Want to jump straight to the answer? The best VPS host for most people is Bluehost or HostGator.
Shared hosting is cost-effective for beginner or low-traffic websites. But when your traffic grows, it’s time to start looking for virtual private server (VPS) hosting.
With VPS hosting, you won’t be sharing hosting resources with anyone, and you can set up the server the way you want. After researching dozens of providers, we’ve narrowed down the top VPS hosting plans.
The Top 9 Best VPS Hosting Providers
Our favorite VPS hosting providers for 2023 are:
- Bluehost — Easiest upgrade from shared hosting
- HostGator — Best VPS for hands-on customer support
- Hostinger — Best value VPS hosting
- Kamatera — Best VPS hosting for instant scaling
- LiquidWeb — Best VPS hosting with high memory and storage
- UltaHost — Best fully-managed VPS plans for OS-specific setups
- A2 Hosting — Best VPS hosting for supercharged speed
- Scala Hosting — Best for customizing VPS resources
- InMotion — Most reliable uptime
In this review, we highlight each provider’s plans and pricing and explain what makes each a good VPS hosting option. You’ll also learn about the potential downsides or weaknesses of each provider and discover the methodology you can use to select the best VPS host for your needs.
We’ve also included a quick review of VPS hosting in case you’d like a refresher on what this service is and how it works.
Virtual Private Server Reviews
Read on for detailed reviews of the VPS hosts listed above.
Bluehost — Easiest Upgrade from Shared Hosting
Bluehost is an industry leader in the web hosting space.
Its VPS plans offer a wide range of hosting options to accommodate the needs of nearly every website. Bluehost is an excellent choice for anyone new to VPS hosting—or new to hosting in general.
VPS hosting gives you more control over the server than standard shared hosting does. However, with that control comes increased responsibilities, which many inexperienced users find overwhelming.
Not with Bluehost, though. It has designed everything with beginners in mind.
Bluehost offers a massive knowledge base that allows you to learn anything you want about VPS hosting. It also has a great customer support team that can be reached by telephone, email, or live chat 24/7 to help out with any questions or issues.
Bluehost allows multi-server management, meaning you can add more space to your plan at any given time. This is ideal for websites that need to scale at a moment’s notice, without any delays or downtime.
You’ll be able to accomplish this directly from your advanced cPanel, without any assistance from a Bluehost administrator.
Bluehost has several powerful plans with straightforward pricing. No hidden fees or surprises. They even give you a free domain name just for signing up.
Standard VPS
- Starting at $29.99 per month
- 2 CPU cores
- 120 GB of SSD
- 2 GB of RAM
- Unmetered bandwidth
Enhanced VPS
- Starting at $39.99 per month
- 2 CPU cores
- 165 GB of SSD
- 4 GB of RAM
- Unmetered bandwidth
Ultimate VPS
- Starting at $69.99 per month
- 4 CPU cores
- 240 GB of SSD
- 8 GB of RAM
- Unmetered bandwidth
Bluehost offers pricing and resources for websites of all shapes and sizes.
In our deep-dive review of Bluehost, we found that even if you’re looking for an entry-level VPS plan, the Enhanced VPS makes more sense than the Standard option.
It is worth noting that the prices listed above are promotional rates based on a 36-month term. You’ll pay $39.99, $59.99, and $119.99, respectively, when your plan renews.
All VPS plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. For a reasonable price, you’ll benefit from plenty of resources, support, and uptime compared to other options on the market. Try Bluehost today.
HostGator — Best VPS for Hands-On Customer Support
HostGator is another popular name in the world of web hosting. Its VPS plans are known for their excellent pricing.
Where HostGator really shines, though, is in its excellent customer support offerings. For example, it offers free content transfers if you’re migrating from a different web host. That’s a service that you’d normally spend hundreds of dollars on at another hosting site.
But HostGator transfers “website files, databases, scripts, and one free domain registration” for absolutely no cost to you. You just have to do it within 30 days of signing up. That’s world-class support.
With VPS hosting, getting timely customer support from the right person is crucial. The increased control you have over the server environment means that a huge number of issues can arise. Questions get technically complex very quickly, and you may not even know how to articulate what is going wrong.
Their customer support team is also on hand 24/7/365 via phone, email, or live chat to help you with any of your needs.
