Best VPS Hosting Providers 2024 Review And Comparison

This arguably is the most detailed, honest and in-depth review of the top 10+5 best VPS hosting providers of 2024 on the planet.

I’ve compiled this VPS hosting services list keeping the budget, and resource-requirements in mind. So, it doesn’t matter if you simply need a shared-to-VPS upgrade, or are starting a completely new project altogether. I’m confident this list contains exactly what you seek.

Moreover, I’ve tailored this best VPS hosting list specifically for “you”, as in, every individual reading this. What’s your priority? Is it budget? Server-locations? Root-access? Management? Free add-ons? Cleaner IPs?

Each company has been dissected into exactly these categories. You can literally filter-through the features till you find a company which ticks all of your boxes.

Just in case you landed on this page at random, do move to a VPS, at least, consider it. Even if you’ve just got a baby-project, you’re sharing resources with others, your IP addresses could be blacklisted, and most importantly the speed on a shared server always hurts your SEO, rankings, and hence overall growth.

Affiliate Disclosure: If you make a purchase through any of the links below, I may receive a commission. This doesn’t cost you anything. In fact, you probably will get an exclusive discount on your checkout page. And, the review/opinions are still 100% unbiased. But, you’re helping me earn my coffee-money in the process. Everyone deserves coffee, eh?

Table of Contents

Best VPS Hosting Comparison 2024
Factors I considered while choosing the best VPS hosting providers:
Best VPS Hosting Providers in 2024
Final Verdict- Which is the best VPS hosting provider?

Best VPS Hosting Comparison 2024

Cheapest Plan price	Management	Root-Access	Free cPanel	Server Locations	Free CDN	Free Backups	Refund Period	Free Migrations
$59.00/month	Managed & Unmanaged	Yes	Yes	4	Yes	Yes	Pro-Rated	Yes
$5.00/month	Core, Managed, Unmanaged	Yes	Yes	3	Yes	Yes	Anytime	Yes
$5.00/month	Managed & Unmanaged	Yes	Yes	4	No	No	90-Days	Yes
$18.99/month	Unmanaged	Yes	Yes	1	Yes	No	60 days	No
$41.21/month	Managed	Yes	Yes	7	Yes	Yes	46 days	Yes
$19.99/month	Managed only	Yes	Yes	1	No	No	30 Days	No
$11.88/month	Managed, Semi-managed & Unmanaged	Yes	Yes	1	Yes	Yes	30 Days	Yes
$3.95/month	Unmanaged only	Yes	No	3	No	No	30 Days	No
$39.95/month	Managed only	Yes	Yes	1	Yes	No	30 Days	Yes
$80.00/month	Managed only	No	No	6	Yes	Yes	15 Days	Yes
$6.00/month	Managed & Unmanaged	Yes	No	1	Yes	No	Pro-rated	Yes

Factors I considered while choosing the best VPS hosting providers:

Why should you trust this list? I’ll keep it brief, first, I’ve had personal experiences with most of the companies enlisted below.

Secondly, I’ve made sure to include the “fine-print” details, these are generally skipped or missed when you’re simply visiting the official websites.

And finally, you’ll find the following details singled out for every single best VPS hosting company listed below:

Management type (Managed/Unmanaged/Semi-managed).
Free add-ons: I’ve mentioned which companies offer free SSL, CDN, domains and other add-ons.
Resources: The minimum/maximum resources (RAM/ bandwidth / cores) each VPS company offers; customization-control.
Automated backups: The backup-policy (free or paid, quota, retention-period).
Server location-choice: Exact locations and control over location-choices.
Dedicated IPs: The exact number of free dedicated IPs, available paid add-ons, types of IPs (IPv4 /IPv6), their pricing and limits.
Detailed pricing plans, refund-period, billing-cycles and payment modes.
Availability of free migrations (or the lack thereof).
Details related to root access availability, plans which offer or do not offer root—access.
cPanel and OS-details: Is cPanel included for free? Does it require additional payments? What other control panels are pre-included (if any).What are the allowed operating systems?
Support: Every “support” section below includes the modes of support, response-times, level of information offered, and even the “vibe” (no kiddin’).

And finally, know that only those companies which offer the best security and uptime have been enlisted in this best VPS hosting providers list.

Best VPS Hosting Providers in 2024

Let’s dig deeper.

1. Liquid Web

Cheapest plan: $59.00/month.
Management: Managed and Unmanaged.
Free SSL: Yes
Free cPanel: Yes
Root access: Yes
Free domain: No
Server locations: 3x US/ 1x The Netherlands
Free CDN: Yes
Free backups: Yes
Refund period: None (Pro-rated)
Free migrations: Yes
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes
Website: www.liquidweb.com

There aren’t many companies which have the audacity to claim being better than AWS or Digital Ocean. Well, Liquid Web does.

It offers Cloud VPS, basically VPS plans with the scalability of Cloud servers.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

Liquid Web does offer both the management-types, i.e. Managed and Unmanaged servers. Complete root access is most definitely provided.

As for cPanel, it’s provided but obviously isn’t free. We as customers get to choose the number of licenses required, and based on that the final invoice is paid.

For the managed servers, only CentOS is offered. Unmanaged servers can be set up with Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

The core-prices for the servers remain same regardless of the management-type. The order-page lists managed/core-managed and self-managed options additionally on top of the core-plans. Choosing one of these dictates the final payment you’d be making.

Plan 1: $59.00/month – 2 GB RAM /40 GB storage /2 CPU cores.
Plan 2: $99.00/month – 3.9GB RAM /100 GB storage/ 4 CPU cores.
Plan 3: $139.00/month – 7.8GB RAM, 150GB storage and 8 cores.
Plan 4: $189.00/month – 15.6GB RAM /200 GB storage/ 8 cores.

*The RAM is mentioned “not in whole numbers” because some part of the RAM is reserved for server processing. Just being transparent and detailed now.

If you add a “fully-managed” service, that costs $15.00 extra. The bandwidth on any of these plans is 10TB. Additional bandwidth can be purchased ($50.00/month for 15TB, $100.00/month for 100TB).

As for payment modes, the first payment for some reasons must be via PayPal or Cards. Subsequent payments can be made via Cheque, or Wire transfers.

During signup, only the monthly billing-cycle can be opted for. After signup, users can contact support to request a change in the cycle. Available billing-cycles includes monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual.

The only factor which pinches with LiquidWeb is that it doesn’t offer money-back under any circumstances. There is however a pro-rated refund offered on VPS, on unused days.

Free add-ons:

The company is big on these, it’s also one of the reasons why it tops this best VPS hosting companies list. It offer free migrations (if you purchased a “fully managed server, with a control panel).

Free backups too are included, up to 100 GB. These are retained for 90 days. Additional back-up sizes ca be purchased as well.

1 free dedicated IP address is provided. Additional IPs are offered at a comparatively cheaper price of $1.00/IP.

Both a free CDN as well as an SSL certificate are offered. The only free add-on not included is a domain.

Server-location choices:

A total of 4 server locations are offered. 3 in USA (two in Lansing, MI)and (one in Phoenix, Arizona), and another in The Netherlands.

