What to look for when choosing a VPS hosting plan?

Operating system

We strongly encourage you to choose a VPS server where the Linux distro. is preinstalled. Otherwise, it may be difficult, time-consuming or even impossible to use an image on your computer and try to install the Linux distro. from remote. For example, I remember one occurence a web hosting company used a Java applet in the browser. Java is deprecated and we had to use Internet Explorer. Then, after succeeding in enabling all the parameters in ActiveX, we have been able to upload an image and install it in rescue mode. 

Redundant storage

A dedicated server may count several Virtual Private Server installed on it. Consequently, if there is one drive, the disk usage is going to be higher as compared to an array of drives. There is more risk of a drive failure in this case. That’s why it would be better to choose a VPS server installed on a redundant RAID: RAID 1 or RAID 5 or RAID 10. It means that in case a drive fails, the data will still be accessible.

Network adapter

Right now, the industry standard is 100Mbps. However, if there are many demanding applications on different VPS, this may not be enough. For sure, a 1Gbps (1000Mbps) network adapter is much better.

Number of Vcores

The more cores you get and the faster your server is. This is the same issue as for laptop or desktop CPUs. The more cores you have and the more powerful it is. With more cores, there will be fewer downtimes when the CPU processes several jobs at the same time. This is perfect for those who expect peaks of visits from time to time.

Specifications of data center & servers

I am very suspicious when I see that a web hosting company gave no information about the server that hosts their VPS server. The more information you get about their datacenter and the better it is. For example, if they mention that their power system is fully redundant it is a good sign. 

Support

We discovered that many web hosting companies were unavailable during the weekend. Also, sometimes it takes a while before the support team answers your request. It sounds corny but if you don’t see 24/7 support anywhere on the website or 24/7/365 it means the support team is not available all the time.

The number of IP addresses

If you want to have a DNS server on your server, you need 2 IP addresses. Either the VPS hosting company provides you 2 IP addresses or they can provide a secondary DNS server. Take into account that it is much easier to set up the server if there are at least 2 available IP addresses.

Here is a list of Linux VPS web hosting companies in compliance with those criteria