Discover the Best Cheap VPS Hosting of 2020

What is VPS Hosting?

Exactly what is VPS? This acronym means Virtual Private Server hosting. It’s a website hosting solution to help admins manage their domains, security settings, storage, bandwidth and more just like any other, but instead of sharing server space with many other customers, a VPS is labeled “private” because it guarantees the availability of crucial computing resources to your site. A VPS hosting service is still shared with a few other sites, but far less, meaning that your website will be faster and more responsive to traffic demands. So, what is a VPS server? Essentially, the “server” is a digital slice of physical hardware standing in the warehouses of your chosen provider. These semi-shared servers are much less crowded than shared plans but aren’t dedicated to single customers like the highest-tier web hosting plans either. In this grey area, providers are able to define how many virtual CPUs or cores each client is given, as well as their private memory, storage space, and bandwidth allowance.

When Should I Choose VPS Hosting?

Virtual private server hosting is primarily useful for websites that have growing traffic and are themselves expanding on the backend, to provide better content, and data-driven services to customers. With more users, assets, and data to handle, web administrators need the greater resources and features that VPS hosting offers them, and they can even find solutions that cater specifically to the software and applications they’ve already integrated and come to rely on, with either Linux or Windows VPS.

Difference Between VPS and Shared Hosting

If you’ve found that your old web hosting provider’s shared plan doesn’t cut it when traffic is high, a VPS plan is better. Shared hosting plans often advertise unlimited bandwidth and storage, but how is this realistic if multiple websites shared the same limited resources? If all sites on the server were to experience high traffic at the same time, the thinness of any promise to provide unlimited anything would quickly be revealed. When any one website in a shared plan suddenly needs much more power, the others are adversely affected.

Go with a VPS if you want your own bandwidth and storage needs to be the only variable in determining the hosting environment’s performance. These plans are technically VPS shared hosting, but the hardware is sliced into much larger pieces—large enough to measure and guarantee capacity to VPS buyers. It’s also easier to scale, since admins can adjust their resource allocation on the fly, and therefore come with more in-depth tools and accordingly, control.

Main Benefits of Using VPS Hosting

In general, VPS hosting solutions provide many tangible benefits to alternatives like shared hosting, and even dedicated hosting plans as well. To narrow it down to only the greatest and most characteristic advantages is difficult, but we’d likely end up with two major ideas: VPS servers’ flexibility for programmers and its sheer availability and price positioning.

Particular Programming

Develop and script in the language you need for your website’s existing software and unique tools, without being handicapped by a hosting environment that limits you in this way. VPS servers offer a larger number of supported programming languages and also give more control to admins and developers, who want to configure server settings perfectly.

The World’s Biggest Data Center

A lot of space is virtual these days—held on the cloud ready to be rented to the first comer. With so much computing power available to host websites and store data, it’s no wonder that VPS has become so popular. It’s like virtual office space, just larger and nicer than the “cubicle” shared hosting plans. VPS plans are common enough to start at single digit prices as well, which is the best deal for most.

Main Things to Consider When Searching for VPS Hosting

If you know that you’re looking for a VPS hosting plan over the alternatives, then the hard part is done. It’s crucial to compare VPS plans then by fundamental concepts like security, reliability, and customer support. In these areas an excellent hosting service stands out.

Security

While VPS sites are more secure by way of their segregated hosting, it’s important to look for root access, free and frequent backups, and SSL security on all websites at bare minimum. The best VPS hosting plans also make the providers responsible for doing regular security updates and patching.

Uptime and Load Time

The second part of cost-effective is “effective”, so any hosting provider’s hardware is measured by its speed as much as its price, because the ultimate goal is to make your website as fast as it can be. VPS hosting services which guarantee uptime at 99.90% or above should be preferred, and the rare provider that publishes [favorable] load times is also one to consider.

Support

If you know web admins, and I do, then you’ll know they like to get deep into server configuration and really make the hosting environment theirs. This is a good thing, but easier for the IT team to accomplish when their hosting provider has a 24/7 support—ideally on-site. That means this criterion is two-part: providers with support but also those who maintain their own hardware.

How to Choose the Best VPS Operating System

When determining the best VPS operating system, you’re really only going to have two choices, Windows or Linux. There are advantages to both, but ultimately the only wrong decision is choosing Linux when you need to host Windows-specific apps like Exchange or have developers using Silverlight or ASP.NET. Windows-based hosting is also managed via the simpler Plesk dashboard rather than cPanel, which can be better if you’re unfamiliar with Linux.

How to Install VPS Hosting

Even the cheap VPS hosting providers will supply ample guidance on how to get your virtual private server up and running and connected to your website. The steps are similar no matter which provider you end up with.

After choosing your VPS hosting plan and paying, you’ll get an email with your login. Then, remotely connect with your VPS on the PC you use to host your website and its other local assets.
This is done by copying and pasting your server IP, and then clicking connect. When you see the Use Another Account button, login using the name administrator and VPS password you received after paying.
This new desktop you’re presented with is the entrance into your new virtual private server. From here, your administrators can configure server settings, import assets and setup the applications necessary for the services you provide.