Here are the VPS pricing plans for HostGator:
Snappy 2000
- Starting at $23.95 per month
- 2 GB of RAM
- 2 CPU cores
- 120 GB of disk space
- 1.5 TB of bandwidth
Snappy 4000
- Starting at $34.95 per month
- 4 GB of RAM
- 2 CPU cores
- 165 GB of disk space
- 2 TB of bandwidth
Snappy 8000
- Starting at $59.95 per month
- 8 GB of RAM
- 4 CPU cores
- 240 GB of disk space
- 3 TB of bandwidth
Although these plans aren’t the lowest that we’ve seen, they’re still pretty good.
HostGator’s VPS plans are geared towards more professional, experienced web managers, though. They’re very good at giving developers great control over their exact hosting specifications.
HostGator also stands out with its reliable and multi-layer security network. This enhanced protection paired with the ability to easily scale your resources is what makes HostGator a top VPS choice on our list
Along with that, you get unlimited MySQL Databases, full root access, and unlimited SFTP users. So if you want more control over technical aspects of your website, this is the host for you.
They also offer good cloud hosting plans.
Hostinger — Best Value VPS Hosting
Hostinger offers fast and reliable servers with some of the best pricing of any VPS host on our list.
Its best value plan normally costs $13.99 per month, and Hostinger offers a promotional rate of $5.99 to new customers. Save 54% when you sign up today for this plan. This plan includes a dedicated IP address along with weekly backups.
On top of that, Hostinger ensures excellent loading times with a 100 MB/second guarantee on your network. In addition, you have complete control over your hosting as it offers full root access.
Hostinger has a dedicated IPv6 block infrastructure to keep connections secure and efficient. Its servers provide enough processing power for medium to large-scale online projects. These servers are suitable enough for streaming, gaming, and other web activities that require speed.
Webmasters will also enjoy Hostinger’s instant snapshot feature that’s included with every plan. If you’re planning to perform a major change or update on the site, you can use this tool to create a manual snapshot. So if you run into any problems during the deployment, you can always rollback to the snapshot version in a matter of minutes.
Other perks of using Hostinger as your VPS hosting provider include:
- Weekly backups
- Dedicated IP
- AI-powered firewall
- Advanced DDoS protection
- Ability to choose your own OS
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Hostinger has a wide variety of VPS plans to choose from—each coming with more power, storage, and bandwidth. So as your traffic scales, Hostinger can grow with you.
In fact, every Hostinger VPS comes with the same core features and capabilities. The only difference difference is that your vCPU cores, RAM, disk space, and bandwidth double with each tier.
For example, the KVM 1 entry-level VPS plan comes with 1 vCPU core, 4 GB of RAM, 50 GB of disk space, and 1 TB of bandwidth. Then it jumps to 2 vCPU cores, 8 GB of RAM, 100 GB of disk space, and 2 TB of bandwidth at the next tier, and so on, until you reach the top tier plan that comes with a whopping 32 GB of RAM, 400 GB of disk space, and 8 TB of bandwidth to alongside its 8 vCPU cores.
It’s also worth noting that Hostinger has been consistently using AI to improve its products. In addition to using AI for security purposes, they recently rolled out an AI assistant for VPS management.
This is a really cool feature if you want to get your hands in the weeds but don’t have a technical background. You could use it to configure firewall rules or create scripts to backup MySQL databases.
Coupled with its great pricing and rich features, the VPS host offers great value for money.
It’s simple enough for beginners yet robust enough to handle more advanced capabilities for the pros.
Overall, we highly recommend Hostinger to anyone that wants fast, secure, and reliable VPS hosting. Sign up today at Hostinger.
Kamatera — Best VPS Hosting for Instant Scaling
Kamatera gives you unlimited storage. You can add new servers as required, start and stop servers at any time, and add new databases as you grow. That’s why they are one of the most scalable VPS services out there.
They are perfect for scaling on demand.
More than that, they offer a wide variety of flexible cloud-based VPS solutions for web hosting. Instinctively set up their servers for anything you need–email, CRM, ERP, VoIP–and the service grows with you.
And it takes no time at all. You can increase your server numbers in a matter of minutes. This is ideal for any growing startup that needs to increase the power of their website over time. The same is true if you’re strapped for resources and need to temporarily pull in the reins.
