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Best Managed VPS for Web Hosting

Since the operation of your own server is quite labor-intensive, many providers offer Managed Servers or Managed vServers. Here you get the full power of a server / vServer, but the management of the server is the responsibility of the provider. The provider also usually takes care of daily backups, which are securely stored on external storage media.

Normally, these managed servers are designed for the operation of web applications. On the server, corresponding software is preconfigured (web server, database server, e-mail server) and you can make certain settings via the web interface, e.g. create e-mail accounts or manage domains. The provider takes care of the maintenance and security of the server. Therefore it is not possible to install own server applications or to change the configuration of the applications comprehensively with managed servers.

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For Whom Is A Managed Web Server Recommended?

For most users, a shared web hosting offer is absolutely sufficient. An upgrade to a managed web server is recommended if you achieve significant revenues with your site or if the requirements of your site are too high for shared hosting rates. A managed web server usually leads to less server downtime because you can book the resources you need. Similarly, switching often leads to faster loading times.

An accelerated loading time should not be underestimated. Amazon found out that already a 100ms longer loading time leads to a loss of sales of 1%. Google or Mozilla Firefox have also found a strong correlation between loading speed and the number of page views.

I would recommend switching to a managed web server for online shops with a turnover of 5000 Euro or more per month. For content websites, e.g. based on WordPress, I would recommend the switch from about 200,000 page views / month. These are of course only rough guidelines, but if you stay below this limit, you are usually in good hands with shared hosting rates.

Managed vServers are particularly well suited for entry. These can be obtained comparatively cheap from 20 Euro per month.

Which Features Are Important For Managed Servers?

The most important criteria when selecting a Managed Server are (sorted by importance):

• Competent server administrators
  The best CPU or the most memory does not help if the server administrators of the provider are not able to operate and maintain a fast, secure and highly available web server. The system used on the server should be appropriately secured and optimized for performance. The provider should also react quickly to disruptions in order to ensure smooth operation. Unfortunately, this criterion is difficult to check before the purchase. I would therefore look at short contract periods and consider a corresponding move in case of problems.
• Memory
  One of the most important technical criteria when choosing a Managed Server is the available RAM. With more memory, your server, if configured correctly (see point 1), can receive a significant performance boost. If the server is configured correctly, the database can store important tables and table indexes in the working memory. The PHP cache can also be used and the compiled PHP files can be kept ready in the main memory. Since the access to the slow hard disk is not necessary, you can achieve an extreme acceleration. Ideally, all PHP files and your database will fit completely into the main memory.
• CPU
  After RAM, computing power is the most important component. Since a server tends to have to process several calls in parallel, it is particularly advantageous if the server has several CPU cores. In this way, the work of the different calls can be conveniently distributed over the different cores. The clock frequency of the individual cores is then rather secondary.
• Hard disk
  Many providers advertise with especially large hard disks in the terabyte range. However, if you don’t use the server to store large files, e.g. movies, then the hard disk space will bring you relatively little. As explained in the article Most important criteria for good web space, the storage requirements for many websites are much lower than you might think. Even large webshops often get along quite well with 10GB of storage space. Much more important than the size of the hard disk is the type of the hard disk. SSD hard disks offer here clearly faster read and write accesses. Ideally, however, the server comes with enough RAM to be able to permanently store all important data in the RAM. In such a case, the reading speed of the hard disk is of secondary importance.

Costs of a Managed Server

The price depends mainly on the required resources. Good managed vServers start at about 20 Euro per month. For a dedicated managed server you should plan at least 100 Euro per month.

My recommendation is to start with a managed vServer first, ideally from a recommendable provider. When choosing a provider, you should make sure that you can easily increase the booked resources to find out step by step how many resources you actually need.

The amount of resources required depends on the applications, the number of users and the caching mechanisms used. If I run this website (which is based on WordPress) on a vServer with a 1 CPU core and 1 GB RAM, the server can process about 10 calls per second. This corresponds to 36,000 calls per hour. If I activate a WordPress caching plugin (e.g. W3 Total Cache), the server can handle 40 hits per second (144,000 hits per hour).

These values can, of course, vary greatly depending on the application. If only static content is delivered, a well-configured server with 1 CPU core can easily handle 10,000 calls per second. If you have a very complex database or a poorly optimized web application, the one CPU core might only be able to handle 2 or 3 calls per second.

Managed VPS Comparison

Managed VPS packages are a standard offer among vServer providers since many customers prefer not to have to take care of installations, updates etc. themselves. In our comparison you find the currently best VPS providers for managed virtual servers we could find in this nearly unmanageable amount of hosting services available online.