Needing a VPS host

panem

Member
So I read here nimbus was a well-recommended host but I really didn't care for the presale experience so nimbushosting is officially off my list. Here are my 5 choices for a host. Will these be good for my Xenforo forum with about 300,000 posts and 900 members? 1. Big Brain Global 2. Wiredtree 3. TMZVPS 4. Solid Shell Security 5. Stablehost Anyone have any experience or knowledge of these 5? Which would you go for
 
They both have an extremely good reputation in the industry. I would consider them hands down the best managed VPS providers out there. The others...not so much. Of course, you are going to pay a higher amount for that level of service.

I have never personally used WiredTree, but our company used Knownhost for 6-ish years to host a few of our smaller DNS servers (we wanted them on separate networks than our actual servers, for obvious reasons), and really had no issues ever.

If you want more specific reviews, go to webhostingtalk.com. You can do some serious reviewing of all the companies on your list.
 
I have used Wiredtree a few years ago, had a dedicated server from them and their support was excellent. I have never used their VPS. Also have a look at a2hosting as they offer SSD option (not sure if wiredtree does) and they will also set up opcode cache for you if you ask them to. I havent personally used a2hosting.
 
Check out the resources that http://linode.com provides. Their service and quality can't be beat. I have been with them since 2009. On a regular basis, they upgrade a customers accounts to include additional resources as their costs decrease. I have tried others but IMHO, linode.com can't be beat.

Jeff
 
WiredTree.
Wouldn't recommend. You can't really call whatever they offer a VPS since the CPU is shared between all users. I've been there without any website and the load was around 1.0+ in my cPanel without even uploading a single file to the server.
 
I know its not on your list but Futurehosting have been excelent for us -they are a large provide, very widely respected and have a number of locations. We're using their Washington location, having moved away from a managed VPS at HostDime last year. Cant fault the service - support responds within a minute or two, never had any downtime, etc.

Oh and they use KSplice - if your VPS host (or even normal host) isn't using it these days, don't bother. Ksplice lets them do kernel updated without rebooting. If a host isn't using Kspice, and are keeping their servers up to date and secure, you're looking at a reboot at least once a month - so basically if your hosting provider does not use Ksplice, and is not rebooting at least once a month, you're running on an old kernel (with potential security consequences).

Other than that - avoid small/piddly little hosts or hosts that specialize in just forums - they rarely last more than a year or two before either going bust or being sold off due to the owner losing interest (as an example, try to find a provider who specialises in just vBulletin, that is over 18 months old!).
 
Wouldn't recommend. You can't really call whatever they offer a VPS since the CPU is shared between all users.

A lot of people make the mistake of somehow thinking that a VPS is not a shared environment. It most certainly is, and accordingly, CPU is shared, disk i/o is shared, etc. If you need dedicated resources, you need to get a dedicated server.
 
Not sure why so funny.. It's a very common mistake due to the term virtual private server and the fact you get root access that a VPS is left to believe it is a mini dedicated server.
I think he was referring to this (silly) statement:

You can't really call whatever they offer a VPS since the CPU is shared between all users

Anyone who knows...well...anything, about VPS technology would know thats a crazy statement. He's implying that a "real" vps gets its own dedicated CPU.

Lets set a few things straight for those who arent fully versed on what a VPS is:

1 - There are two main types of VPS offerings. One uses system-level virtualization (OpenVZ & Virtuozzo), the others use para-virtualization (e.g KVM and Xen).

2. System-Level virtualization provides slightly more in the way of CPU power due to lower overheads, however its considered to be second rate due to it not being 'real virtualization...its essentially 'virtual-virtualization' in that the individual VPS files simply reside in a directory on a server, and the server essentially emulates another operating system. The other big issue here is that most hosts using this will oversell to the hills, hence why its so cheap.

3. Para-virtualization gives you full isolation and works at a hardware level, it essentially splits the resources up, and doesn't allow overselling quite so easily, and generally degrades the system a lot, so not many hosts bother. Para also has the benefit of working with both *nix and Windows operating systems due to it being completely isolated.

So to clarify:

No VPS gets a 'dedicated' CPU, you either get a allocation and limit, or a fixed allocation of CPU resources. You can set a VPS account to have its own core(s), however if you were to seriously allocate an entire CPU, the server would have a maximum of 4 clients, and cost tens of thousands of dollars - so nobody does it.
 
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