Top 5 VPS Hosting Providers

A2 Hosting

A2 hosting offers VPS plans that are both of the managed and unmanaged varieties, for devs who want more or less control. The plans start at $25 per month for 75GB storage, 2TB transfer, 4 cores and 4GB RAM. All provide root access via cPanel, free migration, SSL and SSD memory, and an anytime moneyback guarantee.

Fastcomet

If you’re a growing business looking for a cost-efficient hosting solution, you’ll struggle to go wrong with Fastcomet. Fastcomet has a solid reputation for providing a variety of quality web services at accessible prices. While its Cloud VPS hosting services may seem expensive in comparison to other VPS hosts, you get a lot for your money. There are four VPS server plans on offer, starting with a package offering a 2.50GHz core, 50GB SSD space, 2GB ECC RAM, 2TB bandwidth and a 2000Mbps Network Out for $59.95 a month.

These low prices are offered without compromising on service. While a lot of VPS hosts just offer services that maintain your server, Fastcomet offers fully-managed servers with 24/7 access to its customer service team. All of Fastcomet’s VPS hosting plans include a network and web application firewall, along with brute-force, exploits and malware protection, and free daily back-ups.

The only thing its basic package doesn’t include is optimization for e-commerce websites, so you’ll have to spend a little more if you’re planning on selling goods or services online.

Namecheap

The clue is in the name: Namecheap is one of the cheapest VPS hosts around. There are two main VPS plans to choose from, with its most popular Pulsar plan starting at the incredibly cheap price of $11.88 a month. For that, you’ll get two CPU cores, 2GB RAM, 40GB SSD space and 1000GB bandwidth. Also, all of its plans include a free website domain name and basic security features (such as SSL certificates).

So why is Namecheap so cheap? It’s worth noting that Namecheap doesn’t mention how powerful its CPU cores are, and the amount of bandwidth it’s offering pales in comparison to many other hosts. This means your website certainly won’t be one of the fastest around and this may affect your user experience. Namecheap will force you to shell out additional money on top of your subscription for a lot of the extras too, such as an hourly fix-rate for any problems you encounter with your server. All of that said, Namecheap is a great option if you’re looking for a VPS host on a budget and don’t want your website to do anything too demanding.

Hostinger

Hostinger specializes in VPS plans and has some of the least expensive hosting packages around, though they also set aside less resources per user. Plans start at $3.95 per month for one vCPU (we understand this to mean one core), with 1GB RAM, 20GB storage, and 1000GB bandwidth (transfer). There are six VPS plans which go up to $29.95 per month.

Immotion

Immotion offers managed VPS hosting for businesses that need a hand setting up their server, and self-managed Cloud VPS hosting for experts who already know what they’re doing. Its lightning-fast and high-performance servers are ideal for growing businesses that need to scale up their server requirements as there are lots of packages to choose from.

If you’re looking for managed VPS hosting, its cheapest monthly subscription starts at $29.99 a month and will get you 4GB RAM, 75GB storage, 4TB and includes free SSLs. You can choose your own data center with a max free zone and all of its plans are fully optimized for e-commerce websites. For system administrators and developers interested in self-managed Cloud VPS plans, these start from as little as $5 per month for a basic package cVPS-1 plan, offering 1GB RAM, 25 GB storage, 1 TB and 1 CPU.

Chemicloud

VPS plans from Chemicloud are all managed and more heavily outfitted, so it’s for admins who want more robust hardware but control that doesn’t include more basic notions such as patching or updates. The VPS packages are more expensive but begin at 2 CPU cores for $79.95 per month, plus 80GB storage, 4GB RAM, 4TB bandwidth, guaranteed 99.99% uptime and 24/7 priority support.

Hostwinds

VPS plans from Hostwinds are split into four categories, managed and unmanaged Windows and Linux, and then four further inside each for adjusted power and memory. Linux managed plans, for example, begin at $5.17 for 1 CPU core, 1GB RAM, 30GB SSD space, and 1TB of data bandwidth. For such a cheap plan, I was impressed to see that Hostwinds guarantees uptime to 99.9999%.

VPS Hosting for Free

VPS being one of the most abundant types of plans around means there are few obstacles to finding a free VPS provider. Some providers offer gimmicks such as GigaRocket, which gives 1 CPU core, 1GB RAM, and 25GB storage for free to those who post at least 15 times per month in its online forums. Others like x10 Hosting offer free VPS servers but significantly less resources and control, putting it into the same category as the lowest-tier shared plans. VPS free trials are provided for 1 month by AccuWebHosting, for example.

My Conclusions About VPS Hosting

Web admins flock to VPS hosting plans more than any other because they represent the grey area, and often the ideal compromise, between shared and dedicated server hosting plans. Far less limited in available resources yet without the most precise granular control, there are many reasons to love VPS and countless options available. This makes finding the best one a game of determining your own needs before being enticed by features you may never use, but ultimately, as long as you’re correct in assuming that VPS is suitable over shared or dedicated hosting it’s hard to go wrong.