Note that these server-location do not affect the pricing, except for the one in The Netherlands, which is priced slightly higher.

Support:

Without doubt, one of the most co-operative, responsive, and detailed support teams ever.

There’s a live-chat which is available 24X7. The responses are not only fast, but extremely detailed. More importantly, you can keep them on hold for minutes on end and the chat wouldn’t end abruptly. Not unless your problem gets solved or question answered.

Additionally, email as well as phone support can be availed as well.

2. A2 Hosting

Cheapest plan: $5.00/month.
Management: Managed & unmanaged.
Free SSL: Yes.
Root access: Yes
Free cPanel: Yes.
Free domain: No.
Server-locations: 2x U.S / Netherlands / Singapore.
Free CDN: Yes.
Free backups: Yes.
Refund period: Anytime.
Free migrations: Yes.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes x2.
Website: www.a2hosting.com

A2 Hosting is hands-down the most “options-rich” best VPS hosting provider on this entire list. It offers the most customization-possibilities and control.

Due to its “Turbo servers”, it also is arguably the fastest server among the other available options.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

A2 Hosting offers three types of managing options .The unmanaged servers, managed servers with root access (Core VPS), and managed servers without root access.

Root access is provided on the Core VPS plans (managed server with root access), and unmanaged plans.

cPanel is offered on all servers. It’s pre-included on the other two packages, while can be manually added to the cart on the unmanaged servers for $19.95.

It probably offers the most OS-options as well. You can choose from CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and even Gentoo.

Additional add-ons such as Litespeed cache can be added for additional prices.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

Even though it offers 3 management plans, the pricing on the Core VPS plan (managed VPS with root access), and the Managed VPS plan without root access are identical.

Managed VPS (both with, and w/o root access)

Power+ : $25.00/month – 4GB RAM/ 75GB Storage/ 2TB bandwidth /4 cores.
Prestige+ : $34.00/month- 6GB RAM/ 100GB Storage/ 3TB bandwidth /6 cores.
Pinnacle+: $50.00/month- 8GB RAM/ 150GB Storage/ 4TB bandwidth /8 cores.

They cost the same, and offer the same amount of resources. So, what’s the difference between the Core VPS and “no root managed VPS”? Well, minor features.

E.g. the “Server rewind” feature or the free CDN are only offered on the Managed VPS without root access.

The “Managed VPS without root access” plan offers everything that the Core VPS plan does, except root access.

Unmanaged VPS Pricing plans:

Three unmanaged VPS plans exist:

Entry: $5.00/month- 20 GB storage, 1 core, 512MB RAM, 2TB bandwidth.
Mid: $10.00/month- 30 GB storage, 1 core, 1 GB RAM, 2TB bandwidth.
Elite: $15.00/month- 50 GB storage, 4 cores, 1GB RAM, 2TB bandwidth.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I said A2 Hosting offers absolute and maximum control over its resources.

You get to add additional storage, cores, RAM and bandwidth at will (at additional prices, of course). This has a massive practical benefit. You wouldn’t need to upgrade your entire plan when you only need one or two resources upgraded.

Even the billing-cycles offers the most choices on this entire best VPS list. Available billing-cycles include monthly, 3-months, 6-months, 12-months, 24-months and 36 months.

Even its refund-policy exceeds most other best VPS hosting providers out there. It offers “anytime” money-back guarantee. It’s pro-rated, of course.

As for the payment modes, it accepts Credit/Debit cards (VISA/ Mastercard /American Express/ Discover /Union Pay), PayPal and Skrill.

Free add-ons:

It doesn’t offer free domains. But, apart from that, there truly is nothing amiss. It offers free SSL certificate, free CDN, and even free and automated backups.

Both the managed plans offer 2 free dedicated IPs each, while the unmanaged plan offers 1.

Free migrations too are available on both the managed plans.

Server-locations:

Alike all the other aspects, A2 Hosting excels when it comes to server locations as well. It offers 4 options to choose from:

Michigan
Arizona
Singapore
And Amsterdam.

These locations do not affect your pricing plans.

Support:

One of A2 Hosting’s strongest suits, apart from its speed and uptime is its support. The company offers 24X7 live-chat support.

In addition to that, there’s email as well as tickets which can be used to get in touch. And this isn’t just my “opinion”, but experience. I’ve used A2 Hosting personally, details of which can be found in this A2 Hosting review.

The company has won over 25 awards for best speed, best support, best uptime to name a few. Speaks volume for its services.

3. InMotion Hosting

Cheapest plan: $5.00/month.
Management: Managed and unmanaged.
Free SSL: Yes
Free cPanel: Yes
Root access: Yes
Free domain: Yes
Server-locations: California & Los Angeles.
Free CDN: No
Free backups: No.
Refund period: 90-days.
Free migrations: Yes.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes
Website: www.inmotionhosting.com

InMotion ticks most, if not all the boxes when it comes to the best VPS hosting providers. It’s one of the very few companies which offers real-time redundancies. In other words, if your site goes down it automatically and instantly switches nodes and comes back up online. This ensures one of the highest uptime in the industry.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

The company offers both managed and unmanaged services. Even on the unmanaged plans, management add-on can be purchased separately.

Complete root access is provided. OS-choices include CentOS, Debian or Ubuntu. 5 cPanel licenses are pre-included in addition to a WHM license.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing cycles, Resources and refunds:

The management-type of your server determines the packages available to you. In fact, it determines a lot more than that as you’ll soon see.

A total of 8 unmanaged plans are offered:

3 variations of managed plans are offered:

Plan 1: $29.99/month – 4 GB RAM/ 75GB storage /4 TB bandwidth.
Plan 2: $49.99/month – 6GB RAM/ 150 GB storage / 5TB bandwidth.
Plan 3: $83.99/month – 8GB RAM/ 260GB storage/ 6TB bandwidth.

If you’re searching for the no. of CPU cores, well, I didn’t miss out on those. It’s the only company on this entire list of the best VPS hosting providers which offers as many as 24 cores and 48 threads on all its managed VPS plans.

(The managed plans are officially named VPS-1000HA-S/VPS-2000HA-S and VPS-3000HA-S. These are just “names”, pretty confusing ones. So I’ve used simpler terminology above to explain the pricing plans to you folks).

Payment can be made using Credit cards, PayPal or even Cheque. The following billing-cycles exist: 1month/6months/1 year and 2-years. A massive 90-day refund period (on its 6-month and 12-month plans) ensures no love is lost in case things don’t go as planned.

Free add-ons:

The company offers free domains on its yearly packages only if you go with the managed VPS hosting plans.

No free CDN or backups included. They’re to be taken care of by the user him/herself. The good news is, quite a few very popular free CDN providers are available in the industry. The same holds true for backup solutions as well.

Free migrations are offered for up to 5 pages. Free SSL certificates included with all plans. Free dedicated IP addresses available with the managed plans, starting with 3 IPs for the cheapest plan, 4 for the second more-expensive plan and 5 with the most expensive plan.

