Ask Slashdot: Best Inexpensive VPS Provider?

David Greene writes "After many years of waiting for my provider to upgrade DSL service from the measly 1.5 Mbps I have now, I've decided to go another route. Unfortunately, no other provider in the area (Twin Cities) offers static IPs and permission to run servers. I am looking for a VPS solution to host the public parts of my personal site. What can the Slashdot community recommend as a good, inexpensive VPS provider for personal use? This will mainly be hosting a blog and a couple of Free Software projects (wikis, git repositories, etc.). I would prefer something with KVM so I can manage my own OS install but I am open to other options. Root shell access is essential."

Comments

FDC Servers

[InterestingFella]

I can't but recommend FDC servers. I've used them off and on since 2008. I've also tried many others but there's always been something wrong with them. Never had problems with FDC tho. They also give unlimited bandwidth so you don't need to worry about extra costs, and they have three datacenters. Two in US (Chicago and Denver) and one in EU (Czech). Servers are also quickly set up. They're an established company too. I've had a few porn sites hosted there, and anyone in the industry knows how demanding those can be on hardware and bandwidth. Never had any problems with FDC tho. Their VPS plans start at $9/month which is hard to beat. Even shitty providers have higher price.

I would avoid any unknown company. While there most likely are many good ones that are less known, it's a hit or miss. Sometimes they just close, either because it was unprofitable for them or just for no reason. There's many VPS providers who are just run by some guy, who leases the servers from DC's. So go with established company that has their own datacenters and years of experience. You save lots of headache.

Re:FDC Servers

[SomePgmr]

I'll have to check that one out... I'm always on the lookout.

I used to use Slicehost, but they haven't really improved anything in years and they were not staying competitive on pricing. I've been migrating everything over to Linode, which I really like.

Those both have the usual local console feature, in case something goes wrong.

Re:FDC Servers

[InterestingFella]

Btw, if you really want to sign up with HostGator, then see their blog. They offer 50% off with the official NOSOPA promo code, not 25% what this joker Shikaku is spamming with his own referral code.

Re:FDC Servers

[Thesis]

I had a machine colocated at FDC in Chicago, at CBOT, for two years. Here is my take on their service from my personal experience. The service was cheap, and attractive to me at the time, for I was just getting my feet wet in colocating. I found the bandwidth at that time (2006-08) was terrible in consistency, and oversold. I guess what I am really trying to say is their network went down quicker, and more frequently, than a cheap street walker. When the network was up (as in their equipment not letting out the magic smoke, or maintenance degrading the service temporarily for upgrades), the DDOS attacks on the network were crippling and frequent. I found out quickly through other customers there, that it was a haven for botnets, and IRC servers, which were always at war with each other or someone else. As far as physical support to a machine (needing a reboot, help diagnose an issue such as bad network card/cable) the service was always prompt, and bang on. Due to the constant network issues though, I moved my box to Texas in late 2008 to a different provider, and I am much happier.

Things may have changed there since I have used them, but I do not know. They were in the middle of additional network and bandwidth upgrades when I left. Perhaps it is better now, I really do not know. I have read that they currently do not have a SLA (Service Level Agreement). Granted, you are looking for a VPS rather than colocation, but I felt it best to give you my experience from when I was a customer, for the network & bandwidth availability are important no matter where you are. I also suggest reading all the different opinions folks will post here, then research the options you are interested in. WebHostingTalk http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ is another useful tool for you in your research of a provider before making a final decision IMHO.

Linode

[Anonymous Coward]

Been very happy with Linode and PV-GRUB (PV-GRUB allows Xen guests to boot their own custom kernel)

http://www.linode.com/
http://www.linode.com/wiki/index.php/PV-GRUB

for 20$ per month
RAM 512MB
Storage 20GB
Transfer 200GB

Re:linode

[wik]

And yet another plug for Linode. I have been with them for over four years. Their infrastructure staff knows what they're doing (tech support has responded in 3 minutes on a Sunday night!) and they're hands-off with respect to how you want to run your box. Disk space is a little expensive, but it's not oversubscribed. Even the smallest accounts are well worth the money.

Re:Linode

[smed]

I too have been very happy with Linode.
Currently I manage about a dozen Linodes for various clients and the performance and support have exceeded my expectations by a long-shot.
On occasion when there was a minor problem, Linode support staff contacted me quickly with instructions and pointers to documentation for handling the issues.
Performance is much better than what you might expect by using the memory/disk-space metrics for each server plan.
Linode support is excellent. The Linode Library has the best documentation, they have how-to docs for most common projects and they are updated regularly and the commentary is also very helpful. And dont forget the forums - if you're having an issue or need to figure out how to do something - most likely someone has written about it in the forums. You can extract some very valuable information for troubleshooting and project planning in the forums.
And last but not least - the IRC channel is staffed by Linode support personnel and lots of really helpful volunteers. The community is awesome and friendly and helpful to-boot.
Linode's got my vote and my continued business.

linode

[Aighearach]

linode is by far the best, it is not even close.

They don't over-sell (far from it!), the service is great, uptime is nearly perfect, excellent tools like remote shell over https.

linode

[Maglos]

I tried a cheap $5/month vps for a while, it was trouble. First they falsely claimed that I was maxing out my transfer limit and I switched to linode after a bunch of os files became corrupted. I haven't had an issue with linode and a few of my friends use them. Also 128mb a bit inconvenient for most things(watch out for orphaned ssh sessions chewing up ram at 5mb each).

Dreamhost

[ender-]

I haven't used their VPS but you can look into Dreamhost. I've been very happy with my shared web account.

