Price is often the make-or-break factor for every customer. Even IT is no exception to this rule. The problem faced by every market is that the customers want to pay as little as possible and, in turn, demand exorbitant services.
Moreover, a general perceptive that has been weaved is that cheap products are of low-quality.
As a hosting company, we have often questioned whether cheap VPS hostingservices are worth anything or should they (businesses) spend on expensive dedicated server hosting.
When it comes to choosing a host, there are a few things you should look before you opt for a service. A host that does not provide even one of these things is worthless, no matter how small an amount you are paying for the service.
So, a cheap VPS hosting is really worth it as long as it caters to the following–
A strict no to downtime
You could have N number of reasons to host a website, but to incur downtime undoubtedly is not one of them. Nobody starts a website to get hit with downtime.
So, make it a point that downtime, however small, has no place in your domain. Typically, it would be best if you had at least 99.8 % uptime, and anything below that should ring an alarm.
Depending upon your need, you could allow for some more downtime, but always keep a buffer of 0.2% for yourself.
No substitute to support
There is virtually no substitute for customer support. Since the server has been provisioned over your vendor’s infrastructure, your host is likely to know better where the fault might arise.
However, this might not be the case if you are planning to procure a server within your premises. As the control will then always lie in your hands, it would make little to no difference whether you opt for support or not.
Control is a must
There literally no good in having a VPS server that gives you absolutely no control of your server. You might as well have a shared server.
Take away the control, and what is left of a VPS is shared hosting, but at five times more price.
So, control is a must. Greater the control, greater is the freedom to do as you want, and greater is the customizability.
There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to implement your ideas. As an entrepreneur, you would never want your ideas to be contained by your host.
Your resources should be your own
There is no dearth of providers who try to squeeze in any extra money they can by selling the same commodity twice.
A big fraction of our current customers is those who were duped by their previous vendors. Many a time it has been noticed that if you do not use resources (allocated to you in a VPS) to its full potential, the provider may slyly sell off the idle resource to some other company.
And neither would you know that you have been sharing resources with another website until there is a traffic surge in your website.
Low TAT (turn-around-time)
Even if your service comes with support, it is worthless unless there are proper reversal and redressal of your queries.
Support is rated on a scale called TAT (turn-around-time). TAT is the time after which you receive a response from the support team after you have filed a grievance or an inquiry to the system.
Some new hosting companies have a TAT of a few hours, while some of a few weeks.
Upshot
Is cheap VPS hosting any good?
It is, provided the parameters mentioned above are included in the services.
What if the host denies any of these factors in the services?
The host is not worth spending a penny then. Look for another host that provides at least these services, even if it is charging extra for the service.