With Kamatera, you don’t have to choose among plans. Instead, you can dial in the exact amount of resources you need.
Kamatera lets you customize the type of servers, OS, and control panel for your VPS hosting. Their global technical support network also operates 24/7 worldwide, with more than a dozen data centers in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
If you ever have any issues, you can always get someone on the line to help you.
Since its services are customized to your exact specifications, we can’t share exact pricing details here. But we can say that prices begin at just $4 for an unmanaged server.
Kamatera is a great deal for people who want total control over configuration. If you want a more hands-off experience, Kamatera’s managed plans start at $54.
Liquid Web VPS — Best VPS Hosting with High Memory and Storage
Liquid Web is one of the most under-the-radar VPS hosting services out there.
What they lack in name recognition, they make up for in a very powerful VPS hosting service.
All Liquid Web VPS plans are fully managed. That means your hardware and network are taken care of for you.
Their administrators also handle all security updates and patches, as well as support for the operating system and all software.
Each of their virtual private servers boasts a staggering 10 TB of bandwidth. That’s the most we’ve seen so far. The 12 GB of RAM plan has up to 200 GB of SSD disk space, which is also one of the highest we’ve seen.
Here’s a quick look at Liquid Web’s VPS pricing:
- Essential — $20 per month
- Advanced — $30 per month
- Professional — $40 per month
- Elite — $50 per month
These are all based on 24-month contracts, which are about 70% cheaper than the month-to-month rates. You also have the option to get an annual plan, which will save you up to 40% off the monthly rate.
You can also get memory-optimized and CPU-optimized VPS plans from Liquid Web. These options are a bit more use-case-specific. The memory-optimized packages are designed for database caching, and the CPU-optimized plans are built for high-traffic sites. These are just a few dollars more per month compared to Liquid Web’s general VPS plans.
Liquid Web is perfect for cases where you need a lot of bandwidth and disk space. It’s a key differentiator for sites with a lot of videos, cached images, or interactive elements.
The support offered by the Liquid Web team is exceptional. They are available 24/7 via phone, email, and live chat.
Most VPS providers don’t offer a 12 GB plan. Though most of you won’t need it, this is where we recommend getting it for those who do.
Click here and use coupon code QUICKSPROUT to get 40% off 2 months of any Liquid Web hosting plan. All plans are backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
UltaHost — Best Fully-Managed VPS Plans For OS-Specific Setups
UltaHost is a secure and highly flexible option for any website in need of a quality VPS plan. Whether you’re upgrading from your current plan, migrating from another host, or starting a new site from scratch, UltaHost has you covered.
As a fully-managed hosting solution, UltaHost handles all of the backend systems on your behalf. Their technical support team will take care of security patches, operating system updates, and everything else that’s required to keep your servers up to date.
You’ll also benefit from 24/7 real-time monitoring, 24/7 customer support, free daily backups, and BitNinja security with every plan.
While UltaHost provides exceptional support and managed VPS perks, it doesn’t sacrifice flexibility. Your VPS still comes with full root access, and everything can be fully customized to meet the specific needs of your site.
You can use UltaHost VPS to instantly install a specific OS, including:
- Debian
- Ubuntu
- CentOS
- Red Hat
- AlmaLinux
- Fedora
- Windows
UltaHost lets you select the number of cPanel accounts you need and even lets you pick your server locations from over nine different data centers.
If you’re using another host right now, you can migrate for free to an UltaHost VPS.
Plans start at just $5.50 per month, and you can save up to 30% when you sign up today.
A2 Hosting VPS — Best for Supercharged Speed
A2 Hosting offers some of the fastest hosting out there. And its VPS offerings are no exception.
Compared to others on this list, A2 offers an unmatched blend of affordability and performance. That is made possible by its plentiful options for both managed and unmanaged VPS hosting.
Typically, unmanaged VPS plans with root access and custom features come at a higher price point. But not with A2 Hosting. Experienced developers can get an unmanaged virtual private server for as low as $4.99 per month.
That lowest-priced plan delivers 1 GB of RAM, 500 GB of bandwidth, and just 20 GB of solid-state drive storage, so it’s most appropriate for low-volume sites that simply want to load in an instant for any visitor.
