How much does VPS location matter?

[LeeW]

@girish All of my sites are just info blogs, a forum and a custom-built history site. They will be fine pretty much anywhere.

Going to go with Hetzner, as I say, not a cheapskate, was willing to pay Digital Ocean $40 per month but Hetzner Cloud gets as good if not better reviews and for much less money. Seems daft not to

[murgero]

@leew You should also look into OVH - Get yourself dedicated hardware for similar prices (like with kimsufi for example, an OVH reseller)

[humptydumpty]

I switched this week from DO to Contabo and my initial concern was that Contabo would be overselling their VPS's and I would end up with a slow server. I'm glad to report that my VPS M NVME server is much "snappier" than it was with DigitalOcean. I was on the 2vCPU/4GB RAM DO plan (SSD) so it's not really a fair comparison (SSD vs NVME).

Unfortunately, my Contabo VPS had some downtime today (~5 mins) and support replied to my email within 1 min (literally). The server was back up by the time I replied back. I've been with DO (through a managed host and then as a direct customer) for over 8 years and I regret not exploring other options during that time. Not that I have anything bad to say about DO, it's just that there are other amazing hosts out there. HTH.

[girish]

@humptydumpty Indeed, it's great to see competition here for small business and personal use. Especially support and pricing are very competitive these days with the smaller VPS providers. I feel many people fall for the "big cloud" (aws/azure/gcs) trap and really struggle with their interfaces and complexity.

We actually use a variety of providers - DO, Linode, Ionos, Hetzner, Netcup and honestly I can't think of anything bad about any of them.

[jdaviescoates]

@girish said in How much does VPS location matter?:

We actually use a variety of providers - DO, Linode, Ionos, Hetzner, Netcup and honestly I can't think of anything bad about any of them.

AFAIK out of that list only Hetzner and Netcup run on 100% renewable energy. Given the urgency and serverity of the climate (and ecological) emergency I'd suggest that any server not 100% powered by renewables is in fact very bad

(I also don't really like the fact they are all run for private profit which ultimately means they worsen inequality which is bad for everyone, but that's a whole other point/ subject bring on servers.coop! although that's still in very early days)

[humptydumpty]

I may have spoke positively about Contabo way too soon. My VPS was down again today for 5-8 mins and I received the same reply (damn copy/paste) when I asked as to what the cause is.

Unfortunately we experienced some technical difficulties with the Host-Server-System

In plain English, what the heck is that?

[murgero]

@humptydumpty Essentially - The host server that runs all the different VMs went down. (or some other technical issue.)

Little diagram for explanation: The VM part is your VPS. One host server (host machine, server host, etc) can run many VMs (VPS) under itself - If the host has an issue, depending on the issue, the VM will experience it as well.

[humptydumpty]

@murgero Interesting. It has happened two days in a row now. That can't be good. Thanks for the explanation!

[marcusquinn]

@leew Using Hetzner from the UK, Jersey actually. It's super-fast, you really won't notice any difference for any hosting within about 3h of timezone in either direction. My recommendation; give it a go, I don't think you'll have any issues or regrest.

[timconsidine]

@leew I run my UK-focussed Cloudron instance from a NetCup server in Germany, and I see no issues whatsoever in terms of performance vs a Digital Ocean or Linode London server.
Not a technical metrics-based response, just a user-experience perspective. Hope it helps.

[RoundHouse1924]

@marcusquinn said in How much does VPS location matter?:

It's super-fast, you really won't notice any difference for any hosting within about 3h of timezone in either direction.

Distance surely, not timezones --- unless you are talking only in east<> west terms.

Bet you didn't intend to include South Africa!

[marcusquinn]

@roundhouse1924 True. Also bear in mind EU hosting keeps your GDPR obligations simpler.

[LeeW]

@timconsidine That's very useful, thanks.

[ElianaW39777620]

Do not think the geolocation matters with a Virtual private server(VPS). All you need is a quick, consistent, and smooth internet connection in VPS. A client likewise must have a decent Internet connection. I had VPS for ircd and I used to give shell access, there was no issue with that. The exhibition on applications was smooth and acceptable. Is it true that you are encountering any issues on the VPS you have or purchased?

[marcusquinn]

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