For what it's worth, I used to think I needed a VPS as well. Then I found myself with limited funds for awhile so I transferred my site to Dreamhost on their shared hosting plan. At the time they had a deal that it was around $48 to pre-pay for 2 years. It averages out to about $1.95/month. In addition to the unlimited domains/disk/bandwidth and mysql database, the account comes with 1 free domain registration, easy setup to have email hosted either through Dreamhost themselves or through Google Apps [which I do]. And it comes with a shell account, which is on the webserver itself running Debian. They have all kinds of one-click installs for various blogs and ecommerce options and whatnot.
As for stuff like git, I'm not sure. I see that there are some git commands on the server, but I don't know if it's possible to run a git server.

At first I thought I would hate it, and would be transferring back to a VPS/Dedicated server first chance I got. Well, it's been 2.5 years now and I have no desire to switch back. I haven't really missed having root access, and it's nice not to have to worry so much about managing everything. Admittedly, this is just personal sites of fairly low importance, but I've been happy with the setup so far. And they don't seem to mind me sitting on irssi on the shell account all day. The only thing it does is it will automatically kill any single process which has been running for a week.

Anyway, it's worth a look and if you don't like it, I think they have a relatively painless process to transfer to a VPS.

As an added bonus, they've been against SOPA since November, according to their official blog.

You're asking in the wrong place

[afabbro]

You should be asking on WHT, which is the best-known forum for discussing web hosting, VPS, and dedicated servers.

I would echo the linode suggestion, particularly if it's the first VPS you've ever used. However, they are not KVM. If you want KVM, try 6sync. Another fine choice is BuyVM, though you have to wait until they have stock, which is a minor media event.

I would ignore the suggestions to look at lowendbox, unless you are willing to trade price for stability (which is not always a bad tradeoff, just be sure to do it consciously)

Danger, Will Robinson

[Zocalo]

I guess you don't use them for outbound email since FDC Servers has a terrible reputation for hosting spammers and having a completely non-responsive abuse department. There are more than a few members of anti-spam lists that advocate a block on sight policy for SMTP as far as FDC are concerned, and I know some that kill them for web as well due to hosted malware.

Of course, that may or may not be an issue for a given individual since it depends on what you want the server for, but I'd strongly recommend a few search queries for "$provider" in connection with "abuse", "spam" and "malware", etc. If they have an entry on Spamhaus, or lots of IPs listed in DNSBLs or URIBLs, then that's generally a bad sign too.

Prgmr.com

[nido]

Prgmr.com owner Luke Crawford has some diary entries at k5 where he talks about his business...

I've been happy customer of his for the past 2 years, so this comment is a vote for Luke.

Amazon: The elephant in the room.

[cskrat]

Amazon micro EC2 instances are reasonably priced and I use one for my personal sandbox and mail server. Average price is $14.60 /month ($0.02/h * 24h * 365d / 12) for a no commitment a la carte and drops to an average of $8.82/mo or $6.43/mo with 1 or 3 year reservations https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#pricing . They also have a free for the first year program at http://aws.amazon.com/free/ to get you started.

You won't get KVM access for OS install but there are startup images for all the common free linux distros (Centos, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, etc.), Amazon Linux (a custom distro for EC2), and non-free OS's like RHEL and MS Windows (they cost more per hour). Every distro I've used on there gives you either direct root login or `sudo su -l` capability. You have full control over the incoming firewall rules so you can allow specific ports by IP or CIDR range without chewing up CPU or I/O in iptables. You can add additional storage on the fly (including via automated script within your VPS if you can program) and take live snapshots of running disks (including the OS disk) for backups.

I use Amazon for my work systems and much prefer them to managing an on site rack or letting some other host charge us for the impediment to administration that is managed hosting.

Re:lowendbox.com

[mitgib]

Here you go champ, lowendbox.com

This is the best advise we'll see for a low cost VPS, as well as the discussion on http://lowendtalk.com/ This pair of sites is devoted to VPS priced $7 per month or less, and filled with mostly candid answers by actual users. Some of the popular, and regarded better KVM providers you will find on these sites are

buyvm.net
tinykvm.net
ramhost.us
hostigation.com
bitcable.com

* Disclaimer - I am the owner of hostigation.com

Linode

[DRichardHipp]

I've been running http://www.sqlite.org/ on Linode since 2004. They've been great. Highly recommended.

i moved to host chopper, never looked back

[decora]

after trying FDC, Slicehost, Swvps, & Linode, i finally found a hosting solution that had everything I needed for a good price.

http://hostchopper.com/

Re:i moved to host chopper, never looked back

[KazW]

after trying FDC, Slicehost, Swvps, & Linode, i finally found a hosting solution that had everything I needed for a good price.

http://hostchopper.com/

A publicly posted support ticket they show one their site:

HOLY SHIT... COULD YOUR ENGLISH BE ANY MORE BROKEN? IT REMINDS ME OF A VENTRILOQUIST'S DUMMY AFTER FALLING DOWN ABOUT 12 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS AND THEN BEING CRUSHED IN THE ASS-END OF A GARBAGE TRUCK! YOU COULD USE A PASSROD WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE! I'LL HAVE TANGO CONTACT YOU, HE'S INTO SODOMY AND OTHER KINKY SHIT. -NOVEMBER CHIEF EXECUTIVE WIZARD SERIOUS MASTURBATOR HOSTCHOPPER.COM

"Server: wizardfucker.hostchopper.com"

Charlie Sheen started a hosting company?

This hosting company is a good joke, I have mod points but couldn't mod you 'funny' since I wanted to post this, too bad.

P.S. All kidding aside, anyone willing to pay this "company" for services of any type would be brain dead.