But, when you step up beyond that entry-level plan, you unlock tons of extra power and storage for improved performance. Each successive plan delivers more RAM, more disk space, and higher bandwidth limits, going all the way up to an impressive combination of 16 GB of memory, 300 GB of NVMe storage, and 6 TB of transfer, supported by eight CPU cores.
You’ll also get root access for greater control to make custom changes to your virtual server. Coupled with the low price point, this makes A2 a top choice for anyone who’s looking to really take the reins of their website.
Here’s a closer look at the pricing for A2’s unmanaged VPS plans:
- Runway 1 — Starting at $4.99 per month
- Runway 2 — Starting at $5.99 per month
- Runway 4 — Starting at $7.99 per month
- Supersonic 8 — Starting at $24.99 per month
- Supersonic 16 — Starting at $44.99 per month
- Supersonic 32 — Starting at $64.99 per month
These are all based on one-year contracts. If you want to lock in a rate for three years or opt for month-to-month billing, it will cost a bit more per month (but rarely more than $2 or $3 extra monthly).
The Supersonic plans are special, as they unlock A2’s turbo servers which deliver 40% faster CPU performance, two times faster time to first byte (TTFB), and three times faster read/write performance on its site data storage.
With the unmanaged plans, you can also configure your server preferences for disk space, CPU, memory, and bandwidth. Obviously, any adjustments will impact the price.
If you don’t want the stress of self-managing your VPS plan, you can opt for any of A2’s managed offerings for the same type of hosting.
It’s going to be pricier than the unmanaged versions of these plans, but you’re able to leave the dirty work to the pros at A2. This includes features you can’t find on their unmanaged VPS plans, such as automated backups, free site migrations, extra DDoS and cyberattack protection, and more.
Plus you’re getting all the aspects you’d expect from managed hosting. Hardware and network maintenance, software updates and patches, 24/7/365 monitoring for security vulnerabilities and breaches, and uptime stability are all handled for you by A2 Hosting.
Let’s take a look at the pricing for these managed VPS plans:
- Lift 4 — Starting at $24.99 per month
- Lift 8 — Starting at $34.99 per month
- Lift 16 — Starting at $44.99 per month
- Mach 8 — Starting at $54.99 per month
- Mach 16 — Starting at $64.99 per month
- Mach 32 — Starting at 74.99 per month
The Mach plans are equivalent to the Supersonic plans for unmanaged VPS, providing you access to A2’s turbo servers.
You won’t be able to configure your server the same way you would if you select an unmanaged plan, but that’s probably more of a benefit than a drawback if you’re uncomfortable with potentially using unmanaged VPS plans. Let the pros take control and responsibility off your hands so you can focus on making your site content and design the best it can be.
A2 Hosting offers a 99.9% uptime commitment on its VPS plans. They also offer a free account migration if you’re moving to one of their servers from another host.
Overall, A2 is a great choice both for developers who want complete control and customization over their VPS and for less tech-savvy users who want the speed of VPS at a competitive price.
A2 Hosting also has one of the best customer support teams on the market. So if that’s something that you prioritize, it’s worth taking an even closer look at their plans.
Scala Hosting — Best for Customizing VPS Resources
VPS gives you more resources—RAM, disk space, and CPU cores—than shared or cloud hosting will.
But sometimes, bespoke VPS hosting packages give the exact amount of those resources that your specific business needs.
Scala Hosting lets you tailor your VPS servers to the exact specifications you’ll want for your sites.
And by exact, we mean exact. Scala offers a build-your-own VPS hosting tool. Check it out below:
You can use sliders to set the number of CPU cores (choose from one to 24), how much RAM (2 GB to 128 GB), and the storage space of your SSD (50 GB to 2,000 GB).
Enter the combination you need for your site, and Scala’s tool will spit out prices for monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual billing. Managed VPS plans also come in two-year and three-year terms.
For example, let’s say you have a social networking site where people can share photos, post videos, and contribute as much content to the community as they’d like. It’s a small but active community, so you never have to worry much about traffic spikes, but you need the site to run smoothly when dozens or more are posting and browsing at once. And you need ample storage for all the content they’re posting.
In that case, you could set up a VPS plan through Scala that has four CPU cores, 10 GB of memory, and 400 GB of storage. Paying annually will run you $79/month for self-managed VPS through Scala. That’s just 19 bucks more than Bluehost’s Ultimate VPS package, where you get the same number of cores, but 2 GB less RAM, and 280 GB less SSD space.