Even free advertising credits worth $150.00 is included with all the managed plans.

Server location choices:

The company even though only offers servers from the U.S, it does offer a choice of two locations.

You can either choose Los Angeles, or California for your servers. This choice doesn’t effect your pricing.

Support:

An impressive support team is available via live-chat, as well as phone and email. The wait-time with the live-chat never exceed a minute at best.

What I like more is the fact that we aren’t redirected to links. Rather, direct and relevant answers are shared.

4. Bluehost

Cheapest plan: $19.99/month.
Management: Unmanaged.
Free SSL: Yes
Free cPanel: Yes
Root access: Yes
Free domain: Yes
Server-locations: Utah
Free CDN: Yes
Free backups: No
Refund period: 60-days.
Free migrations: No
Free dedicated IP addresses: Yes
Website: www.bluehost.com

On almost all the “Best VPS hosting providers” lists out there, you’d find Bluehost reigning. One of the reasons why its popularity skyrocketed is because WordPress officially announced Bluehost to be the #1 server for WordPress. Bluehost currently hosts 2,000,000+ websites.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

Bluehost offers only self-managed VPS servers. Complete root access is provided for the servers.

Managing a server without cPanel sucks. Bluehost understands that and throws in a free cPanel as well as a WHM license with its VPS plans.

As for the VPS plans, let’s break them down.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

Three rationally-priced VPS hosting plans are available with Bluehost:

Standard: $19.99/month – 2 Cores/ 30 GB SSD Storage /1 TB bandwidth, 2GB RAM.
Enhanced: $29.99/month – 2 Cores/ 60 GB SSD Storage /2 TB bandwidth, 4GB RAM.
Ultimate: $59.99/month – 4 Cores/ 120 GB SSD Storage /3 TB bandwidth, 8GB RAM.

3 billing-cycles are available, 1 month, 3 months, 6months, 12 months and 36months. Payment can be made using Credit cards or PayPal.

The general money-back guarantee covers 30-days, however, currently they’re offering double the time-frame.

Free add-ons:

Free domain is included if you pay for your plans yearly, or more. The domain is only free for the first year as is the industry-tradition.

Bluehost also offers free CDN and a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate. Free dedicated IPs too are offered. The “Standard” plan offers 1 free dedicated IP address, while the two latter plans offer 2 each.

No free backups offered. No free migrations included either, that’s the only thing that hurts. But if you’re looking for the best VPS hosting providers, I doubt a simple server migration will be a deal-breaker, eh?

Server-location choices:

All of its servers are located in Utah. While I generally prefer more server choices, in this exceptional case I must say I’m content. There’s reduced confusion and the company clearly is capable of offering top-notch servers from this one location.

Support:

Bluehost doesn’t get to be mention in the list of best VPS hosting services without one of the finest support teams I’ve ever seen.

It offers 24X7 support, via live-chat, email as well as call (a Toll-free number is made available). You can even request a call-back without having to initiate the ticket/call yourself!

The support-team consists of multiple departments which make sure we get the most accurate and relevant answers.

The response time on the live-chat is generally no longer than 1minute. The E-mail does take a few hours, but never more than 1-24.

5. HostArmada

Cheapest plan: $41.21/month.
Management: Managed only.
Free SSL: Yes
Free cPanel: Yes
Root access: Yes
Free domain: Yes
Server-locations: USA/Canada/London/India/ Denmark /Australia/Singapore
Free CDN: Yes.
Free backups: Yes.
Refund period: 7 days
Free migrations: Yes
Free Dedicated IP Address: Yes
Website: https://hostarmada.com/

HostArmada is “the” most feature-rich VPS host on this list.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

HostArmada is a fully managed VPS solution. All its VPS plans come with cPanel by default. It also grants full root access on demand. This means root access isn’t available by default but can be requested for free.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

4 Pricing plans are available:

Web Shuttle: $41.21/month- 50 GB / 1 CPU/ 2TB bandwidth/ 2GB RAM
Web Voyager: $48.71/month- 80 GB / 2CPU/ 4TB bandwidth/ 4GB RAM
Web Raider: $63.71/month-160 GB/ 4 CPU/ 5 TB bandwidth / 8GB RAM
Site Carrier- $101.21/month- 320 GB /6 CPU/ 8 TB bandwidth / 16 GB RAM

There’s no cancellation fee in case you don’t like the services. There’s also a 100% moneyback guarantee for the first 7 days.

Free add-ons

Every VPS plan comes with free daily backups! It also offers free domains, over half a dozen domain TLDs supported. SSL certificate and cPanel too is included for free.

If you don’t take the free domain, you can also avail its free migration feature. 1 dedicated IP is available as well. A free CDN too is included for free.

Server locations ;

HostArmada, lets us choose from as many as 7 different countries. That’s probably the highest on this entire list! The countries include:

USA
Canada
India
Singapore
Denmark
Australia
London

Support

Again, probably one of the most impressive support teams I’ve ever seen. 24X7 live chat available. Instant responses, the wait-time never exceeds a few seconds.

6. iPage

Cheapest plan: $19.99/month.
Management: Managed only.
Free SSL: Yes
Free cPanel: Yes
Root access: Yes
Free domain: Yes
Server-locations: USA.
Free CDN: No.
Free backups: No.
Refund period: 30-days.
Free migrations: No.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes
Website: https://www.ipage.com/

iPage isn’t very big on freebies or add-ons, but due to sheer server-quality and performance, it still ranks as one of the best VPS hosting providers.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

iPage only offers managed VPS services. Best for medium-large size businesses who don’t have the time to get their hands dirty.

Root access is provided. cPanel is pre-included with the plans. As for OS-choices, signup is limited to CentOS. However, it can be changed to Debian, Ubuntu or Fedora at a later time.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

3 plans are offered for its VPS hosting plans:

Basic: $19.99/month – 1 CPU core/ 1 GB RAM/ 1TB bandwidth/50GB
Business: $47.90/month – 2 cores/ 4GB RAM/ 90 GB storage/ 3TB bandwidth.
Optimum: $79.99/month – 4 cores/ 8GB RAM /120 GB Storage / 4TB bandwidth.

The billing-cycle options are 1 month, 1 year or 2 years. Payments can be made via PayPal or Credit cards.

A 30-day money-back guarantee exists on all the plans regardless of the billing-cycle.

Free add-ons:

The company offers free SSL certificates as well as free domains for the year with all its VPS plans.

However, neither free backups nor free migrations are included. The free CDN too seems to be missing.

In a nutshell, there’s a bit more third-party and manual work involved, but the server-quality makes it worth it.

1 Dedicated IP address is offered for free on the “Basic” plan, the two other plans offer 2 IPs each.

Server-location choices:

Unfortunately, there are no location-choices available. All the VPS servers are located in Burlington, USA.

Support:

Alike most other best VPS hosting providers, iPage too offers 24X7 live-chat support. The response time again never exceeds a minute.

They also offer a phone number which can be called for assistance. Or, there obviously is the email.

