12 Best VPS Hosting Providers in The UK (2023) 🇬🇧

VPS Hosting Definition

VPS (virtual private server) is also known as a virtualized system. This type of environment attempts to replicate a dedicated product, which is frequently found in a shared environment. To put it another way, it's a shared and dedicated product rolled into one. VPS hosting is best described as a service that allows you to host your website, its data, and other files on a virtual machine that no one else has access to. This is beneficial in terms of security and privacy, as well as saving time by avoiding all relevant duties when setting up a system on your own. Furthermore, if you get a VPS from a hosting company, you will have your own virtual server space right away. You may immediately start hosting your website by just uploading the files without investing any additional time or money.VPS has a larger bandwidth allocated, and it is better equipped to handle big site traffic. VPS hosting offers more computing resources and processing power, which will increase the speed of your site, without you paying that much more.   With VPS granting you greater speeds, you will see SEO Ranking improvement that will keep potential customers satisfied with the loading up of your site pages. Adding to that, clients will want to spend more time on your site, reading or shopping - depends on what audience you want to attract. VPS is great for creating a small or medium-sized website in the UK.

How Does a Virtual Private Server Work?

A VPS is fundamentally a computer, on which your hosting provider stores all of your websites' files including your database. When a visitor comes to your website, his browser sends a request to the server and the server itself answers by providing the user all of the required files. A VPS is a virtual server that works just as the physical one, however, one machine can be shared between several users. With virtualization, the hosting providers install an Operating System on the server and divide it into different partitions which thus enables users to install their preferred Operating System on a particular partition. This works similarly to the way your HDD or SSD drive is divided into different disks - for example, C:, D: and you can use each of these partitions to run a different OS. For example, Linux is installed on one of the drives, and Windows is installed on another, while you could launch any one of them at a given time. The VPS lets you build up your website within a virtual secure "container" with granted and guaranteed resources such as CPU, Disk Space, RAM, etc. Running your website on a VPS gives you the same root-level access as if you would run it on a dedicated server but the VPS cost is much lower.

Pros and Cons of VPS

A VPS web hosting might be the ideal option for you. Below, you can read more about the pros and the cons to see if that is the best-suited option for you:

Pros

• A VPS web hosting is much faster and much more reliable than a shared hosting server.
• The resources are guaranteed and you get the RAM and processing power that you pay for.
• Problems such as viruses or large traffic on other users don't affect your website.
• You are granted root access to the server you pay for.
• The service is easily scalable.

If your project grows big and develops at a fast pace you can easily upgrade to a higher-cost plan and receive the server resources that you need.

Cons

• It is more expensive than shared hosting plans.
• VPS requires technical skills and knowledge about configuration and management.

If you are a beginner this might be an issue for you.

Top Data Centers in the UK

The UK is a destination that provides a stable hosting environment for the biggest companies. In its territory, there are over 280 data centers spread around 67 areas about the island. 87 of the data centers are in London, 21 in Manchester, and 11 in Birmingham. While choosing a hosting company for your website, make sure that it has a data center in some of the locations listed above. In your favor, below we have prepared the five best companies that use the UK data centers for their services.

Technical Support

Tech support is another essential feature when it comes to web hosting, but it is mostly provided by the hosting company itself and the UK interface can't really be helping developing this feature. Of course, the data centers provide their own support but not the regular user. Only if you are using colocation services, then support is important.

Security

When it comes to web hosting security needs to be on a high level because on any server there is a lot of information stored. You don't need to worry about the security in the UK data centers because there are norms that any working data center needs to cover. And over the data center security, the hosting company provides another layer of protection.

Internet Exchange Points in the UK

In the UK there are 8 internet exchange points - 4 in London, 2 in Manchester, one in Cardiff, and one in Edinburgh. All these internet providers can offer a robust and reliable environment for web hosting. The LINX exchange point operates in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff and connects the UK with the USA in Northern Virginia, from the exchange point receives internet from the USA.

Why You Should Choose VPS

The need for VPS hosting is usually felt urgently, once you exceed the resource limits that are provided by a shared hosting service. If the hosting plan that you have chosen does not allow your website to run smoothly and does not provide your users with the best experience possible you should consider going for VPS. However, there are other possible situations and cases, where it might be a good idea to start with a VPS plan from the very beginning. For example, if you are planning to start a big eCommerce website with thousands of products, including payment features, data storage, a VPS would be a great choice to start your project with. In addition, if you plan to store any sensitive data, a VPS is the preferred choice because it drastically reduces the risk of data theft. If you notice that your website loads very slowly, or it crashes and its downtimes increase, you need a VPS.

Distinction Between VPS and Managed VPS

There are two types of a VPS service - the first one is a basic VPS and the second - a Managed VPS. One of the biggest mistakes that many users make is to opt for a basic VPS server when they have to manage and configure the whole server environment by themselves. To do that, you must be tech-savvy with servers, and in the case that you are not - you will face some serious issues. In this case, you should listen to our advice and opt for the Managed VPS option that comes with full technical support, provided by the hosting company that offers it. This option is relatively new but is admired by users because the hosting companies aim to configure the environment according to the needs of the users, monitor the server uptime, take care of backups, caching and also provide 24/7 support.

UK VPS Review Conclusion

There are many companies offering VPS hosting services. Choosing the right one is a crucial decision to make. Before investing in a VPS service, assess what type of project you are striving to build, how many users do you expect, how much RAM and Storage space you would need for your website, and if you need a Managed VPS plan or not.

VPS Hosting 2023 FAQ