That same package for Scala’s fully managed VPS is a very competitive $137.95/month.
Plus, you can select your preferred data center—choose from New York, Dallas, or Europe—at no extra charge. On self-managed plans, you can select one of eight operating systems. For fully managed, you can select whether you’d like SPanel for your control panel or cPanel for anywhere from five to 1,000 accounts.
Customization doesn’t stop there. Choose from 24 different add-ons to tweak your package even further. You can add unbranded WHMCS, Softaculous, or ClientExec for client management, additional cPanel licenses, a CloudLinux license, and more.
Don’t want to build your own? Prebuilt self-managed VPS packages start at $20/month and the same for fully managed plans start at $29.95/month.
If you’re a bit overwhelmed by Scala Hosting’s customization options, the fully-managed VPS plans will be fine—and the Build #1 is a great entry-level option for getting a virtual private server.
You’re getting two CPU cores, four GB of RAM, and 50 GB of NVMe SSD storage.
Scala Hosting also gives you the option to choose between a cPanel VPS and SPanel VPS. There’s no additional cost for using SPanel, which is Scala Hosting’s built-in management platform.
If you absolutely need cPanel, you can add it for $19.95 per month. But this isn’t a great deal since you can get cPanel for free with other hosting plans. So if you’re planning to use Scala Hosting, just go ahead and use their SPanel version. Otherwise, you can check out our list of the best cPanel hosting providers for alternative options.
For those of you who know exactly what you need and don’t want to jump through any hoops to get it for your sites, go with Scala Hosting.
InMotion VPS — Most Reliable Uptime
InMotion specializes in VPS hosting. Their plans come in two flavors—managed and cloud.
While its managed hosting is great and offers tremendous performance, we highly recommend its cloud hosting plan. This plan offers even more control over your VPS server for developers and website managers. It also comes with enterprise-level hardware to ensure a 99.99% uptime rate.
InMotion’s managed plans are ideal for business owners, agencies, and resellers, which is why InMotion landed at the top of our list of top reseller hosting providers. Each plan offers free server management, updates, and free site migrations.
You’ll also benefit from a resource monitoring dashboard, unlimited domains, unlimited email accounts, and unlimited MySQL databases.
Here’s what their plans look like for three-year contracts:
- 4 GB RAM — Starting at $14.99 per month
- 8 GB RAM — Starting at $24.99 per month
- 12 GB RAM — Starting at $34.99 per month
- 16 GB RAM — Starting at $44.99 per month
- 20 GB RAM — Starting at $54.99 per month
- 24 GB RAM — Starting at $64.99 per month
- 32 GB RAM — Starting at $74.99 per month
All plans are ecommerce-optimized and come with optional root access for those of you who want more advanced control over your settings. These prices reflect the longest contract commitment and best pricing option.
The cloud hosting account plans offered by InMotion are best for developers and system administrators. That’s because each plan comes with full root access, including SSH keys, which gives you total control over customization. These start at $6 per month.
As a developer, you’ll essentially get a blank slate to customize a VPS to meet the exact needs of your website. You can also code in the language of your preference, like Java, Ruby, and other popular choices.
InMotion Cloud VPS provides enterprise-level hardware, with SSD servers that are 20x faster than the competition.
Prices for managed plans and cloud hosting plans are a lot alike. The biggest difference between the two is basically how much control you want over the server.
One other thing that we really like about InMotion Hosting is that their customer support team is located in the United States. Support is available 24/7/365 and you can connect with them by phone, email, and live chat. Having multiple ways to get in touch when you need help is priceless and not something every hosting provider offers.
Unless you’re a developer, the majority of you should lean toward the managed plans, just based on simplicity. Learn more at InMotion.
How to Find the Best VPS Host for You
Now that you’ve had a chance to look at some specific VPS plans, it’s time to determine the best possible choice for you and your website.
The two main questions to consider are straightforward:
- What resources do you need?
- How much are you willing to spend?
In most cases, price and features will go hand-in-hand. If you need the highest possible RAM, disk space, and storage, then you should expect to pay higher prices.
Aside from that, you could lean toward one provider or plan over another based on other features like customer support, website security, and the ability to scale.
