that before choosing a  VPS hosting option, you should understand just what we mean when we use that term. There are some different hosting options, including:

• VPS hosting
• Cloud hosting
• Shared hosting

VPS hosting utilizes a virtual private server. It’s a machine that an internet hosting provider sells as a service.

A cloud hosting plan utilizes multiple remote servers. Each one has different responsibilities. If one has a problem, the others will pick up the slack, meaning this system seldom causes lengthy website crashes.

Shared hosting is probably the most basic and cheapest web hosting form. Your site shares a single server with many other sites. If you have a smaller site that doesn’t get many visitors, and you don’t need very much bandwidth, this might be the right option for you.

There’s also dedicated hosting. Some people consider this to be the best web hosting option because your site has a single dedicated server, so you’re not competing for bandwidth with any others.

Why Pick VPS Hosting?

If you’re looking at different options, the VPS server might attract you because:

• It does not cost as much as some other options
• It provides better security than shared hosting

You could also argue that it’s more reliable and typically performs better than shared hosting. As a user, you get root access to the server when you use this methodology. You can install applications and make various environment changes without going through the host provider.

If you had shared hosting, you’d have to do that. In a nutshell, besides the cheap cost, many website admins prefer VPS hosting because they can make site changes rapidly if they decide their current format isn’t working as well as it should.

If you have a company that has outgrown shared hosting, you could say VPS is the next level up. It also works well for SaaS providers, programmers, and game makers.

How Can You Pick the Right VPS Hosting Service?

As for picking the best VPS hosting service, high server uptime is probably the first thing about which you’ll want to find out. You want a VPS hosting provider that has an extremely high server uptime because if yours doesn’t, that means your potential customers can’t always access your site. You’ll lose money that way, and would-be clients will see you as unreliable.

Your VPS hosting service reflects on you. What you’ll want to see is a company that guarantees you a certain uptime percentage.

Some people consider 99.95 to be the threshold number. Anything less than that, and you should look for a different service, even if you like the low price tag they’re offering. Saving money in this area is nice, but dependability matters more than almost anything else, security features being the one notable exception.

Unmanaged and Managed VPS Hosting Services

You will also have to figure out whether you’re going to opt for managed hosting or unmanaged hosting. If you get a managed VPS setup, you have less control over it. However, your provider will then manage and maintain your server. They will handle the data backups, security features, and any necessary patch upgrades.

This is nice if you have other things to do, or you’re not that tech-savvy anyhow. If you get an unmanaged server, you’ll have to handle all the maintenance aspects we just mentioned.

If you’re comfortable with this technology, go for unmanaged. If you’re not, then managed is a perfectly acceptable option.

Cost

This brings us to cost, which does matter to some website operators more than anything else. Consider the “you get what you pay for” axiom.

If you get a cheaper service, expect more glitches and downtime. If you’re a tiny startup and you can’t afford better service, then do what you must. If you have a little more money, though, you probably will not regret spending it in this area.

At the same time, the most expensive server is not necessarily the best one, regardless of whether you want a VPS hosting provider or one of the others we mentioned. The costliest server is the one that’s dedicated just to your website. You don’t necessarily need that if you’re a smaller business and you still have moderate traffic most of the time.

Customer Support

Customer support is the last thing we’ll mention. You probably want 24/7 customer support, even if you have limited financial resources. If your site goes down and you leave your provider a message, all you might get is a vague reply saying they’ll get back to you when they get a chance.

That’s not going to cut it. Business websites need to be up and running. The longer yours is down, the more sales you will miss, and the worse your company’s reputation will be.

Look at business review websites if you’re narrowing down the list. There are some highly comprehensive ones that exhaustively break down various hosting providers.

Also, look for special introductory sign-up deals. You might get a free month, a discounted rate for the first three months, etc.

Remember that you can try a particular web hosting service, but if it doesn’t work for you, you don’t have to stay with it forever. You can go to another option, and that’s what most companies do as they grow. There is no reason you’ll need to stay with the same service as you expand, and your website needs to change.