Best VPS Hosting Providers According to Reddit Users

VPS hosting may have a steeper learning curve than normal shared hosting, but if you ask any web developer, they’d tell you it’s well worth the effort and money to invest in VPS hosting.

A virtual private server (VPS) gives you dedicated computing resources (CPU and memory), alongside a completely isolated server environment that allows you to install and customize your own operating system, web server software, security systems, and any other software you need for your website or application.

But finding a reliable VPS provider can be an overwhelming task for a beginner given the countless recommendations presented on review websites. And most of those aren’t as objective as they may claim to be.

One of the places where you can find many helpful first-hand reviews of web hosting providers is Reddit. In this article, we’re on a mission to find out which VPS hosts top the list of recommendations within the Reddit community.

Best VPS Hosts According to Reddit

The following are five of the best VPS hosting providers according to dozens of Reddit user reviews collected in 2023.

1. DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean is one of the top cloud VPS providers that developers on Reddit recommend. This company offers cloud server instances called Droplets, which come in different types intended for different purposes.

The Basic Droplets from DigitalOcean provide solid performance at a low price. For example, a Basic Droplet with 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU and 25 GB SSD storage will only cost you $6 per month. You can optionally choose a premium version of the same Droplet, which is slightly more expensive but comes with improved processing capacity.

2. Cloudways

If you don’t have the technical skills to manage your own virtual server at DigitalOcean, you can pay a little extra to get a fully managed VPS instance from Cloudways. Their platform and UI are much simpler, allowing you to launch a preconfigured virtual server within minutes.

Cloudways makes it very easy and straightforward to host your VPS server instance at DigitalOcean, AWS or Google Cloud Platform. The last two providers are more costly than DigitalOcean.

You can host any PHP application or content management system on your Cloudways managed VPS server. Each plan includes several useful built-in features, such as advanced caching, Cloudflare CDN, staging, and others.

Cloudways is one of the most commonly recommended WordPress hosts on Reddit because of the easy setup and scaling process compared to more complex cloud platforms like AWS.

3. KnownHost

KnownHost has more traditional VPS hosting services offered at competitive prices. These range from regular SSD VPS servers to high-frequency NVMe VPS servers, which are both available in managed and unmanaged plans.

If your use case requires high CPU or high disk I/O performance, such as hosting a WooCommerce website, you’ll be able to achieve better performance and speed by choosing one of the NVMe VPS plans available at KnownHost.

The reason that many Redditors vouch for KnownHost, besides the solid performance, is their prompt support service and skilled staff. In case you buy a managed VPS server, they will help you install and configure any third-party software you need to run on your server.

4. Hetzner

Hetzner is a German company that offers a diverse selection of cloud virtual servers as well as fully dedicated servers. Their cloud servers are available across different data center locations in Europe and the USA.

The cloud hosting instances at Hetzner come in two types: shared CPU and dedicated CPU. The cheaper option is obviously shared CPU, which gives you decent performance for sites or apps that receive low to medium traffic.

If your server will be handling high amounts of traffic or if your application requires high processing power, you should opt for a cloud instance with dedicated CPU.

5. Contabo

Contabo is another German VPS hosting company that numerous developers on Reddit recommend. They offer cheap VPS hosting with a lot of RAM, plenty of CPU cores, and a fair amount of NVMe SSD storage.

Contabo’s VPS hosting is self-managed so it should only be used by those who have experience with Linux systems and server administration. During initial setup, you will have the option to select an OS image to be installed on your newly created server.

Basic server management is available as a paid add-on, but it comes with limited support hours and it’s very costly compared to other managed VPS hosting services.

Conclusion

In this article, we looked at five VPS hosting providers that have plenty of positive reviews on Reddit. These are: DigitalOcean, Cloudways, KnownHost, Hetzner and Contabo.

DigitalOcean and Hetzner specialize in cost-effective cloud computing instances for development and app hosting purposes. Contabo also has very affordable VPS plans, but performance may fall a little short compared to other providers because of Contabo’s more crowded servers and resource sharing policy.

And finally, if you are looking for managed VPS hosting for a production website, especially a WordPress or WooCommerce website, two of the best providers to consider according to Reddit users are Cloudways and KnownHost. Cloudways offers better scalability, but KnownHost comes out on top in terms of technical support.

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