| VPS Hosting with Reviews (Part 2 / 3) Posted by: morefood2001 in Untagged on Aug 27, 2008 |
Today is my installment for Virtual Private Server Hosting. I have been hosting with VPS machines now for approximately 2 years and overall, I am very satisfied with my service overall. Hopefully this will give you an idea about what to look for in hosts.
I am going to review: amerihosting, vpsempire, cheapvps, vpslink, vpsville, vpsrepublic since I have had all of these at one point or another. I am also going to explain xen vs openvz vs virtuozzo vps platforms and run over some other providers that you might like to know about such as control panels.
This time I am going to start with vpsrepublic (vpsrepublic.com). When they existed, they were a very cheap host located in LA, and they had good service and uptime. I only had them for a few days before they told me they wouldn't let me install ubuntu to my vps, so I dropped them. I went back there today and they have disappeared, so obviously, they were a short term host. Average price was 5 bucks for a vps.
Next up, I am going to review vpsempire. (http://vpsempire.com/). They started last March I believe and had very cheap prices (5 bucks a month for a decent chunk of space and resources). My original reason for going with them was for a backup irc server just incase the main one went down. It worked great for the first week, then they got sold out to cheap vps. Cheap vps rewrote the irc rules, so I kept them for the remainder of the month, then left. Overall, while I was with them, I had no downtime and no complaints. If you are looking for a test server, perhaps they are your ticket, but I'd give them another year before trusting them with any kind of real tasks.
Onto cheapvps (http://cheapvps.co.uk). Cheapvps is based in the uk with 2 datacenters, one in the US and one in the UK. John and I have a joint vps in the US Chicago datacenter for our virtual sandbox to test new unix programs and administration procedures. For 10 bucks a month (after a promo), we get 20GB of storage, 256MB of ram, and ubuntu. So far I have not seen downtime (it is monitored) and its incredibly easy to backup and reinstall the operating system (centos, fedora, ubuntu, etc) via hypervm. So far, we have had this server for a month with no complaints. If you want a cheap server for storage or as a backup solution, I'd highly recommend cheapvps.
Now lets cover the irc servers. Vpslink and vpsville both allow irc on their vps machines. I am going to start with the lesser of the two, vpsville.
Vpsville (www.vpsville.ca) is based in canada. They offer cheap vps machines for the terms they have for them. You are allowed to host a private irc network on their vps machines, and that is why I got them. In the time I've had them, I have had little downtime and no complaints. Their support is excellent, responding within 5 minutes to most of my problems (look before for a description of what they support).
Vpslink (vpslink.com) hosts 2 vps servers for podnet in 2 separate data centers. For the terms of their service and the time they've been around, they looked like the best bet for hosting podnet's irc server. vpslink gives no burst ram and offers both xen and openvz unlike most providers so you have a choice. Xen is much more stable compared to openvz, and I will explain the differences later. If you go with vpslink, I recommend getting above 128MB of ram because they include no burst ram for openvz, and the xen swap space is very slow. Overall, I'm quite happy with vpslink.
Finally, for the past 3 years, I have been hosting my web hosting service with amerihosting (amerihosting.com/openvz.php). Amerihosting does not publically put their openvz page out on the web because they only offer it via forums. Their support response answers most questions (even ones that are software related) within a couple of hours. I started with lxadmin hosting, but later got a cpanel license to make my life easier since lxadmin's email and dns didn't work half the time (I'm not sure why either). Overall, I'm very satisfied with Amerihosting.
Onto VPS platforms. There are 3 major platforms for vps machines, Openvz, Xen, and Virtuozzo. I have had little experience with virtuozzo, so I will just note that its a shareware solution (you have to purchase licenses) and it easily integrates into plesk and helm. Virtuozzo supports windows server unlike Xen and Openvz.
Xen is a platform that completely isolates your vps from the main server. You get your own virtualized hardware and hard drive, along with swap space. Unlike openvz, its completely separate from the host server, so you can upgrade kernels, etc on it. Because of this, it is impossible to oversell the host server.
Openvz is my preference for hosting. Openvz doesn't completely isolate the guest operating system. Instead, the guest shares the linux kernel and hardware of the host with other guest machines. Because of this, ram can be shared back and forth and allow for burst ram, eliminating the need for swap space incase your server runs out of memory. This however allows the host to oversell the server and use your memory for other people. Vpslink doesn't oversell their servers, so they allow no burst ram. I like this because my website doesn't need a full 512MB of ram except for maybe 1 second of the day, so instead of getting a memory full error, it works. I also like how the linux kernel is updated for me on this platform.
As for a vps control panel, I recommend staying away from lxadmin because it is still in development and I never had luck with email nor dns with it. I would highly recommend getting a cpanel license. Remember that with cpanel, it will run on 256MB of ram, but you will use burst ram frequently, so I'd also recommend 384MB of ram or more to prevent this. I do not like using burst ram.
Windows on a vps is a thought I never thought I would try, however about a year ago, I got a VPS from vpsisland.com. That VPS was the slowest vps I ever used and therefore I would not recommend getting one from vpsisland unless you add a lot of ram and guaranteed resources.
ADDITIONAL COMMENT added on November 10, 2008:
About a month ago, I found this hosting offer from www.3dgwebhosting.com that gave a low range windows vps for 12.50 dollars per month. I decided to give them a try to see if windows has changed much (not to mention I was thinking about changing my personal website over to ASP). Although plesk was slow (and I ended up having them remove it), the vps was really fast overall and their customer service was excellent. I would highly recommend them to anyone who needs a windows VPS!