7. Namecheap

Cheapest plan: $11.88/month.
Management: Unmanaged and Managed.
Free SSL: No.
Free cPanel: Yes.
Root access: Yes.
Free domain: Yes.
Server-locations: U.S.
Free CDN: Yes.
Free backups: Yes.
Refund period: 30-days.
Free migrations: Yes.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes
Website: https://www.namecheap.com/

Namecheap is already a big player in the industry. Arguably, one of the biggest. While it specializes in Domain names, its servers are no less in quality.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

Alike A2 Hosting, Namecheap too offers 3 levels of management. The unmanaged (user-responsible), Basic and complete management.

Unmanaged services are free. However, server restoration can be requested for $10.00 one-time fee, $15.00 is required to “detect and eliminate” failure cause. Core software changes too can be commissioned for $15.00 one-time fee on the unmanaged plan.

“Basic” management costs $10.00/month and “Complete” is priced at $25.00/month on top of the hosting plan.

The “Basic” primarily only covers software changes and server failure cases. The “Complete” on the other hand is A-Z management.

Root access is offered on the unmanaged and “Basic” management plans, the “Complete” management plan is void of it.

cPanel can be added for an extra $10.88/month. OS-choices include CentOS, Debian and Ubuntu.

Pricing, payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

Arguably the simplest pricing on this entire list of the best VPS hosting providers. Offers two simple plans:

Pulsar: $11.88/month -2 cores / 2GB RAM /40 GB storage /1000 GB bandwidth.
Quasar: $19.88/month – 4 cores /6GB RAM /120 GB storage /3000 GB bandwidth.

Namecheap is one of those very few companies which do not exponentially increase their renewal rates. The prices remain the same even for renewals, and that’s extremely rare.

The billing-cycle can either be monthly, quarterly or yearly. The longer terms do offer discounts.

A 30-day refund period is applicable on all plans. Payment modes include Credit/Debit cards, and PayPal.

Free add-ons:

The company offers a free .website domain name on all its plans. A free CDN too is included. However, the SSL isn’t offered and needs to be obtained separately.

There are free automated backups on the managed plans. The duration and size of these backups depends on the management plan. E.g. the “Complete” management plan retains weekly backups, up to 100GB in size.

For other non-managed plans, backups are retained from 3-7 days, however, this isn’t guaranteed.

1 IPv4 address is offered. Additional IPs can be purchased, not exceeding 4 in total. Free migrations are offered as well.

Server location-choices:

No server location choices are offered on the VPS plans. The servers are hosted at a Datacenter in Phoenix, Arizona.

Support:

As is expected, support is primarily offered via 24X7 live-chat. It’s not the best, but doesn’t leave any points to be complained about. The response times do not exceed “seconds”, and replies are always direct answers, accompanied with useful links.

Tickets and emails are some other ways to get in touch with the company.

You may also like to read my honest NameCheap review.

8. Hostinger

Cheapest plan: $3.95/month.
Management: Unmanaged.
Root access: Yes
Free SSL: No.
Free cPanel: No.
Free domain: No.
Server-locations: US/UK/Asia.
Free CDN: No.
Free backups: No.
Refund period: 30-days.
Free migrations: No.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes
Website: www.hostinger.com

If you need the best VPS hosting provider on a budget, I bet you can’t find a better option than Hostinger.

The “cheap pricing” isn’t the selling-point, rather, it’s the “impressive server-quality, uptime and after-sale” services which seem to keep it ahead in the rather competitive market.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

Hostinger VPS plans are semi-managed, or unmanaged in other words. Basic support is offered, however, it’s not as hands-on as with managed services. But they’re honest about it from start, and the basic support in most cases is more thanenough.

Complete root access is most definitely offered. The default OS the VPS is installed with is CentOS. However, it can be changed to Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora or Suse.

cPanel isn’t pre-included. A 15-day free trial is offered, after which it needs to be purchased separately.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

One of the strongest suits that Hostinger boasts of is its transparent pricing. It doesn’t’ hide behind the fine-print and TOS. All the plans, additional costs, renewal costs and everything else is displays transparently on the order-page.

It offers 6 VPS plans in total.

Plan 1- $3.95/month – 20 GB storage / 1 CPU Core /1000 GB bandwidth / 1 GB RAM.
Plan 2- $8.95/month – 40 GB storage / 2 CPU Cores /2000 GB bandwidth / 2 GB RAM.
Plan 3- $12.95/month – 60 GB storage / 3 CPU Cores /3000 GB bandwidth / 3 GB RAM.
Plan 4- $15.95/month – 80 GB storage / 4 CPU Cores /4000 GB bandwidth / 4 GB RAM.
Plan 5- $23.95/month – 120 GB storage / 6 CPU Cores /6000 GB bandwidth / 6 GB RAM.
Plan 6- $29.95/month – 160 GB storage / 8 CPU Cores /8000 GB bandwidth / 8 GB RAM.

Hostinger has always held the crown for being one of the cheapest hosting providers in the industry, and I believe the pricing-plans above further enforce the claims.

A wide range of payment modes are accepted, Cryptocurrencies being the prime attraction. You can pay using Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and a number of other Cryptocurrencies.

Or, go the traditional route and pay using PayPal or Credit Cards (VISA/ Mastercard/ Amex/Maestro/Discover/ Diner’s and JCB).

*The last four card-types are only available for customers from US and Europe.

4 billing-cycles are offered, monthly, 12 months, 24 months or 48 months. The longer the term, the better discounts you get. Up to 77% off is offered on the 48 month plan, even the 1-year plan offers a 65% discount.

There also is a 30-day money-back guarantee making sure there’s utmost satisfaction, or a refund.

Free Add-ons:

All VPS plans come with 1 free dedicated IP addresses. While there aren’t many “free add-ons”, there sure are heavily discounted add-ons.

E.g. a domain with a VPS plan costs just $0.99, which I’d say is pretty close to “free”. Daily backups aren’t free, but cost $19.99/month. Now, if your project is really serious-enough, I say the pricing isn’t completely unjustified.

The one-thing it doesn’t directly offer for free is “migration”. But, the support-team does help with plugins and the process so that’s there.

The CDN and SSL certificates aren’t pre-included and require manual installation.

Server-location choices:

While we do not manually get server-choices, the Hostinger servers are located in UK, USA and Asia.

That covers nearly all the major visitor-hubs on the planet, doesn’t it?

Support:

You wouldn’t find live-chat on the website if you aren’t a registered user. While that may seem like a downer, the actual support for the registered users is provided via live-chat, as well as emails and ticket.

Here’s a snapshot from Trustpilot regarding Hostinger’s support. Clearly, the support isn’t a disappointment:

9. Green Geeks

Cheapest plan: $39.95/month.
Management: Managed.
Free SSL: Yes.
Root access: Yes
Free cPanel: Yes.
Free domain: No.
Server-locations: U.S
Free CDN: Yes.
Free backups: No.
Refund period: 30-days.
Free migrations: Yes.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes x2.
Website: www.greengeeks.com

If you’re one for eco-friendly hosting solutions, GreenGeeks totally makes the cut as one of the best VPS hosting providers.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-Choices:

GreenGeeks is one of those VPS providers which only offer managed support, taking the work off your hands. Root access is provided.

cPanel is included for free. CentOS is the default and only available OS on the VPS servers. For reasons unknown, the company doesn’t allow installing any other OS on the servers.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

The company offers 3 primary VPS hosting plans:

Plan 1 -$39.95/month: 4 cores/50 GB storage /10 TB bandwidth/ 2GB RAM.
Plan 2 -$59.95/month: 4 cores/75 GB storage /10 TB bandwidth/ 4GB RAM.
Plan 3- $109.95/month: 6 cores/ 150GB storage /10 TB bandwidth /8 GB RAM.

