Best VPS Hosting – Top Hosting 2011
There’s a lot of buzz in the marketplace right now about VPS hosting and deservedly so, since this powerhouse technology allows for virtually dedicated server performance for shared hosting pricing. And, that’s enough to get any small to medium sized business owner “jacked” up. We would agree.
There is a lot of upside to VPS web hosting plans and not a whole lot of downside. Let’s explore what VPS is all about first, and we’ll let you decide if it’s right for you. First of all, VPS stands for virtual private server. And although it’s not exactly completely private, it’s private enough for most folks. You see, the VPS server is partitioned, with the use of virtualization software, in such a way that your hosting is virtually like a separate dedicated server. Making sense now? Pretty cool darn cool.
Each part of the server that is so partitioned, has its own operating system, and may be rebooted independently of the other partitioned areas so it actually looks and acts as though it is a virtual machine on its own.
VPS hosting represents a hosting model that has the features of both a dedicated hosting model and a shared hosting model. In a shared hosting plan, many websites are housed on the same web server, whereas in a dedicated hosting model, the hosted site is given access to an entire server for its use, and it completely controls that server. However, the cost of such a hosting plan is much more expensive that the shared hosting plan, but its benefits include more RAM, bandwidth, disk space, and storage capacity.
VPS hosting is a combination of these two hosting models. Each VPS client has a server to himself, but it cannot be considered dedicated since there are other hosting clients on the same server. All these other sites are within the same mainframe, but operate completely independently from one another.
So, in this way, with VPS hosting you will get a few of the benefits of having the independent operations of a dedicated server, without the generous amount of resources, while at the same time, you get the cheaper hosting cost of a shared hosting plan.
VPS hosting is sometimes referred to as VDS hosting or a virtual dedicated server, however that seems to be changing with most folks in the industry using the term VPS.
The Best VPS Hosting Providers of 2011
InMotion Hosting (#1 Top Hosting Pick!)
- Price $5.95/month
- Uptime 99.99%
- Support Top notch
- Data Centers Multiple
- Green Hosting
- Easy to use Feature Rich
- Business Hosting Top
LunarPages
- Price $4.95/month
- Hosting Professional
- Eccomerce Enabled
- Domain Names 3
- SSL Included
- IP Dedicated
- TremenDesk Included
- Miva Install Included
iXWebHosting
- Price $3.95/month
- .Net Top Hosting
- Windows Server 2003
- Space Unlimited
- Bandwidth Unlimited
- Domain Names 3
MyHosting
- Price $4.84/month
- Space Unlimited
- Bandwidth Unlimited
- Domains Unlimited Hosting
- Outlook Email FREE
- Site Builder FREE
- Google Anti-Spam FREE
HostGator
- Price $4.95/month
- Space Unlimited
- Bandwidth Unlimited
- SiteBuilder Free
- 1-Click Script Installs
- 99.99% Uptime
- Guarantee 45 Days
- Adwords $100
GreenGeeks
- Price $4.95/month
- Space Unlimited
- Bandwidth Unlimited
- Domain Host Unlimited
- Email Unlimited
- MySQL Unlimited
- Domain Free for life
- Marketing Credits Free
- SiteBuilder Free
- Templates Free
As was mentioned earlier, VPS hosting is considered quite the miracle in the web hosting world because it’s like getting a dedicated server for the price of shared hosting. This is quite a technological breakthrough in the market. VPS hosting plans start around $5 per month and can go as high as into the hundreds of dollars per month for larger resources and hosting packages. But, the key number of note here is that you can get a virtual private server for just around the same a shared hosting — that is cheapest best VPS hosting, cheap but of a nice overall value.
Why Is VPS Hosting Better Than Shared? (Best VPS Hosting)
Let’s go a little bit deeper into why a VPS is so much better than shared hosting. There are two major hosting issues that everybody is concerned about with shared hosting — security and performance.
When your web site or sites are hosted with shared hosting you’re fighting for power and resources with other websites on the server and the other site’s security issues become your security issues as well. Buying a VPS hosting package allows for much greater flexibility and control, more power, and better security — all things a small to mid-sized business wanted. And when you combine cheap VPS packages with those advantages it’s almost a no-brainer.
However, there is at least one caveat here, when you have a VPS package the maintenance and upkeep of your server is usually thrust upon the owner. With a shared plan , it’s completely managed for you and there are usually no headaches, especially with a good web host.
With a VPS security updates, patches, and other updates to the server are the responsibility of the hosting package owner. So, in other words there will probably be some trouble shooting involved. Now, for a medium sized business with their own “IT guy” this is really not an issue but for a very small business it might be. But, you can outsource the work fairly cheaply and then you will be able to focus on your core business exclusively.
The way we see it, a VPS is a win-win decision with little downside, you must simply be aware of the upkeep and deal with it…from there it’s smooth sailing. A VPS server can run on different platforms, so linux VPS, windows VPS, and so on are available for folks that enjoy those platforms.
From the preceding it is obvious that VPS hosting has many benefits for clients who select this hosting model. If your website is on the shared hosting model and it is fast outgrowing its resource limits, it may be time for you to look for a more robust hosting model such as VPS hosting.
Lastly, it’s very important to keep in mind that VPS hosting allows for extreme customization of the server with add on scripts and custom made applications, this is often necessary for business web hosting, especially with larger sites.
