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Black Friday strategy: one bigger VPS, or a few small ones?
With Black Friday coming up, I'm trying to decide how to spend a small budget, and I'd like to hear how people here think about it.
My use case is mixed: I want one box to learn and break things on, and I'd also like to run a couple of small personal projects (a small site, a few services) that shouldn't die just because I broke the playground.
Option A: one bigger box (something like 3–4 cores / 6GB RAM) and split it into projects on a single machine. Simpler to manage, better specs per dollar — but everything shares one IP, one point of failure, and my learning mistakes can take the projects down with it.
Option B: two or three small cheap boxes (1–2GB each), one purely for learning, the others for the small projects. More isolation and more IPs to play with — but more panels, more renewals, and each box is weak on its own.
For those who've been through a few Black Fridays: which way did you go, and did you regret it? Is there a price point where the small boxes stop making sense?
Thanks for any war stories.
Comments
Why not all 🤑 big vps to run your "prod" app, medium vps to play around, small vps to idle.
Big VPS with $7/year
Strategy: if you get good deals you take them, of course only if you have a use case for them, as day by day you will see good deals disappear.
Small VPSes generally manage to come with bigger discounts, proportionally, than large VPSes. So I prefer small. This is because hosts know that a 1c1g10g that they sell for 80% off is most likely going to end up idling and won't cost the provider much, but a 4g16g200g that they sell will probably be put into production and pushed hard and sold at a serious loss.
That's the same reason providers often disallow upgrading or merging promo plans.
no VPS, new sneakers and sex toys, they bring more joy and won't renew the prices to a higher one next year
Option B. Never one point of failure. And use several vps providers, all have their pros and cons.
This is what I'm afraid of. I've already spent a lot, on top of what I've already renewed. So, too much money. But the good deals are soooooo tempting!
Both. Both is good.
Also consider translating "reccuring" to " till next payment" in your head to avoid being disappointed
I don't know your budget. And this is crucial.
Also I don't know what does learning means for you and also production specs.
But....
What I'll do:
Version 1. I'll try to get one vps 2-4 CPU 4-6-8 GB ram and good disk for production.
Another 2 CPU 4gb ram and some disk for testing and learning.
Version 2. I can get some 7/y deals each one for a project (VPN, blogs, uptime app), each vps for 1 or 2 apps. In total 3 or 4 VMS to keep it low spending. And one of these ones it can be for testing, but low specs VPS is trouble for testing my opinion.
Note 1: In my opinion, the testing and learning vps must be a good one, with at least 2 CPU minimum EPYC good model, minimum 4GB RAM and at least 50 GB NVMe. Honestly, for learning I prefer at least 4 CPU, 8 GB ram. But you know you budget better. And to be from a reputable provider, to avoid issues, errors, headache.
Note 2: The good deals vanish quick. You have to be quick.
The cheaper the price the greater the chance that the seller is running a higher vCPU to core ratio. This ratio can greatly affect system performance. This shows up when the several users are hitting high limits.
I have never asked a seller what their ratio is so I don't know whether they would choose to answer that question or not. Any ratio over 3-1 and at some point you most likely have some delays some of the time.
Whatever you choose, 2GB of memory is the absolute minimum. One vCPU can handle several low traffic sites. One of these would be good for your play site.
Just starting out several smaller VPS would be my suggestion.
Cancel everything, get off the internet.
Thanks all, this thread is saving me a lot of homework.
Honest update on where I'm leaning: probably one bigger box. My budget is limited, so it's one purchase, not a collection. I already run a blog on free shared hosting, and the limits are really starting to hurt — that's actually the main push. The new box would become its new home, plus a small test shop and some experiments on the side. One bigger VPS means one bill and everything in one place.
I do get the small-box argument, and the discount math in this thread is hard to argue with. If my budget allowed a collection, I'd probably go that way. With my constraints, though, splitting it would leave every project on a box that's too small for it.
So for those who run multiple projects on a single bigger VPS: how do you keep them separated — Docker, separate users, or just different ports and good luck? Any horror stories?
And I'm still torn on timing: deals are already starting to appear. If a good one shows up before Black Friday, do you grab it right away, or wait for Black Friday itself? Still hoping for option C: a sponsored box just lands in my account. A man can dream.
$7/year for a BIG vps? Now I have to ask — where, and how big is "big"? If that deal is real, I can stop thinking and just buy it. 😄
Thank you — honestly, that's the dream setup: big one for production, medium for testing, small one for idling. The only problem is my budget only stretches to one of the three. But if you'd like to sponsor me, I'll happily accept your plan. 😄
I will sponsor you @yoursunny state of the art ipv9 vps, perfect for idling
https://yoursunny.com/p/summer-host/ipv9/
😂 Deal! An IPv9 VPS — finally, an address space as empty as my wallet. Thank you, kind sponsor!
you guys read the specs of which vps's youre getting on black friday?
i spam f5 on the threads and click buy on whatever flash sale i see and pray for my wallet and the specs 😭
(i only do this for for prem providers like greencloud, onidel, etc, never for some shit like pulsed or delux)
I don't like to mix sites and services, especially if I might have 1 site that's linked to my personal identity, and 1 that's linked to an online account like Twitch or something.
Also, sometimes I like to just wipe the server and start fresh for some things. Not really an option if everything is on the same server (without a lot more work)
Focus on never heard providers, maximise usage until deadpool.
multiple vps from distinct providers in case you end up with one or more "not suitable for any use"
Undoubtedly, a VPS with relatively higher specifications is a good choice.
You can use Cloudflare to enable proxying, which hides the real IP address of your origin server.
Carrd
the 3:1 ratio rule is really useful, thank you. Two questions: has anyone here actually asked a seller their ratio and gotten a straight answer? And if not, is the only real check to buy, run YABS / a stress test, and use the refund window if it's oversold? Trying to figure out how much of this I can know before paying.
the Cloudflare point is exactly what I need: my blog will move to the new box. Is it as simple as proxying the domain and blocking direct-IP access, or is there a gotcha? And do you keep everything on the one big box, or split anything off?
I choose all
Unless the sex toys are made by LG, internet-connected, spy on you and require a subscription to use. And right in the middle of the action Sam Altman's voice comes on and says 'Hey I needed that RAM"
@ OP - your post reads like Grok generated it. If that is the case please just ask Grok for his opinion since he already gave you two options.
In any event keep in mind that not all VMs are created equal. A single core on a 9950x may be better than four cores on a Xeon v1 shitbox; at the same time that core might be so heavily throttled that an Atom C2750 actually performs better.
Lastly you're asking people on a forum who have dashboard-measuring contests for idlers.
3:1 is a pretty bad ratio.