The billing-cycle has been kept simple, you can only pay monthly. The money-back guarantee is at par with what most other best VPS hosting providers are offering, i.e. a 30-day period.

Payment can be made using PayPal or Cards (both Credit and Debit).

Free Add-ons:

Except the free domain and free backups, Green Geeks offers almost everything we’d need. This includes a free SSL certificate, free CDN, and even free website migrations.

Each plan offers not just one, but 2 free dedicated IP addresses.

Server-location choices:

Even though the company houses servers in 4 locations, those aren’t available to its VPS customers.

In simpler words, the only available location to choose from is the U.S.

Support:

Registered or not, the company doesn’t disappoint with its support. There’s a 24X7 live-chat available for any and everyone who lands on the site.

The response time, as is expected, is pretty impressive. Moreover, when an unknown question is presented to the support-rep, they rely on internal communications with other departments, and relay the answer back to us without shifting us from one agent to another.

10. SiteGround

Cheapest plan: $80.00/month.
Management: Managed.
Free SSL: Yes.
Root access: No.
Free cPanel: No.
Free domain: No.
Server-locations: U.S/Singapore/Sydney/London/Frankfurt/ The Netherlands.
Free CDN: Yes.
Free backups: Yes
Refund period: 15-days.
Free migrations: Yes.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes.
Website: www.siteground.com

SiteGround doesn’t exactly offer “VPS” plans, and has instead switched to Linux containers. Which, in theory, is a VPS unless you really wish to dig into the details.

As far as its “technical performance” goes, suffices to say that WordPress considers it one of the top 3 WordPress hosts.

In the shortest possible sentence, if you need scalability, custom-customization of plans, and 100% managed-services, Siteground outranks most others on this list.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

SiteGround only offers managed services. They’re extremely hands-on and take care of almost everything from their end. I must say, it’s one of the best “management” services any of the best VPS hosting providers could offer.

Because of their super-serious management, they refrain from providing root access. cPanel isn’t included either, rather they’ve got a custom panel called “Site tools”. Here’s a sneak-peek:

https://vimeo.com/342728782

In my personal opinion, it’s not better than cPanel, but I doubt it’s any less.

As for OS-choices, again CentOS is the default and only possible OS on SiteGround. These are the only reason why Siteground slided down on this best VPS hosting list.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refund:

There are 4 plans to choose from:

Entry: $80.00/month – 2 cores/ 4GB RAM/ 40 GB storage/ 5TB bandwidth.
Business: $120.00/month – 3 cores /6 GB RAM/ 65 GB storage /5 TB bandwidth.
Business Plus: $160.00/month – 4 cores /8 GB RAM/ 80 GB storage /5 TB bandwidth.
Super Power: $240.00/month – 8 cores /10 GB RAM/ 120 GB storage /5 TB bandwidth.

As mentioned earlier, it offers 100% customization to the plans. So, you get to specify the exact no. of cores, RAM, and storage you need. Again, helps scale without having to upgrade the entire server.

The billing cycle can either be 1month, 3 months, 6 months or 1-year. As for payment modes, Credit/Debit cards and PayPal* is accepted.

*PayPal isn’t listed on the order-page, the support team needs to be manually contacted if you wish to pay via PayPal.

There’s a 15-day refund period as well.

Free add-ons:

The company does offer a CDN and SSL certificates. Daily free backups too are offered (as many as 7-copied retained).

All plans come with 1 free dedicated IP address. Additional IPs can be purchased as well. They also offer free migrations, and even top it up with a free automated migration plugin.

The free domain is the only thing not offered. But the offered features far outweigh a domain name.

Server-location choices:

If there’s another best VPS hosting provider which offers more locations than A2 Hosting, it’s Siteground.

The following server-locations are available:

Iowa, USA
Singapore, Asia
Sydney, Australia
London, UK
Frankfurt, Germany
The Netherlands, Europe.

Any of these can be selected at will. Locations have no effect on the prices of the plans.

Support:

If there’s one company I had to choose based purely on its “support”, it would be Siteground.

They do offer 24X7 live-chat, tickets and email. But these “modes” aren’t what impress me every time I’m in a conversation with the team.

The team is extremely cordial, friendly, and even uses puns. Basically, it feels like you’re talking to an actual human and not a robot. There’s no time-limit on how long you can keep them on hold either. Bottomline, best-support ever!

11. Interserver

Cheapest plan: $6.00/month.
Management: Managed and Unmanaged.
Free SSL: Yes.
Root access: Yes.
Free cPanel: No.
Free domain: No.
Server-locations: New Jersey.
Free CDN: Yes.
Free backups: No
Refund period: Anytime (Pro-rated).
Free migrations: Yes.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes.
Website: https://www.interserver.net/

Being honest, maybe not the absolute best VPS hosting provider. But, for an average user, looking for an above-average host which offers most, if not all the VPS features, without burning a pocket-hole, Interserver totally is worth a peek.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

Interserver offers both managed and unmanaged VPS. The packages remain exactly the same, if you’ve a plan with 4 CPU cores or more, you get the management services.

Root access is offered. cPanel isn’t offered for free and can be purchased separately.

Offers the widest range of OS-support. Everything including Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, SuSe, OpenSUSE, CentOS, Scientific, Openwall, AltLinux, ArchLinux, Funtoo and many others available.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

No “Pricing plans” as such exist. The cheapest plan simply starts at $6.00/month, it offers 2GB RAM, 30 GB storage, and 1TB bandwidth.

A slider is available which can be moved left or right to increase or decreases the resources. Total 16 levels available.

The largest VPS slice will cost you $96.00/month. It offers 16 cores, 32768 MB RAM, 480 GB storage, and 16 TB bandwidth.

One of the most impressive aspects is its scalability. You get to customize every aspect of the VPS during signup, and later. This includes RAM, cores, storage, and bandwidth.

If you’d like a VPS hosting comparison, I’d say this is one of the cheapest (considering the price: resource ratio) yet best VPS hosting providers after Hostinger.

Only the monthly billing cycle is available during signup, however, it can be changed at a later time. Payment modes include Credit/Debit cards and PayPal.

Free add-ons:

No free domains are offered. However, a new domain is heavily discounted and can be purchased for just $1.99 with a hosting plan.

Free migrations are only offered to customers with 4+ VPS slices. Free SSL and CDN offered on all plans.

1 free dedicated IP address included with all plans. Extras cost an additional $3.00/month.