Some of you might be wondering what qualifications and standards we used to determine which VPS services are the best. All of the plans on our list scored high based on the following considerations.
You can see them below and use them when making your final decision:
24/7/365 White-Glove Support
Good customer support isn’t just a “nice to have” when it comes to VPS hosting—it’s an absolute necessity. In fact, good customer support should be a deal breaker for anyone looking for a VPS web host.
This is especially true if you’re managing a website for your business. If your website goes down or you become a victim of a DDoS attack, you need to be able to pick up a phone and have someone on the other end help you address the issue ASAP. Each minute they don’t help you could mean tons of lost revenue.
At the bare minimum, we recommend a VPS plan that comes with 24/7 phone and live chat support. Some of the choices on our list stand out for their support more than others. We made sure to point that out in the reviews above.
Of course, customer support doesn’t start and end when things go wrong. You also want real people working for the hosting provider to be there to help you with other things that come up when managing an online business.
For example, if you’re creating a new website from scratch then you probably don’t care about free site migrations. But for those of you who are looking to transfer from another provider, a free migration and free domain transfer could save you a couple of hundred dollars.
Root Access Availability
Root access gives Linux, Unix, and Linux-adjacent users the ability to implement more command over their websites and digital assets, allowing for greater access and customization.
To be clear, not every VPS plan on our list comes with root access. But not everyone needs it.
Root access is only necessary for those of you who are developers, are technically advanced, or want to make custom changes to your virtual server. The vast majority of you will be better off choosing a fully managed VPS plan.
But if you’re looking for a VPS host, you’re likely looking to have more control over your website anyway. Luckily, there are some fully managed plans that come with optional root access as well. For example, InMotion Managed VPS Hosting gives you optional root access for more advanced control.
With InMotion Cloud VPS, you’ll get full root access along with SSH keys for further secure customization.
So, just make sure you know before choosing a plan whether you want to have root access or not.
High Uptime Rates
Uptime is arguably the most important factor to consider in web hosting. In many cases, uptime is the reason why anyone would want to upgrade from a shared host to a VPS host.
That’s why you need to put a premium on uptime rates. Every VPS plan on this guide performed well in our uptime tests.
Most providers guarantee a 99.9% uptime rate, and they’ll credit your bill if they fail to meet those standards. However, you’d like to avoid this scenario altogether for a few reasons.
First, getting a few extra bucks back isn’t worth your site being down when it could be up and making you more money. And, depending on how long it’s down for, that could mean a lot of money.
Second, do you know how much time you actually lose each year if your site is down even a fraction of a percentage point? It’s probably a lot more than you think.
The difference between 99% and 99.9% uptime is over 80 hours a year! That’s more than three days that your website is down annually, all because you didn’t get a good web host.
That’s why you want to find a good web host company that guarantees at least 99.9% uptime per year. If you’re evaluating VPS plans from an uptime perspective, you can rest easy knowing that every provider on our list is a safe option.
Also, if or when your website goes down, you’ll want the VPS host to be there at any hour of the day to help you out—which goes back to our point about always-available white glove service. During downtime (both planned and unplanned), this transparency and communication are key.
Powerhouse Performance
The main appeal of VPS hosting is that it can drastically increase your website’s performance. Your website will experience a major speed boost now that it’s not sharing resources with other sites.
Site speed is important for all websites. A one-second delay in load time can mean page views are reduced by 11% and 7% fewer conversions. This is especially crucial for those of you who plan to experience high volumes of traffic. You want to make sure that you find a plan that can accommodate your traffic without sacrificing speed.
The VPS hosts on this list have been reviewed and researched to make sure that they offer the best load times of any host.
Though much of your website’s speed depends on the amount of media and assets you have on it (and how it’s optimized), there are two very important elements to take into consideration that impact your website’s overall performance:
SSD Disk
Solid-state drive (SSD) disks are the devices that store your website’s assets, like images, videos, content, web pages, and so on.
They also help boost your website much more quickly for the user. As such, they greatly improve performance overall.
RAM
RAM refers to the amount of working memory that can be accessed by your server’s CPU. When a program is booted up, it is temporarily stored on the server’s RAM for easy access.
If you have too little RAM, then that information is stored on your SSD or hard drive—which takes much longer to access.
