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Ask HN: Which VPS do you use/recommend?

8 points by eliben ↗ HN
I'm looking to switch from Bluehost shared hosting to a VPS for my personal website (couple of blogs, photo album, some private web apps). Which VPS do you use and recommend?

I was naturally looking at Linode, but their offering seems a bit pricey given that they cap you to 200GB/month transfer. Actually, with 4 CPUs and only 20GB of storage it smells like a solution for computing applications rather than web servers.

28 comments

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kfullert
Assuming you're US, but you might want to give Bytemark or Bifolk here in the UK a go (I've been a Bytemark customer for 10+ years now with a VPS)
mattbee
Thanks Kevin - I am _this_ close to flushing our beta list of invitations for BigV after an 18 month beta test. Sorry if you've been waiting, I'm nearly there :) See http://bigv.io/prices and email support@bigv.io if you'd like a signup link in the next 1-2 weeks. Command-line interface, maximum 180GiB RAM, 8 permanent discs, starts at £10/month ($16 ?) for a 1GB system.

You can read a bit about how we built it too: http://blog.bytemark.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Design...

thenomad
Seconded. Bytemark are the mutt's nuts for anything hosting-related in the UK.
whichdan
I've been happy with Rackspace Cloud - their support is fantastic even for non-managed accounts.

http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/public/servers/pricing/

They start at ~$16/mo, and only charge for outgoing bandwidth, but 200gb/mo can get a little pricey.

Could you give a better idea of what you're looking for in terms of resources/price/support?

eliben
$20/month is acceptable as long as I can get somewhat more storage and bandwidth. I care less about CPUs for instance, because I expect them to be idle most of the time.
cheae
I had bad experience with Rackspace Cloud.

With Servint and Mediatemple DV for the past couple of years and didn't have any major issues to complain.

runjake
I use/love prgmr.com for my personal website plus a few small web apps.

Prices/configs:

http://prgmr.com/xen/

The bloke who runs it is on HN:

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lsc

eliben
Thank you for the advice. However, it appears it's even pricier than Linode ?!
runjake
At a quick glance, I see that Linode prices start at $19.95 a month. I have a cheaper $12/mo plan with prgmr.com. There are even plans cheaper than $12/mo at prgmr. Are there cheaper Linode plans than what I'm seeing somewhere?
eliben
For $20/month Linode gives 20GB disk, 200GB bandwidth

For $20/month, http://prgmr.com/xen/ gives 24GB space, 160GB bandtwidth, though more memory which I don't really need. You do, however, have a 6-month subscription lower price which is cool.

padseeker
linode seems popular

http://linode.com

dangayle
I have two Linode's. They're so easy to spin up or spin down, it's a bright sunny day's walk in the park compared to any other service. Ahem, Amazon.

You gotta deal with all the typical unmanaged VPS stuff, but their support and the management of your linodes are second-to-none. I can't recommend them enough.

shepbook
I second this recommendation. I've used a number of services. AWS is great for testing. Rackspace is fine too. However, for my everyday usage, Linode is wonderful and pleasant to use.
nycacorp
Having worked in the technology industry for past 10 years; starting at Globat (Web Hosting) now owned by one of the mega Web Hosting consolidators (who also own BlueHost now); on a side note we were first to go Unlimited bandwidth (pure marketing to compete with BlueHost and it became an industry trend), and working for a CDN (NetDNA and MaxCDN) now; selfless promotion, every Website owner should have a Content Delivery Network these days.

I have to go with Amazon EC2 for your one-time testing instances (location availablity to spin up a box in Ireland or Singapore is great). If your doing some more permentant stuff, then I would have to go with Linode or VPS.net which both are unmanaged vps's. I can't recommend Rackspace cloud, good for some things but not this area. If your looking for application hosting then page.ly or WPEngine is the way to go for Wordpress Hosting, for other application hosting it would be OnApp.

ohashi
I think the big question is it depends on your needs/budget. I use ec2 to test stuff. But I use managed vps for important stuff. It also depends on what your app does and where you expect to bottleneck (cpu/band/disk).

(Disclaimer: this is my startup) You might want to check http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/compare/#tab2 which compares some big VPS providers. It's rating is based on what people are saying (positive/negative) about the company. I would think of it as 'customer happiness' it's not the end-all of things you should look at, but it should probably factor in.

rartichoke
Don't forget too that while Bluehost does offer unlimited BW, it's not really unlimited. It's just good marketing.

The moment you start to get any real traffic on your site they are going to shut you down without notice and ask you to either upgrade to their expensive non-shared solution OR terminate your contract.

I've seen this happen in 2 different cases.

eliben
BlueHost bashing is a whole different topic ;-) It suffices to say that I'm not even considering staying with them and using one of their more expensive and supported offerings.
rartichoke
It's not just bluehost who advertises "OMG UNLIMITED EVERYTHING!" but then insta-cancel you as soon as you get a hint of traffic.
OafTobark
It all depends. While I whole-heartedly agree unlimited is marketing BS, I have some solid traffic sites on BH that run fine. They're not holy shit traffic but they're solid traffic volume for a shared site
thisisdallas
I use a managed www.knownhost.com VPS that starts at $25 a month. They also have an unmanged VPS that starts at $10.
saniuk
I've had a VPS with KnownHost for almost two years now and haven't experienced a single issue with their service. I've submitted dozens of support tickets and they've always gone above and beyond to help me with issues that weren't even caused by their service. They've responded to most of my tickets (non-urgent) in under twenty minutes. I would definitley recommend them. You can view their VPS plans here: http://www.knownhost.com/vps_packages.html
abhijat
Does anyone have experience with openvz on http://www.cheapvps.co.uk? They seem cheaper than linode and I have been looking to switch from linode after a year due to budget constraints, the service from linode was excellent though.
athem
BlueVM

They are cheap and have good deals on and off. Have not had any issues so far.