Server-location choices:

The only server location-choice that’s offered on VPS plans is that of New Jersey. The company houses servers in 3 different locations, but this is the only one available for its VPS customers.

Support:

Again, you wouldn’t get a support as good as with Siteground. But, that’s true for almost any other best VPS hosting provider.

The Interserver support team can be reached via live-chat 24X7. The replies aren’t exactly “instant”, and need a couple minutes, or half a minute at least. However, it’s agreeable.

The team can also be contacted via email, or with the 7+ different phone numbers they’ve published for the different countries.

12. Hostwinds

Cheapest plan: $5.17/month.
Management: Managed and Unmanaged.
Free SSL: Yes.
Root access: Yes.
Free cPanel: No.
Free domain: No.
Server-locations: Seattle, Washington, Dallas, Amsterdam, Texas.
Free CDN: Yes.
Free backups: No.
Refund period: 30-days.
Free migrations: Yes.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes.
Website: https://www.hostwinds.com/

I wasn’t so sure of Hostwinds, up until I saw it recommended on a number of “best VPS hosting companies” lists on the internet, and gave it a try. I must say, it’s not as popular as some other bigger brands, but totally deserves equal recognition.

If you’re on a budget, and need one other option in addition to Hostinger, have a glance at Hostwinds.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

Both the managed and unmanaged servers are offered. Root access is provided regardless of the management type.

cPanel needs to be purchased separately, and can be done so while ordering the VPS. OS-choices include CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

There are a total of 4 managed plans.

Plan 1: $5.17/month – 1 core, 1 GB RAM, 30 GB storage, 1 TB bandwidth.
Plan 2: $10.34/month – 1 core, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth.
Plan 3: $18.80/month – 2 cores, 4 GB RAM, 75 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth.
Plan 4: $23.97/month – 2 cores, 6GB RAM, 100 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth.

As for the unmanaged plans, as many as 10 of those are offered. I’ll list the two cheapest and two of the most expensive/resource-rich plans. There are 6 other plans in-between, with varying resources.

Plan 1 (cheapest): $4.49/month – 1 core, 1 GB RAM,30 GB storage, 1 TB bandwidth.
Plan 2 (2^nd-cheapest): $8.99/month – 1 core, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth.
Plan 9 (2^nd most-expensive)- $193.49/month – 12 cores, 64 GB RAM, 500 GB storage, 8 TB bandwidth.
Plan 10 (most-expensive)- $296.09/month – 16 cores, 96 GB RAM, 750 GB storage, 9 TB bandwidth.

[Check the complete list of plans here]

The billing-cycle can be chosen from 1-month, 3-month, 6-months, 1-year, 2-years and 3-years.

A 30-day money-back policy applies to all the yearly cycles. The monthly cycles (1/3/6-month plans) have a 48-hour refund policy.

Payments can be made using Cards (Mastercard, VISA, Discover and American Express), PayPal, and even Cryptocurrencies (via AliPay and CoinPayments).

Free add-ons:

No free domains are offered. Free SSL and CDN are offered. The SSL is installed from their end on the managed plan, but the CDN still needs to be done manually (help is offered and steps are explained from the support team).

Nightly backups aren’t free, they’re charged at a $1.00 a month + $0.03 per GB. Free migrations are offered once you put in a migration request.

It offers not just a free IPv4 address, but also 1 free IPv6 IP address.

Server-location choices:

One of the more location-rich options on this list, further enforcing its position as one of the best VPS hosting providers.

Servers can be chosen from:

Seattle
Washington
Dallas
Texas
And Amsterdam.

Support:

After Siteground, if there’s a company which will impress you with its support, I think it’ll be Hostwinds.

The live-chat is available 24X7. But again, that “human” response is what matters. It’s not the answers, every company will answer your questions, but “how” those questions are answered is what separates these support teams.

The response-time is impressive. When there’s a problem, the support-staff automatically offers links and suggestions on how to fix it.

Additional support can be availed via phone, support tickets and emails.

13. Scala Hosting

Cheapest plan: $10.00/month.
Management: Managed and Unmanaged.
Free SSL: Yes.
Root access: Yes.
Free cPanel: No.
Free domain: No.
Server-locations: USA and Europe.
Free CDN: Yes.
Free backups: Yes.
Refund period: 30-days.
Free migrations: Yes.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes.
Website: https://www.scalahosting.com/

If customization is what you seek, Scala Hosting presents itself as a potential solution to your needs. And, its VPS servers are cloud-based, in other words? Maximum uptime, as the data is stored on 3 different servers so there’s always a backup.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

Both managed and unmanaged servers are offered. cPanel is offered on unmanaged servers, and managed servers with cPanel (at extra cost). The default, free panel however is the SPanel, a custom panel from Scala Hosting.

CentOS is the default OS on the managed plans. In order to install any other operating systems, we’re required to go with the unmanaged packages. The unmanaged servers allow Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS or OpenSUSE.

You can request one-off management services for unmanaged servers as well, it costs $20.00/30 minutes.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

This potentially best VPS hosting company offers 4 plans in both the managed and unmanaged categories each. Here are the managed plans:

Start: $9.95/month – 1 core, 2 GB RAM, 20 GB storage.
Advanced: $21.95/month -2 cores, 4 GB RAM, 30 GB storage.
Business: $41.95/month – 4 cores, 6 GB RAM, 50 GB storage.
Enterprise: $63.95/month – 6 cores, 8GB RAM, 80 GB storage.

Here are the unmanaged plans:

Start: $10.00/month – 1 core, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB storage
Advanced: $19.00/month – 2 cores, 4 GB RAM, 70 GB storage
Business: $33.00/month – 4 cores, 6 GB RAM, 100 GB storage
Enterprise: $49.00/month – 6 cores, 8 GB RAM, 150 GB storage.

The bandwidth is unlimited on all the plans, regardless of the management-type. The resources are completely customizable. You can manually choose the cores, RAM and space required without having to change the entire plan.

The offered billing-cycles are monthly, quarterly, semi-annually and yearly. There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee on VPS plans.

Payment can be made via PayPal, Bank transfers, and Credit/Debit cards.

Free add-ons:

No free domains are offered. Free SSL is offered and installed from the company. CDN too is offered, but alike Hostwinds, requires manual installation.

There’s a free dedicated IP address as well. The company also offers free migrations for incoming clients. Automated, free daily backups are available.

Not a “free add-on”, but the fact that they deploy fully functional servers within 30-seconds of payments sure deserves a mention.

Server location-choices:

The company offers servers from two locations, viz. USA and Europe. Either one of those two locations can be selected for your servers.

This location-choice doesn’t influence the pricing of your server.

Support:

The company offers 24X7 live-chat. Although the “sales” team may not be always online, the “Technical” team is and they do answer most, if not all the questions.

Apart from this, calls, tickets and emails can be used to get in touch.

