Top 11 Important Factors to Consider When Choosing VPS Hosting

Top 11 Important Factors to Consider When Choosing VPS

Whether you are starting off with your business or maintaining a website, web hosting is the most important factor that cannot be overlooked. When selecting a VPS hosting solution, one should have the technical knowledge and needs to consider a plethora of important factors. It is more important if you are planning to upgrade from a standard shared plan.

So, if you have decided to select the best VPS, you have landed on the right page. Following are Top 11 things to consider that might help you pick the best VPS that suits your needs

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Top 11 Important Factors to Consider When Choosing VPS

1. RAM (Random Access Memory)

RAM, or Random Access Memory, is responsible for shifting information in order to complete specific tasks. Similar to the CPU cores, it is associated with the user experience and overall performance. Virtual servers come with their own dedicated RAM. With more RAM available, you can run an efficient website loaded with huge content.

At the least, you can get a VPS plan having 2 GB of RAM with which you can run an efficient website together with firewall, monitoring script, and scalable MySQL database. If you don’t want to worry about your site’s performance, you can consider increasing your RAM up to 4 GB for good measure.

Once you expand your website and see more traffic, you can choose to upgrade your VPS server’s RAM up to 32 GB or even more. Having more RAM enables you to have a larger MySQL database, utilize caching plugins, operate the content delivery network, and a whole lot more.

2. CPU (Central Processing Unit)

Generous CPU power is important as the CPU manages the tasks and is responsible for allocating resources to the operating system. More CPU cores indicate that a virtual server is capable of handling multiple tasks simultaneously, quite similar to your computer at home. Shared hosting plans don’t provide the option to select the number of cores you can take advantage of as that number is predefined on the server levels.

But with VPS, you get the option to customize your host environment depending on your needs. The dedicated hosting plans offer a greatly varied number of cores with VPS hosting.

Entry-level plans have one or two cores that are sufficient for small websites with less content to show. You can also find providers that include eight or more CPU cores suitable for websites having huge databases or heavy applications. An increased number of cores ensures that your website runs fast and smoothly but it can be availed in the premium plan.

3. VPS Disk Space

Usually, hosting providers offer great storage amounts for the VPS plans. This amount includes the disk space which will be used to store the data; thus, several GBs of disk space is always great. If you are looking for a safe future plan, you can find providers that offer unlimited storage.

While you choose the provider, pay attention to the type of storage the company uses. SSDs, or Solid State Drives, are better than the normal hard drives as they are more reliable and offer a great improvement in the connection speed.

4. Bandwidth Allowance

Those having some experience with web hosting must have good knowledge of the concept of bandwidth. For those who aren’t familiar, bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that is transferred when there is a visitor on your site. Even if you don’t offer downloads, bandwidth will still be used. There are some VPS providers that are known for their unlimited bandwidth.

Though no hard bandwidth cap is good still it is not advised to avoid going with providers that implement a cap. Because at the end of the day, you’ll always have a choice of adding more resources to increase your growth. The ultimate advantage of having unmetered bandwidth is that you can rest easy regarding the performance issues that occur due to an increased amount of traffic.

5. VPS Security System

Most of the VPS providers offer different security features that can make a great difference in keeping you and your visitors safe. In these times, hacking, DDoS attacks, malware, and identity theft has increased greatly. Look out for the free SSL certificates, DDoS protection, firewall protection, and malware scanning. Moreover, you can choose the provider that performs regular backups to reduce the downtime and keep your site functioning again if there was any problem earlier.

6. Control Panel

Different kinds of control panels are available of which the most common is cPanel. It is user-friendly and is used by several hosting providers which makes it a number one choice for many people. Some other options include Webmin, Direct Admin, Plesk, etc.

You should go for the control panel which is easy to use because this is where you’ll be handling all aspects of your website. All tasks can be performed in one place if you load CMS like WordPress, use custom scripts, install plugins, etc.

Additionally, your management tools will be based within the control panel. Note that VPS hosting solution provides you with great control over your site functionality and performance. With a familiar and simple-to-use control panel, you can manage the entire system with much ease.

7. Operating System

You can find the best VPS solution depending on your operating system i.e., Window or Linux-based. Note that not all hosting providers offer a Windows server as they can only use Microsoft frameworks like ASP.NET.

The most popular are the Linux servers as they offer more flexibility and work with more frameworks, programming languages, and databases. If you choose a Linux system, you should pick a plan having compatibility with your preferred distro. You can choose from different popular options like CentOS, Ubuntu, and many more.

8. Root Access

A VPS plan with a root access feature can help you manage your server from the deepest level possible. This enables you to edit all files located on your virtual server. If you want to implement complex coding or install software, you should choose such VPS plans. But, with full root access, there are great chances of you ruining your website.

That being the case, not all web hosting providers offer this feature. But those who do, only provide a single administrative access point for the site safety. It is typically recommended to avoid using the root access feature until you are highly experienced with web hosting. Or have a team of skilled IT engineers.

9. Managed/ Unmanaged

It is entirely up to you when it comes to choosing between an unmanaged or managed VPS server. Like we stated above, running a VPS server may get difficult. That is why many small businesses hire a team of IT experts for managing the hosting environment smoothly. If you are one of those or confident about your technical expertise, unmanaged VPS plans are for you. The unmanaged VPS service typically offers a bit more control than the managed plans.

Even if you aren’t able to handle the server yourself, there is nothing to worry about. Some web hosting providers offer managed VPS servers that costs more than the unmanaged alternatives. However, they offer professional assistance too which means that the provider will handle the important tasks for keeping your website function efficiently.

10. VPS Uptimes

You should take the reliability of service into account in general. Every hosting provider makes great efforts to keep their equipment perform efficiently. However, mishaps happen which affects some providers more than the others, resulting in a decrease in the uptime ratings.

Uptime rating is basically the amount of time the server remains online. In the event that a data breach or a power outage shuts the device, your visitors won’t be able to use your website. If this happens, this could cause a loss of income as per the content available on your site.

So, pay attention to the uptime guarantees and powerful security systems at the data centers. Most of the providers go over and above to make certain that the data centers are safe, secure, and reliable.

11. Connection Speed

Lastly, remember that the number of visitors may decrease if your site takes ages to load. Even if you are planning to get your own dedicated server or a standard shared plan, the connection speed should always be your prime concern. To make your website perform at its best, go for the provider that repeatedly offers the fast speed for your visitors. Other than the high-performance equipment, the location of the data centers should also be taken into consideration.

The data center is the place where your virtual machine is located. You should select a provider offering data centers near your target audience. If your visitors reside near the physical server, the connection speed gets reduced greatly. But what happens if you have a global audience?

This is when the content delivery networks come into play. The cached version of your website gets loaded on the large web of server nodes by a CDN. Rather than sending a message to the distant data centers, the user can connect to the closest node for loading up the website. In this way, the load time can be reduced to some extent.

Final Words

These are some of the crucial factors that you should consider while choosing the best VPS hosting solution. Therefore, ensure that you weigh the options you have and evaluate your requirements carefully before you decide on a specific VPS solution.

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Top 11 Important Factors to Consider When Choosing VPS