Let me begin by saying this: the most important part of finding the “right” or the “best” low-end VPS for you, actually start from nowhere else but YOU!

What? Me? Why me?

Two reasons:

1. The reason why you are buying a low-end VPS is because you do not want to pay, for whatever reason, 100 dollars a month to set up your website, and

2. What you pay is going to be a very strong clue of what you will be getting.

I used to dream of having a super-powerful server sitting somewhere that I can do some real rocket-science type of computing with it. Unfortunately, the reality is, as a decent working person with no wealthy family background and no oil reserve in my backyard, what is left in my pocket after paying all the necessities every month, is minimal.

And that is why, most of you, are reading this article as well. You want to have the biggest bang for the buck!

Other than congratulating you for being at the right place, here is the first thing you will need to do: have a budget.

The question, then, naturally becomes, what is the right budget?

A few clues that I used when I was searching for what I need:

1. Are you a Linux guru?

Not everyone is proficient in Linux. I myself for instance, does not know too much about Linux beyond Ubuntu desktop before I got into the arena of low end VPS. Google is always a good friend, and would give you all the answers you need 99% of the time. However, if Linux is not what you want to learn, or patience is something that you do not have, or you do not want to get up at 3AM in the morning to find out why your server went offline, or you simply want to spend more time on content creation than server management, then get a managed VPS. They normally cost at least 10 USD more per month than the unmanaged boxes with similar configurations, however at the very minimal, they will have 24×7 monitoring to ensure it will be online. Furthermore, most of the fully managed services will offer free CPanel and will move all your sites from shared hosts for you (or at least you should expect that), most of the time free of charge.

As for me, I do not mind doing some Googling and I see learning Linux is one key part of the reason why I am spending money acquiring VPSes. Therefore, none of my boxes are managed

I’ve once came across this post on WebHostingTalk where someone was complaining that it takes “forever” for one of the unmanaged VPS providers to install Apache for him (although I do not seem to be able to find the post now). Remember, what you pay is what you get, if you paid for unmanaged services, do not expect the techs will do any favor (yes, to have techs installing software for you in unmanaged service is a favor no matter how many gazillion years it take for you to figure out how to install) for you unless they really can’t find better things to do.

Even if it is a problem that is beyond your control, do expect long hours of response if you decide to save some money, it is not rare to expect say a 24-hours ticket turn-around time if you are getting a VPS for around 1 USD per month.

Basically, in summary, if you are good with Linux, and uptime of your server is not crucial, then get a unmanaged server to save some money, else I would recommend a managed VPS to save you some headache.

2. Where do you want the VPS to be?

In the age of high-speed Internet connection, physical distance no longer seems to be a big issue – if you are not running anything like KDE desktop, or even worse, Windows remote desktop. If you are running those, then make sure the data centre is as close to your computer as possible.

The other reason why some people need to run VPS in some countries is due to legal concerns. Obviously it would be a really bad idea if you want to run a server providing publications that you do not have copyright with anywehre in the world. However, realistically speaking, it may be a lot easier for, say, FBI to track down a server in US, then say, in Czech Republic or Romania (Disclaimer: I definitely do not think it is right to do those at the first place, however I believe those who are reading this post are mature enough to know what they are doing and the legal consequences for their actions.)

In general, US, Germany and UK-based VPS are at the low end of price spectrum due to competition, whereas the ones based in Asia or some of the European-based VPS providers tend to charge more.

3. What content do you plan to put up on the VPS?

I have actually mentioned a little in the previous post regarding this topic. Obviously if you are hosting a website like 96MB.com, then there is really nothing to be worried about. On the other hand if you think you may host some adult contents, or having an IRC server, or having a uncensored forum, then a offshore server may be what you need, which you will have to include may be significantly more than the onshore VPS.

4. What do you want to set up to run in the VPS?

After you order the VPS, all you’ll have is an empty box, which means you can practically put up any software in there – provide your server could handle them.

For example, it would be unrealistic to hope any VPS with less than 512MB of RAM to run CPanel properly, or ever thinking we could squeeze in Apache + MySQL full installation into a 80MB RAM box, or thinking we could run a file-sharing site with 500GB of bandwidth per month.

Obviously with higher requirements, the price tag will go up proportionally as well. Take RAM for example, which is often a major headache for first-time low end VPS gurus-to-be. Normally I would say it cost 3 USD per month at least for each additional 256MB of RAM, with all others equal.

5. How many websites you’ll have if you plan to run a web server?

I have read before that there are people who likes to set up websites but never have the patience to make them shine. One of the extreme example that I’ve seen before is someone who set up more than 50 blogs and he ended up can’t even remember all the domains that he has ever purchased!

If you are that type of person, then unfortunately I highly suspect a 96MB VPS would be sufficient, 128MB guaranteed RAM is what I will need likely to recommend, and 256MB or higher is what I would consider as safe.

6. Do you have any future expansion plan?

Whether you are running a business or just a personal website, having a plan is quite important. Granted you may not know if your website turns out to be a 3000 pageview per day site or 3000 pageview per year website on your first day of creating the website. However, I do not think it is too much to ask you how much effort you want to put in your websites development. Are you just going to be an occasional blog writer having a wordpress site or are you going to publish some really cool software that you just wrote that you hope will attract at least 10k downloads per month?

Setting up a VPS is not easy and could be really time consuming. It is possible to backup and restore the entire VPS, however lots of things have to be reconfigured if you are moving to a machine with more (or less) power. On the other hand, if you just paying for the best VPS when you first start a website, thinking your blog will attract 10k pageviews instantly, you may ended up with a disappointed heart and an empty wallet as well. In general, I would look for a VPS that would fit my 6-months expansion plan with little problem.

With those in mind, I hope you have more or less come up with a “reasonable” expectation for what you need for your VPS, and the next step would be searching for the providers who could give you what you are looking for.