14. Hostgator

Cheapest plan: $19.95/month.
Management: Managed only.
Free SSL: Yes.
Root access: Yes.
Free cPanel: No.
Free domain: No.
Server-locations: Utah and Texas.
Free CDN: No.
Free backups: No
Refund period: 45-days.
Free migrations: Yes.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes x2.
Website: https://www.hostgator.com/

If you’ve spent even a couple minutes searching for the best VPS hosting providers, I doubt you’ve not heard of Hostgator.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

Hostgator offers only managed VPS servers. Full root access is offered with the servers.

cPanel isn’t included for free, but can be added during checkout for $10.00/month. The OS is limited to CentOS.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

3 pricing plans are available for the servers:

Snappy 2000: $19.95/month -2 cores / 2 GB RAM / 80 GB storage /1.5 TB bandwidth.
Snappy 4000: $29.95/month -2 cores / 4 GB RAM / 100 GB storage /2 TB bandwidth.
Snappy 2000: $39.95/month -4 cores / 8 GB RAM / 160 GB storage /3 TB bandwidth.

The billing-cycle can either be 1month, 3months, 6months, 12 months or 24months. Going with the longest-term (36-months) offers a discount as big as 73.35% on all the plans! Most other yearly-plans offer pretty big discounts as well.

Payment can be made via both PayPal and Credit cards. The refund-period is one of the most impressive on this list of the best VPS hosting providers, it offers refunds within the first 45-days.

Free add-ons:

Hostgator doesn’t offer free domains with its VPS plans. It does however include free SSL certificates.

Free CDN too isn’t offered. It’s pre-packaged with Sitelock CDN which isn’t free. Cloudflare (or other free CDN) can totally be installed independently. Free migrations are offered.

It offers 2 free dedicated IPs on all plans. No free backups offered.

Server-location choices:

VPS servers are based out of Utah and Texas. However, they’re assigned automatically and we can’t choose one manually.

(You may get location-choices on other country-specific versions of Hostgator, but on the global .com version, there are no location-choices).

Support:

Hostgator can be contacted via live-chat which is available 24X7. In addition to that, we can request call-backs from the support team as well.

Support is also provided over direct phone calls. A toll-free number is available. Finally, the ticket and email options sure exist.

15. VPS Server

Cheapest plan: $4.99/month.
Management: Managed and Unmanaged.
Free SSL: No.
Root access: Yes.
Free cPanel: No.
Free domain: No.
Server-locations: 13 locations.
Free CDN: No.
Free backups: No.
Refund period: 7-days.
Free migrations: No.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes.
Website: https://www.vpsserver.com/

VPS Server is one of those very few Virtual Private Server companies on this list which offer a free 7-day trial of its VPS plans before demanding a commitment. Now, that clearly shows confidence in its quality and performance, doesn’t it?

It does require a card to be added to the VPS account for the trial, however, the card isn’t charged before the 7-day period.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

Both managed and unmanaged servers are offered. Root access too is provided. cPanel isn’t offered for free, and can’t be purchased during checkout. It needs to be obtained separately, from cPanel.com or other third-parties.

The team does install the cPanel if you’ve got the management add-on on your plan.

The OS-choices are one of the reasons why it’s on this list of the best VPS hosting providers. It offers CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Archlinux, openSUSE, Scientific, Forex VPS, ClearOS, Fedora and a couple others.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

A total of 6 plans are available with VPS Server:

Plan 1: $4.99/month – 1 GB RAM, 1 core, 25 GB storage, 1 TB Transfer.
Plan 2: $9.99/month – 2 GB RAM, 2 cores, 50 GB storage, 2 TB Transfer.
Plan 3: $14.99/month – 3 GB RAM, 2 cores, 75 GB storage, 3 TB Transfer
Plan 4: $19.99/month – 4GB RAM, 3 cores, 100 GB storage, 4 TB Transfer.
Plan 5: $29.99/month -6 GB RAM, 4 cores, 150 GB storage, 5 TB Transfers.
Plan 6: $39.99/month – 8 GB RAM, 6 cores, 200 GB Storage, 6 TB Transfer

It offers two other types of servers, the “CPU optimized” and “Memory Optimized”. They each offer almost the same specs, with the only difference being in the CPU cores and RAM in both the cases respectively.

Note that there are no separate “Managed Virtual Private Server Plans”. You’ve to choose one of these plans, and then the management can be added as an add-on. Management costs an additional $49.95/month.

The plans only allow monthly-billing. As for refunds, the 7-day free trial also doubles down as its refund-policy. So if you aren’t satisfied within the 7-days, you get to cancel without any charges to your card. Or, if you didn’t avail the free trial, in that case there’s a refund within the 7-day period.

Payments can be made via Cards, PayPal, Wire transfers and even Bitcoin.

Free add-ons:

The company doesn’t seem to believe in freebies. They don’t offer a free domain, neither free SSL nor free CDN is offered. Backups too aren’t included for free, they’re charged at $0.10/GB.

1 dedicated IPv4 address sure is included with all its VPS plans. Strangely though, it doesn’t allow adding more than 1 IPv4 addresses to a server. Only additional IPv6 addresses can be added.

Server location-choices:

By this point, I assume you’ve gone through most other options on this best VPS hosting providers list? And if you’re still reading, you’re either just curious or haven’t found what you’re looking for. And if “locations” is why that’s the case, you’re in for a treat.

The one thing VPS Server (.com) does better than all of its other competitors is server-locations.

It offers not one, not two, not five, not even 10 but as many as 13 server locations to choose from! These are:

Amsterdam
Frankfurt
Chicago
Dallas
Miami
NYC
Silicon Valley
Miami
Toronto
Sydney
Hong Kong
Singapore
And Tokyo

Support:

There’s a 24X7 available live-chat, a team of 4 representatives ensure there’s always someone available.

If you need fast and detailed responses, you’ve got it. Registered users can use tickets, while non-registered users can use the contact form to contact the team as well.

16. Digital Ocean

Cheapest plan: $5.00/month.
Management: Unmanaged.
Free SSL: No.
Root access: Yes.
Free cPanel: No.
Free domain: No.
Server-locations: 12.
Free CDN: No.
Free backups: No.
Refund period: None.
Free migrations: No.
Free Dedicated IP Addresses: Yes.
Website: https://www.digitalocean.com/

If you’ve got at least some VPS-experience, or are ready to go through a leaning-curve; Digital Ocean truly could be “the” best VPS hosting solution for you.

Because it’s cloud-based, the scalability and flexibility are just unprecedented (unless you count Siteground and Liquidweb). For the same reasons, users get to “Pay on the go” rather than having a fixed-price attached. Only pay for the hours/resources you use.

Management, Root Access, cPanel and OS-choices:

Digital Ocean servers are unmanaged. Root access is provided. cPanel isn’t included with its dirt-cheap prices. However, they totally can be purchased and installed manually.

OS-choices include Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, CoreOS, FreeBSD and Fedora.

Pricing, Payment modes, Billing-cycle, Resources and Refunds:

Digital Ocean has over 25 different pricing plans. These are categorized into Standard, General Purpose, CPU-Optimized and Memory-Optimized categories.

I’ll simply list the two cheapest, and two of the most expensive cloud VPS plans that it offers to get you an idea.

