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<strong>Why the Best Affordable VPS Hosting can Help You</strong>

If your website has moved beyond the point where it can happily sit on a shared hosting account, then the next step in your hosting plan should be the best affordable <a href="https://itxdesign.com/vps-hosting/" title="VPS hosting" target="_blank">VPS hosting</a>. 

While you may get away with just upgrading your plan to one with a higher capacity, the chances are that you'll quickly outgrow that upgrade. What you need is the best affordable VPS hosting.

So, what is VPS hosting, and what do you need to be aware of when looking for an affordable VPS host? The term 'VPS' stands for Virtual Private Server'. 

A VPS is basically a hybrid between a shared hosting account and a dedicated server, and it shares many of the qualities of both of these types of hosting. A VPS tends to reside on shared hardware, much like normal shared hosting.

Unlike shared hosting, a VPS will have its own operating system, web server software, and services such as MySQL, set up for it alone. It will also have a dedicated amount of memory and CPU time allocated to it, however it will usually be able to borrow any excess RAM and CPU resources that the hardware has available in times of need.

A VPS tends to be isolated from other <a href="https://itxdesign.com/vps-hosting/" title="VPS installations" target="_blank">VPS installations</a> running on the same hardware, and so can be more secure than shared hosting in that respect. Reliability is going to be your main concern when finding the best affordable VPS hosting service for your website. You need to ensure that the host you choose has a good reputation.

<strong>Getting the Best Affordable VPS Hosting for Your Business</strong>

There are a great many hosting review sites and forums online where you can search for information about any host you are considering using and ask questions about their reliability. Take any reviews you read with a grain of salt though. Many of these <a href="https://itxdesign.com/compare-hosting-plans/" title="web hosting" target="_blank">web hosting</a> review sites are just setup to advertise specific web hosts and won't provide objective information.

You may also find many positive reviews for a host that are just 'sock puppeting' by people trying to sell a subscription to that host. Negative reviews can also sometimes be misleading as they are often made by people with an axe to grind. No service is ever perfect and people who have had a bad experience with a web hosting service tend to be far more vocal than people who have had a good experience.

If a positive review, sounds like it is not being objective then disregard it. If a negative review sounds like the reviewer has unrealistic expectations, or if there are a number of people responding to the review with their own positive experiences then the reviewer may be just trying to cause trouble for the host. The best use of reviews is to gain an overall perspective of a potential VPS web host.

<a href="https://itxdesign.com/vps-hosting/" title="VPS hosting" target="_blank">VPS hosting</a> accounts can often be highly configurable, so when looking for the best affordable VPS hosting you should consider the core features and resources you need to host your website, and the ones that you can do without. Generally, you will pay more for higher amounts of RAM, so consider how much memory your site will need to run plus the additional memory required for the operating system and other VPS resources.

A minimum of 512 megabytes of RAM is recommended. The CPU allocation may not be listed with the account details, but is generally adequate for most tasks and usually scales with the dedicated RAM allocated to the VPS.

The control panel can also be an area where you can save money. If you are comfortable with using a terminal interface to manage a server and install websites then most VPS accounts come with <a href="https://itxdesign.com/" title="Secure Shell (SSH)" target="_blank">Secure Shell (SSH)</a> terminal access. If not then you will need to get a hosting account with a control panel.
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<strong>The Next Step with the Best Affordable VPS Hosting</strong>

Webmin is the next step up and is free, but still requires fairly advanced knowledge. 

DirectAdmin is a good, solid, mid-cost control panel for managing a server, and WHM/cPanel is the most popular of all available control panels and has the most user-friendly interface. 

Which one you choose will depend on your degree of expertise.

Finding affordable VPS hosting that is reliable and suited to the needs of your website can be a challenge, but knowing what to look for will make the task a great deal easier. 

Do your research before committing to a <a href="https://itxdesign.com/compare-hosting-plans/" title="hosting plan" target="_blank">hosting plan</a> and don't settle for the first host you come across. It's a lot easier to shop around and find the best affordable VPS hosting than it is to move your website from host to host.


