Best VPS Hosting Services for Australians – Forbes Advisor Australia

The best VPS host for you will depend on your unique hosting needs and budget. For example, if you need to host a large amount of data, then you will want to look at hosting plans that offer generous amounts of storage at a solid value. But if site performance is a top priority, you might want to invest in premium plans that offer dedicated CPU cores and RAM.

Essential VPS Host Features

Consider the features you need to effectively run your site or sites. The best VPS hosting providers offer a lot of choice:

• Root access: Gives you direct control over your slice of the server.
• Dedicated support: Get answers to questions quickly (and usually 24/7).
• Choice of control panel: Use cPanel, Plesk or a proprietary control panel.
• Site migration: Have your host move your existing site over to your new virtual server (free or at added cost).
• Enhanced security: Get protection from malware and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Uptime and Downtime Rates

Most hosting companies offer 99% or higher uptime promises and guarantees. You should expect your server to be down occasionally because web hosts need to update hardware and software. Generally, they have redundancies and backups so you don’t lose data and you don’t suffer too much downtime.

There’s a big difference between 99% uptime and 99.9% uptime. Here’s what the difference between uptime guarantees can look like in terms of minutes down:

99% uptime = ~14 minutes downtime per day (3 days, 14 hours per year)
99.5% uptime = ~7 minutes downtime per day (1 day, 19 hours per year)
99.9% uptime = ~1.5 minutes downtime per day (9.5 hours per year)

As you can see, even half a percent can make a huge difference in how much time servers are down. Keep in mind that an uptime guarantee simply guarantees that you won’t have more downtime than what’s expected. If you do, a web host usually gives you a prorated credit for the time your site or VPS was down.

Customer Support

Having 24/7 support from your web host is always important because you never know when you may need tech help. That help may not always be related to downtime either. If you’re new to managing your own server, you may have questions. Look for hosting providers that offer round-the-clock support for live chat and phone (or at least one or the other), email and knowledge bases.

Managed vs Unmanaged VPS Hosting

Managed VPS hosting is a great option for anyone who doesn’t consider themselves to be tech-savvy. If you’re moving from shared hosting to VPS for the first time, it’s a good idea to start with a managed VPS plan because you won’t have to do much. The hosting company’s tech team will take care of the maintenance of your server, including security patches and updates.

Unmanaged hosting is ideal for developers who know their way around a server. You have root access and therefore complete control over your operating system, setup, control panel, security patches and updates to apps. Of course, this means you need to pay close attention to your server’s maintenance. Because of the hands-on nature, most unmanaged VPS plans are less expensive.

Do You Need a Dedicated Server?

A dedicated server is more expensive, but you get the entire server to yourself. It’s a bump up from a VPS because you don’t share resources with others. A dedicated server for your site results in faster loading speeds, more resources to handle more files or content, and a flood of traffic.

Most Australian small businesses won’t need a dedicated server right away, but there are a few caveats. One of the best ways to judge whether you need to upgrade to a dedicated server is to look at your traffic from your busiest days, such as holiday sales days. If your site was sluggish on those days and you had spikes in traffic, it might be time to consider upgrading to a dedicated server.

In addition to having all the server’s resources to yourself, you’re likely to get dedicated support, complete control over your server’s configuration and there’s no threat of malware or spam bringing your server down from another user’s actions.