The two cheapest plans:

Standard 1: $5.00/month – 1 core/ 1 TB bandwidth /25 GB space /1 GB RAM.
Standard 2: $10.00/mo- 1 core/ 2 TB bandwidth /50 GB space /2 GB RAM.

The two most expensive plans:

Standard 14: $640.00/month – 24 cores/ 11TB bandwidth /2560 GB space/128 GB RAM.
Standard 15: $960.00/month – 32 cores/ 12TB bandwidth /3840 GB space/128 GB RAM.

Note that the other plan types (General purpose, CPU-Optimized and Memory optimized) offer even expensive plans. Ranging up to $2240.00/month. But I’m certain those heavy-duty packages aren’t what you’re looking for now, are you?

In a nutshell, the Standard plans offers utmost customization. With 15 available plans, you’re bound to find exactly the configuration and budget that suits you best.

All plans are billed on a monthly-cycle. Although, you can always deposit funds in advance to your account.

Payment can be made with Credit/Debit cards and PayPal. There’s no refund/money-back policy. No refunds offered.

Free add-ons:

Not big on these, nah. There’s no free domain, neither a free SSL certificate nor free CDN. However, all of these can be independently installed.

Backups aren’t free, but available. They’re charged at 20% of the droplet price. These are weekly, with a 4-week retention period. Manual “Snapshots” too can be taken, they’re charged at $0.05/GB.

1 free IPv4 address is offered. Enabling IPv6 addresses grants us access to 16 of those.

Server-locations:

Digital Ocean, being one of the biggest VPS providers in the industry offers a plethora of options when it comes to server-choices. Here are the Digital Ocean location-choices:

3X New York
2 X San Francisco
2X Netherlands
1x Singapore
1x Frankfurt
1x London
1x Toronto
1x Banglore.

Support:

Not the finest moments for Digital Ocean. It doesn’t offer live-chat. Tickets and emails are the only available modes of communications.

FAQs on Best VPS Hosting Providers

Let’s address some of the most commonly asked questions regarding the best VPS hosting services?

(No, I wouldn’t tell you what’s the difference between Shared and VPS servers. You wouldn’t be on this page if you didn’t already know that).

However, you may be a complete VPS-beginner, and the questions below do take that into account.

Which is the absolute best VPS hosting provider?

There can’t be one universal answer. But if I’ve to pick one, or two, my answers will be:

Liquid Web (Starting price $49/month). For medium-large sized projects.
A2 Hosting (Starting price: $5.00/month). For smaller projects.

These obviously are based on my personal experiences and opinions.

What’s the difference between Managed and Unmanaged VPS servers?

Unmanaged servers are those which require you to manually take care of updates, software changes and basically everything else.

Managed servers on the other hand take care of almost all the server related tasks. Be it server malfunctions, downtimes, reboots, or anything else.

However, what exactly a company includes in its management-policy depends on each individual company. Some companies also offer “Semi-managed” services which include fewer server-management tasks on their part.

In simpler words, if you don’t have prior VPS-management skills, it’s best to go with Managed VPS plans.

Note that the management-type affects certain features in some rare cases, such as OS-options and cPanel availability.

Should I go for monthly or yearly VPS plans?

Yearly, period. I’ll give you 5 reasons why.

If you’re going with a VPS server, you’re serious about your project. Hence, it doesn’t make sense to only get a VPS package for a month. We generally expect our projects to extend far beyond a month, don’t we?

Additionally, going with monthly plans means monthly payments. This in turn means transaction charges every month for whatever payment processor you use.

Then, most of the “free add-ons” I’ve mentioned above are only included on “yearly” plans.

The refund-policies too only cover yearly plans in most cases. Going with the monthly plans either voids the refund policy, or reduces the time-frame down to 48 hours or so in most cases.

And finally, most of the best VPS hosting companies offer massive discounts, but only on their longer-term plans.

What are “Pro-rated” refunds?

You must have seen the phrase mentioned multiple times on this Best VPS hosting review list.

This means you do not get a full/100% refund. Rather, your “unused funds, or days” are what the refund is based on.

E.g. You purchase a server for a year, but only use it for 1 month. If the company offers pro-rated refunds, you may get a refund on the 11 unused months.

Are cPanels really free?

No, they aren’t.

Not even the best VPS hosting companies generally offer “free” cPanels. Almost always, the price of the cPanel is pre-included in the price of the VPS package.

In most cases, even when cPanel isn’t free, it can be installed independently at a later time.

When to upgrade from VPS to Dedicated servers?

You may know when and why you need a VPS. But, when do you take the next step? Well, Dedicated servers are pretty expensive. So, the first aspect to consider is the ROI.

Is your business making enough to pay for the dedicated server, and then retain profits?

Although, even if your site isn’t making a lot of money, but you’ve traffic beyond what your VPS package can handle, a move can be considered. But again, only if you expect to make money off that traffic in the future. (Unless you’re a not-for-profit organization).

In most cases, it’s best to simply upgrade the resources on your VPS package, or upgrade the entire plan.

Also, before making the big move, it’s always best to consider other best VPS hosting providers for a VPS to VPS switch. In some cases, it’s your specific VPS company which isn’t capable of offering more resources, while there may be other companies capable of doing so.

What is the difference between Cloud servers and VPS servers?

Some of the companies (like Siteground and Liquidweb) in the list above do not provide VPS servers, rather they offer what we know as Cloud servers. They’re similar, but not identical.

The primary benefit with a Cloud server is reliability and scalability. Cloud servers often mirror data across multiple servers. This ensures that even when one of the servers fail, the website remains online.

As for scalability, Cloud servers aren’t limited to a single physical servers as VPS servers are. The VPS resources can be upgraded, but even then there’s a maximum limit.

While with Cloud servers, with time, as demand increases, you can seamlessly tap into a wider pool of resources. There’s no limit to how far you can scale your Cloud server.

That being said, unless you go with managed plans (LiquidWeb does this best), managing a Cloud server requires skills a notch higher than the skills required to manage simple VPS plans.

Why do I need more CPU cores for my VPS?

Cores are more or less your CPU power, or computing power. More cores = more parallel process can be run on your server = faster, much better performance.

Can I downgrade/upgrade my VPS resources?

That depends on the company you’re with. Some companies allow individual upgrades/downgrades of resources, such as the RAM, bandwidth, storage etc. I’ve mentioned the feature specifically for the companies which do allow this in the list above.

However, some companies demand that you upgrade/downgrade an entire plan and do not allow individual changes to resources.

Final Verdict- Which is the best VPS hosting provider?

As I’ve mentioned earlier, it’ll totally depends on every users’ personal preferences. What’s the size of your project? What’ the traffic expectation? What’s your skill/experience-level with VPS servers? And obviously, the budget.

But, if I’ve to single out one company out of all the options, I’d say for me it’s Liquid Web. It offers the resources, uptime, security features, support, basically; the overall package.

Or, if you need the best VPS hosting server at a lower budget, there’s no beating A2 hosting. It’s extremely flexible and pretty good as far as the uptime goes as well.

I’d love to catch your train of thoughts on these best VPS hosting companies. Do make use of the comment-box down there.