Today’s article is no ordinary hosting review.
I am not trying to convince you to use A2Hosting VPS or another VPS provider.
I just want:
Share your personal views and experiences by choosing a VPS for blog.
I want to give you information that I can’t find on many other blogs.
When choosing a VPS, I, like many people, will think of 3 big names: Linode , Digital Ocean , and Vultr .
Do not deny:
Those are the VPS giants. There are a lot of bloggers including myself that have articles about them.
When talking about VPS services of these providers, you are familiar with sayings like:
High-end VPS you have no restrictions when configuring the server unlike OpenVZ virtualization. Fast speed because of Asia location.
Especially Linode and Digital both have attractive VPS trial programs . You can use VPS for free for up to several months.
The price + configuration of the providers is very good especially Vultr and Linode. Package $ 5 you get 1 GB RAM.
Everything is too fine. And so tempting isn’t it?
But there is a fact many bloggers do not mention. Or they don’t know. Or they ignore it.
And this is the reason why I accept to spend VPS rental elsewhere while the account on Linode, DO still has credits. Or I don’t choose Vultr even though the price is very cheap compared to the common ground.
The fact that:
These services have been heavily affected by recent cable breaks.
I agree that:
When a cable break occurs, all foreign hosting providers are affected more or less.
But I disagree that:
All foreign hosting providers are equally affected. This point of view is not correct.
Many of you still do not know that when a cable break occurs, some telecommunications carriers in Vietnam may not be able to access your website. If you use your home network, you can still access it, so make sure the hosting service you choose is fine.
But that is not the case:
In fact, in the last few cable breaks, I have installed a demo website with the Asian location of the 3 providers above. Results are not accessible all day with FPT network. The worst is Linode when unable to access VPS management website.
This problem is similar to the StableHost I mentioned in this post .
I do not accept to compromise this with the above advantages. I want my website to be always ready to serve readers at the highest level.
One more thing I want to share:
Same install VPSSIM + source code when placed on Digital Ocean location Singapore and when placed on VPS A2Hosting location Singapore, see:
Actual experience speed is slower than A2Hosting, especially the admin page. All operations have to wait.
Worse I can’t send email when using SMTP plugin with STMP server SparkPost .
And when I tried it, Google discovered:
Looks like Digital Ocean blocks SMTP . I did not send tickets. Partly because of the slow speed of experience as above, it is impossible to continue using it.
As for the other two providers, Linode + Vultr, I’m afraid of breaking the cable and can’t get in with FPT all day.
I myself have been using shared A2Hosting for quite some time. I know their hosting service is very quality. High uptime and less affected by cable breaks.
But the VPS segment is not very strong, especially compared to the 3 big guys above.
The downside here: It uses Open VZ virtualization. You will not be able to create swap as you want. But the pre-made SWAP also looks OK.
But I know that many of us are not technically savvy. Virtualization KVM or Open VZ are vague things.
After all, we all want: A highly stable hosting service (over high uptime), fast speed and no bugs. A2Hosting completely meets this.
I don’t know what kind of virtualization KVM should be, but thinking about the DO’s SMTP blocking is a bit annoying.
The point that bothers me the most when choosing VPS A2Hosting is that the price of RAM here is a bit tight.
Minimum package parameter as below:
512MB RAM (pre-made 512MB SWAP memory) 1Core, 2TB bandwidth. Bandwidth is pretty good. Buying more cores only costs 1$/core.
But adding RAM is quite expensive. The new $10 plan has 1GB RAM. Obviously compared to Vultr, or Linode is a bit weak.
So struggling forever, I decided to choose HostHatch . The price here is quite cheap and has a Hong Kong location. Because of the Hong Kong location, I don’t worry much about speed or cable breaks.
When I put it on here, I found everything OK. Everything went peacefully.
But one day something happened:
On 11/14, the Hong Kong node was down. I saw that the website could not be accessed for almost an hour, so everything is not okay.
HostHatch then sent an email explaining that an SSD fell out of the tray and resulted in an error.
Ok. Sounds like a rare occurrence. Doesn’t happen often. And HostHatch also offered to compensate for downtime.
But I did not claim compensation because one was to switch VPS immediately after the problem.
Second, I saw Hosthatch shoot mail to announce the problem for a long time until the problem happened almost an hour before sending mail to the customer. Customers who use an uptime monitoring system like me will notice when the website is down. So take immediate action to minimize damage to the website.
But anyway, this provider is well-intentioned to compensate for downtime. Besides, during the time I used it, I found the service here to be very good.
And I have finished switching to VPS A2Hosting. Experience with my FPT network, everything feels fine. High speed. In general, the feeling is only in one word “happy”.
Yesterday I installed a VPS on Digital Ocean for a client. But the operation speed in the admin page is too slow. If you take the reason that the cable is broken to explain, then compared to A2Hosting (also foreign hosting + same location in Singapore) Digital Ocean server is too poor.
You may be interested: Instructions for creating and installing VPS on A2Hosting.
VPSSIM recently had an update that was appreciated by everyone. Currently, I am using VPSSIM on VPS A2Hosting, which is also better than the old version. Recommend to use.
If you have a different opinion, please share more in the comments below.
