VPS hosting is a great alternative to standard shared web hosting packages, which are cheap and user-friendly, but also slow, inflexible, and often don’t have the features required by professional users.

If you’re looking for something more flexible than shared web hosting, but still relatively easy, then VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is a great choice.

Buying a VPS plan means that you get your very own virtual server environment. You have full control over the operating system, the extensions and apps you install, and all their settings. Each physical server will still host multiple VPS customers, but not as many as with shared hosting. Usually each VPS will be allocated some share of key resources – RAM, storage, CPU – for their use alone.

It’s not hard to manage actually as many VPS plans include standard tools like cPanel to help monitor and configure your site. Some hosts will manage the service for you, monitoring for problems like a crashed service, and fixing them as soon as they’re detected.

VPS prices and specs vary from a few dollars a month to hundreds, depending on your requirements. The following list features the best choices for VPS hosting available right now.

1. ScalaHosting

With around 50,000 customers and 700,000 hosted domains, ScalaHosting is a compact, independent provider from the US and it is our choice number one.

It has two data centers, one in its native country and the other in EU. A second North American facility is under construction. Scala offers:

• 99.99% uptime
• decent speed
• responsive support
• intuitive customer area and SPanel
• easy to scale

Scala is optimized for WordPress with proprietary security solutions. It’s really a gem and you should definitely try it.

2. LiquidWeb

Founded more than 20 years ago, US-based LiquidWeb has grown into a $100 million web hosting business which now manages 500,000+ sites for 30,000+ customers across its five global data centers.

The company offers powerful managed hosting products targeted squarely at business and professional users. That means no free plans or basic shared hosting products – LiquidWeb is far more focused on high performance, highly configurable cloud, managed application and dedicated server products.

LiquidWeb is a premium VPS hosting worth trying if you’re looking for the best possible quality and price is not an issue.

3. Hostinger

Created in Lithuania some 15 years ago, Hostinger is an international brand with a very strong presence in many markets. This is a company that doesn’t bow to industry leaders, but strives to create an empire of its own. And this empire feels surprisingly good.

After all, Hostinger created and still runs the biggest free website hosting provider. Hostinger offers:

• 99.91% uptime
• superb speed (one of the fastest provider)
• cheap but support is sometimes lacking

How to choose the best VPS hosting provider

The quantity of the resources you require

Your website will obviously consume resources on the server. That is why it is necessary that you decide the amount of those resource, for example the size of hard disk space, CPU, and the amount of RAM you are going to need. The bigger your project, the more resources you will be needing. If your project is highly likely to expand and grow than you should choose accordingly taking your future plans into consideration.

Choice of OS

There are many choices you get when deciding about the operating system you want on your VPS hosting, but the most common are Windows or Linux. Linux is an open-source operating system and is cheaper than windows. The Windows VPS hosting can be preferred if you are developing in .NET or if you have applications that are designed for the Windows platform.

Backend operations management

There are two types of VPS hosting, managed and unmanaged. If you think that you have the technical skills to handle backend operations of the server like software updates, patches and security you can opt for the unmanaged VPS. The unmanaged option can save you some money. But if you prefer not to be burdened by these extra tasks, then you can get a staff to do that for you. They will manage the backend operations for a little extra money.

Location of your web host

If you live in Asia, then Singapore is the best location for web hosting as it has the most sophisticated technology and at cheaper rates. You also need to think about your business need of protecting the customer data. US-based web hosting companies need to have a near open-door policy for governmental access of sensitive data, whereas web hosting in Canada are highly reliable for the protection of user data. Therefore, if you need security, then choosing a Canadian web host might prove beneficial for you.

Customer support

You want your website to be running at all times. You also expect that the company you hired for your VPS web hosting is responsive. You’ll want eager and responsive people for your support in times of emergencies. If your website starts experiencing problems or if it is being targeted by hackers, then you’ll need an expert team for your support which will help reconstruct or recover your website. There are many hackers out there who are always targeting websites for ransom or for exploiting user data. The customer support should also be available 24/7. The team should be able to defend your website against such hackers and their attacks, for which they should be knowledgeable too.