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What do you guys actually check before buying a VPS?
iamstrangemind
Member
in General
I'm starting to realize that just looking at something like 4 vCPU / 8GB RAM / NVMe doesn't really tell you much.
Two VPSs can have basically the same specs and still perform completely differently.
So when you guys are looking at a new VPS, what do you check first?
CPU? Disk? Network? Location? Provider reputation? YABS? Reviews? Something else?
And what's one thing you used to care about when choosing a VPS that you don't really care about anymore?
I'm curious what experienced users here look for that isn't obvious from the provider's website.
Comments
The price
I mean, the past has shown us that it shouldn't be the only thing we look at...
anyways, @itsTomHarper / @VeloxMedia do you have a sale right now?
Why the price ?
How else do you plan to pay for the service?
🤔🤔🤔🤔
We run MTR traceroute to the IPv4 and IPv6 address.
We also check a map of our existing servers, so that we don't buy duplicate/overlapping servers.
Money in my wallet!
Thanks for this info
YABS, hardware, looking glass, ASN, upstreams, price, payment methods, virtualization type, obviously reviews and provider reputation
I've learned to almost never buy without seeing the yabs beforehand. 8 vCPUs can still be painfully slow.
I generally will try one small VPS (less than $25/year) with a provider and see how it goes. The opposite problem is that when you find a provider you really like, you start putting too many eggs in one basket, and when they do something like change the hypervisor or migrate you due to some issue, if you have multiple VPSes with them, it compounds the cleanup needed.
So, definitely yabs to see just how fast that processor allotment is, a bit of checking to see what others say about the provider, but otherwise, it's just a small gamble for each.
I use VPSes for a very specific purpose (Tor relays), so I check:
Whether they allow exit relays. I used to only host exits but have diversified to non-exits as well.
Add the provider's Looking Glass to HetrixTools and track the uptime for at least one month.
VPS is fundamentally useless if without stable uptime.
I agree with you.
GPU required. No cpu
Is it suitable for my business? For example, does it allow the CPU to run at a high frequency continuously?
YABS
price performance ratio. From combination of cpu, ram, storage & type, traffic, compared to price. Then yabs as attestation.
The third check is their reputation. Anything that resembles @VirMach is no go
check if it 7$ sale
https://serververify.com/ and see if there are any yabs posted.
Great question. Beyond the spec sheet, here's what actually matters:
CPU steal. Run
toporiostatfor a few minutes. High steal means your "dedicated" vCPUs are being shared heavily. On a crowded host this tanks performance silently.RAM type. Dedicated vs. burstable/shared. Some providers advertise 8GB but balloon it across tenants. Ask explicitly whether it's dedicated.
Disk I/O. YABS is your friend here. NVMe branding means nothing if the host is oversubscribed. Look for consistent random read/write numbers, not just sequential.
Provider longevity. Anyone can spin up a VPS host. A company operating since 2008 still standing is a decent signal. Check LowEndTalk archives for incident history.
What I stopped caring about: raw vCPU count. Two vCPUs on a lightly loaded host destroys four on an oversold one every time.
Thanks ChatGPT.
I'm quite thorough in what I check.
Value, performance & location is something I assume everyone checks (especially location; how can you not be aware of that?).
I think it’s a good idea to send an email or ticket to any company before you use them to get a feel of how they are. Just ask one or two questions that might not be obvious from their website. Are they assholes or are they nice? Do they talk like robots or canned replies or actually type out and reply like a real person? Don’t want to use a company that won’t be there in a good way if something goes wrong, or if they don’t seem to know much or outsource.
bonus for me: where is the company registered? if it's any of these then i'm more cautious:
in a lot of cases where i can, i also check annual reports
I 100% agree and, funnily enough, I'm actually developing a future cloud platform in the UK. We'll own our infrastructure, software and operate our own RIPE LIR though, so this doesn't really apply.
I prefer to host in the European Union or in my own country (UK) with a reputable provider, personally.
Just for information its £100 GBP.
When I looked around there were a lot of formation agents that will cover the fee for you, obviously the catch is you have to pay for their virtual address service too or whatever, but a non-resident would need to anyway.
Oh yeah theres Tide for £14.99
Forgot about that.
What's wrong with being registered in Hong Kong?
There's nothing inherently wrong with it, it's just a red flag for me. You can be a legitimate business there, same with all of the other jurisdictions I mentioned.
Hong Kong is used a lot for sketchy businesses and shells, and it's harder to . It's not really transparent either, which is one of the reasons why a lot of people choose to incorporate there.
Storage capacity, the provider’s reputation, and geographic location (depending on where the user is based).