So the more, the better in general. But it all really depends on your website’s demands.
The number of resources you’ll get will be determined by the plan you choose. It all depends on what you need and how much you’re willing to spend.
This is particularly important for websites that need a high threshold for RAM and disk space. For example, if you need email hosting, in-browser games or apps, or IoT platforms.
Managed VPS vs. Unmanaged VPS Plans
As you’re evaluating different VPS plans and providers, you’ll likely come across various managed and unmanaged options. Some web hosts offer both, while others just provide one or the other.
Most notably, you’ll see that unmanaged VPS plans are much cheaper than managed services.
For example, Kamatera’s unmanaged plans start at just $4 per month. But managed services cost an additional $50 per month, and they even have high-end managed services for an additional $150 per month.
However, most unmanaged plans require internal development support. This is really only suitable for those of you who are willing to handle technical setups, security patching, OS configuration, updates, and more—all on your own.
Managed plans give you the power of VPS hosting with better performance without having to worry about any technical aspects on the back end. Your hosting provider will handle all of this for you.
You don’t have to break the bank to get the benefits of a managed plan (Kamatera’s $150 per month package is probably overkill for most websites). LiquidWeb has fully managed VPS plans starting at $20 per month, and UltaHost’s fully managed VPS plans start at just $5.50 per month.
What is VPS Hosting?
VPS stands for “virtual private server.” This is a type of web hosting solution that splits a single server into separate virtual machines. Each virtual server can be configured to meet the needs of the sites that it’s hosting.
One of the most significant benefits of VPS hosting is that it comes with dedicated server resources. So the traffic, storage, and server consumption of another website won’t have any impact on your website or performance.
Virtual private servers are perfect for people who want the benefits of a dedicated server without the hefty price tag associated with dedicated web hosting. The vast majority of websites will never need a dedicated server. But once you start getting more traffic, there’s a good chance you’ll outgrow your shared hosting plan.
VPS hosting is the middle ground between shared hosting and dedicated hosting. Similar to shared hosting, you’re still sharing a single server with other websites. But fewer sites are on that server, and each site has its own dedicated resources and custom configuration options.
Most websites don’t need VPS hosting when they’re starting from scratch. It makes sense to upgrade from shared to VPS hosting when your traffic scales and you need more resources.
Upgrading to VPS hosting helps improve the speed and performance of your site and ultimately improves the user experience for your visitors. Due to the configuration of VPS hosting, you’ll be more equipped to handle higher volumes of traffic and unexpected traffic spikes. For more information on how VPS stacks up against other hosting options, check out our guide on the best web hosting providers.
Virtual Servers Compared to Other Hosting Options
Before you finalize your decision on a VPS hosting plan, you need to make sure that a virtual private server is your best option.
If you’re creating a new website from scratch and don’t plan on having too much traffic for a long time, then shared hosting will be your best bet. Not sure? Take a minute to consider the different types of web hosting to figure out which is best for you.
For those of you who want complete customization over your server and expect 100,000+ visitors each month, then you might want to consider a dedicated server. You can refer to our guide on the best dedicated hosting plans for more information on this.
VPS hosting is for everyone else who falls in the middle. So if you’ve outgrown your shared plan but don’t need the resources offered on a dedicated server, then a virtual private server will be perfect for your website.
Since most websites don’t need the power of a dedicated server, then VPS hosting is the logical upgrade from a shared plan.
Cloud hosting is another popular VPS hosting alternative. It’s a bit more affordable than VPS hosting because typically based on actual resource consumption.
Compared to cloud servers, VPS hosting tends to offer better security. However, cloud hosting offers more reliability because your site gets hosted across a network of cloud servers. So if one goes down or gets compromised, your site can continue running without any issues.
If you’re on the fence between a cloud or VPS plan, you can check out our complete list of the best cloud web hosting services to compare the plans side-by-side.
Best VPS Hosting Plans: Your Top Questions Answered
The Best VPS Hosting in Summary
Virtual private server (VPS) hosting offers more memory, better performance, and greater flexibility at an affordable price. It’s an excellent option to consider when you’ve outgrown a shared hosting plan.
Different VPS hosting providers are better for various use cases. Some are built for scalability, while others are made for developers. Certain providers stand out for price and value, while others offer unique services for IoT devices and edge computing.