The Top Rated VPS Web Hosts For 2018

VPS solutions are a great option for anyone who wants the reliability and privacy of a dedicated server but at a more affordable cost. In a VPS environment, you have your own mini server on what might otherwise be a shared machine. This means that no one can use your bandwidth, memory, drive space, or other resources. You also have more control over what is installed on your server.

This allows for a great deal of flexibility and server customization. There are also significant cost savings with VPS solutions as compared to dedicated servers because you never have to pay for any spare capacity, you can always scale up or scale down the size and power of your server, and you can automate resource usage and allocation to better meet undefined, irregular, or fluctuating needs.

In Virtual Private Hosting, you rent out server resources such as memory, storage, and processing power from a larger pool of computing power owned or controlled by your host. Think of VPS servers as smaller servers running in virtual compartments on a larger machine. They have their own operating system as well as predetermined levels of server resources within the bigger server.

To break it down differently, VPS hosting is like shared hosting but with root access to the server, and it is provisioned in a deployment that provides resources dedicated to you and to you alone, and everything is run and maintained from an isolated environment on a machine that is otherwise shared with other users.

In VPS hosting, multiple websites are hosted on a virtual private server on a more powerful server. An actual server machine is divided into several virtual compartments, and server software is setup on each compartment separately, making each unit capable of functioning as a server independently. Think of individual ice cubes stored on a larger ice tray.

Although other websites may be hosted on the same physical system that your website is hosted on, yours would be the only website hosted on the virtual compartment allocated to you, complete with your own server resources (CPU, RAM, and disk space) dedicated to you. Other websites on the machine don't affect the performance of yours, meaning you get exactly the resources you pay for.

With VPS hosting, your host basically gives you your own mini server, even though that server machine itself might be shared with other websites. However, no one can use your bandwidth, drive space, memory, or other resources that are dedicated to you and that you pay for. You also have more control over what is installed on your server, which is great for flexibility and customization.

The top VPS web hosts provide features, flexibility, and levels of performance very similar to dedicated hosting plans. However, going for a VPS solution means you get the best of both worlds: you benefit from significant cost savings as compared to dedicated servers by having an otherwise shared machine partitioned for you, and you still own and control all of your resources yourself.

If you are considering a VPS solution, you probably already know that you should steer clear from the downtime and ad-spamming that is common with free and shared plans. So the first thing to look for is guaranteed uptime and reliability. Next, find out about resource scaling; this is important for being able to automate management of spikes in traffic, which is a key benefit of VPS hosts.

Next, check whether or not you are allowed (and able) to do custom installs on your server and adjust admin settings to your specifications. Finally, look into customer support (is it available 24/7/365, that too via phone, email, and online chat?) and security settings. Don't go for anything less than SSL-secured, and check to make sure you are offered top-tier firewall and backup security.