I am going to review: amerihosting, vpsempire, cheapvps, vpslink, vpsville, vpsrepublic since I have had all of these at one point or another. I am also going to explain xen vs openvz vs virtuozzo vps platforms and run over some other providers that you might like to know about such as control panels.
This time I am going to start with vpsrepublic (vpsrepublic.com). When they existed, they were a very cheap host located in LA, and they had good service and uptime. I only had them for a few days before they told me they wouldn't let me install ubuntu to my vps, so I dropped them. I went back there today and they have disappeared, so obviously, they were a short term host. Average price was 5 bucks for a vps.
Next up, I am going to review vpsempire. (http://vpsempire.com/). They started last March I believe and had very cheap prices (5 bucks a month for a decent chunk of space and resources). My original reason for going with them was for a backup irc server just incase the main one went down. It worked great for the first week, then they got sold out to cheap vps. Cheap vps rewrote the irc rules, so I kept them for the remainder of the month, then left. Overall, while I was with them, I had no downtime and no complaints. If you are looking for a test server, perhaps they are your ticket, but I'd give them another year before trusting them with any kind of real tasks.
Onto cheapvps (http://cheapvps.co.uk). Cheapvps is based in the uk with 2 datacenters, one in the US and one in the UK. John and I have a joint vps in the US Chicago datacenter for our virtual sandbox to test new unix programs and administration procedures. For 10 bucks a month (after a promo), we get 20GB of storage, 256MB of ram, and ubuntu. So far I have not seen downtime (it is monitored) and its incredibly easy to backup and reinstall the operating system (centos, fedora, ubuntu, etc) via hypervm. So far, we have had this server for a month with no complaints. If you want a cheap server for storage or as a backup solution, I'd highly recommend cheapvps.
Now lets cover the irc servers. Vpslink and vpsville both allow irc on their vps machines. I am going to start with the lesser of the two, vpsville.
Vpsville (www.vpsville.ca) is based in canada. They offer cheap vps machines for the terms they have for them. You are allowed to host a private irc network on their vps machines, and that is why I got them. In the time I've had them, I have had little downtime and no complaints. Their support is excellent, responding within 5 minutes to most of my problems (look before for a description of what they support).
Vpslink (vpslink.com) hosts 2 vps servers for podnet in 2 separate data centers. For the terms of their service and the time they've been around, they looked like the best bet for hosting podnet's irc server. vpslink gives no burst ram and offers both xen and openvz unlike most providers so you have a choice. Xen is much more stable compared to openvz, and I will explain the differences later. If you go with vpslink, I recommend getting above 128MB of ram because they include no burst ram for openvz, and the xen swap space is very slow. Overall, I'm quite happy with vpslink.
Finally, for the past 3 years, I have been hosting my web hosting service with amerihosting (amerihosting.com/openvz.php). Amerihosting does not publically put their openvz page out on the web because they only offer it via forums. Their support response answers most questions (even ones that are software related) within a couple of hours. I started with lxadmin hosting, but later got a cpanel license to make my life easier since lxadmin's email and dns didn't work half the time (I'm not sure why either). Overall, I'm very satisfied with Amerihosting.
Onto VPS platforms. There are 3 major platforms for vps machines, Openvz, Xen, and Virtuozzo. I have had little experience with virtuozzo, so I will just note that its a shareware solution (you have to purchase licenses) and it easily integrates into plesk and helm. Virtuozzo supports windows server unlike Xen and Openvz.
Xen is a platform that completely isolates your vps from the main server. You get your own virtualized hardware and hard drive, along with swap space. Unlike openvz, its completely separate from the host server, so you can upgrade kernels, etc on it. Because of this, it is impossible to oversell the host server.
Openvz is my preference for hosting. Openvz doesn't completely isolate the guest operating system. Instead, the guest shares the linux kernel and hardware of the host with other guest machines. Because of this, ram can be shared back and forth and allow for burst ram, eliminating the need for swap space incase your server runs out of memory. This however allows the host to oversell the server and use your memory for other people. Vpslink doesn't oversell their servers, so they allow no burst ram. I like this because my website doesn't need a full 512MB of ram except for maybe 1 second of the day, so instead of getting a memory full error, it works. I also like how the linux kernel is updated for me on this platform.
As for a vps control panel, I recommend staying away from lxadmin because it is still in development and I never had luck with email nor dns with it. I would highly recommend getting a cpanel license. Remember that with cpanel, it will run on 256MB of ram, but you will use burst ram frequently, so I'd also recommend 384MB of ram or more to prevent this. I do not like using burst ram.
Windows on a vps is a thought I never thought I would try, however about a year ago, I got a VPS from vpsisland.com. That VPS was the slowest vps I ever used and therefore I would not recommend getting one from vpsisland unless you add a lot of ram and guaranteed resources.
ADDITIONAL COMMENT added on November 10, 2008:
About a month ago, I found this hosting offer from www.3dgwebhosting.com that gave a low range windows vps for 12.50 dollars per month. I decided to give them a try to see if windows has changed much (not to mention I was thinking about changing my personal website over to ASP). Although plesk was slow (and I ended up having them remove it), the vps was really fast overall and their customer service was excellent. I would highly recommend them to anyone who needs a windows VPS!
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