Recommendations for Linux Virtual Server Hosts

July 26, 2005 7:13 AM

Recommendations for a good, reliable Linux Virtual Server host? Any good experiences? Any really bad ones? things to look out for? Root access and ability to install custom software is a must as is serving multiple domains. Price is definitely a factor, but reliability is more important.

I am looking for a host for my small software business as well as a few websites I maintain. Due to the nature of the business we'll need the ability to move very large data sets occasionally, and we'll definitely need support at odd hours (so 24-7 would be nice, albeit not a deal-killer). Having the option to move to a dedicated setup at some future date would also be nice.

Any version of Linux would do, but Fedora or other Red Hat derivatives are preferrable.

posted by costas to computers & internet (9 comments total)

You want root access to a virtual server?
posted by null terminated at 7:21 AM on July 26, 2005

Bytemark.co.uk - had a UML server with them for over a year now without problem.
posted by gi_wrighty at 7:40 AM on July 26, 2005

Null terminated: I probably over-specified my question: I just need plain-old access to a virtual server partition, not the ability to run multiple partitions myself...
posted by costas at 7:47 AM on July 26, 2005

I"ve had good luck with Rimuhosting.

I have a VPS with multiple domains and root access. You can choose from a few different flavors of Linux to start with, and then you have complete control to install and configure it as you like.

The prices are very reasonable, and the support and sales people are great to work with and very responsive.
posted by gus at 8:04 AM on July 26, 2005

When I was looking for same a year or so ago a lot of people whose recommendations I trust recommended Bytemark. (I ended up going with shared hosting in the end, opting for bandwidth over flexibility.)
posted by mendel at 8:31 AM on July 26, 2005

Verio's VPS2 packages all give you root and a choice of FreeBSD or Solaris. More expensive than some, but very reliable.
posted by blag at 8:35 AM on July 26, 2005

I have also had a UML server at bytemark for over a year without any problems (handling mail, web and some custom servers I written my self). Well, until last week when someone pulled out the wrong drive and the server was down for 30 minutes (at that time my server had been running for more than 300 days without a reboot or crash).
posted by rpn at 8:40 AM on July 26, 2005

I just started with unixshell.com. They've been pretty good so far; they run Linux using Xen and the performace has been good. One of the cheaper plans is $15/mo for 64 MB RAM and 6 GB disk. You have your choice of linux distributions.
posted by Common Sense at 12:54 PM on July 26, 2005

Check out some of the offers at this forum of webhostingtalk.com.

Note that there is no guarantee that these hosts are particularly good, but they do tend to be some of the best deals out there. In terms of requirements, I think that any true VPS will give you what you need.

It will come down to RAM, storage, and bandwidth as to how much you will pay. The other thing you'll have to decide on is whether you want a control panel (like cPanel or WHM) or not. They generally are thrown in for an extra $5 to $25 a month, depending on which product and the number of domains. There is no technical thing that limits the number of domains you can host on a VPS (aside from bandwidth / memory / CPU usage naturally), so the notion of "number of domains" is only relevent when talking about a control panel. Or in other words, if you manage the server yourself without a control panel (or with a free one like Webmin) there is absolutely nothing dictating how many domains you can or can't have on the machine. The commercial control panels however are typically licensed by domain so that's the only reason you should care about that. Personally I can't stand control panels and am always glad to save some money by not getting them. If you're not familiar with setting up apache and friends by yourself, though, it is helpful to have. It is also a good idea if you plan to resell any part of the server to others, because it's a typical feature that most clients will want.
posted by Rhomboid at 2:34 PM on July 26, 2005