Whenever we talk about web business or blogging, the most important part of the online business is web hosting. We mostly talks about shared hosting or WordPress hosting, and less about VPS and Dedicated hosting which are must for high traffic websites.
Today I am going to review KnownHost VPS Hosting, I am using their VPS hosting from last 10 months and extremely happy with my VPS hosting and provider. KnownHost is offering great VPS hosting and support. Their servers are fast and reliable, and support is top-notch.
Before beginning, I want to clear what is VPS hosting and who needs VPS (Virtual Private Server), or dedicated hosting.
What is VPS Hosting: As the name suggests VPS or Virtual Private Server is a virtual server which provides freedom to root access, install any OS and software. In VPS hosting a virtual servers are created which provides guaranteed RAM allocation, storage space, CPU performance etc. It is like having your own server. Hosting companies created limited VPS on web servers to give maximum performance to VPS owners.
When to Move on VPS: If your website is getting some good traffic and your shared hosting is getting slow then its time to move to VPS hosting. From financial expect if you start making about $500 per month from your website then you should move to VPS hosting. Moving to VPS from shared hosting will speed up your website, and good performance for your visitors.
Moving to Dedicated Hosting: Moving to dedicated hosting depends on a lot of factors like, your website is getting thousands of visitors every day. You are running profitable shopping site, earning $2000+ per month from your website etc.
You can make $10000 per month on shared hosting, but it all depends on what software you are using on your website, how good experience you want to give to your visitors, how secure environment you have created for your visitors etc.
Okay, back to the review, KnownHost was not my first VPS hosting provider, I have used two different VPS providers before and KnownHost is my third VPS provider. The reason of moving to KnownHost was that I was not satisfied with my previous VPS provider. My sites were getting down very frequently without the proper solution so I searched for some good VPS providers, and I choose KnownHost.
KnownHost offer only VPS and dedicated hosting, they do not offer any shared hosting. Their main focus is only on providing VPS and dedicated hosting, which gives them the freedom and opportunity to give good service and support. KnownHost is fully managed hosting provider.
Sites Migration: After choosing KnownHost VPS Hosting, my first concern was moving all my sites to new VPS, and I requested their support to move all my sites to KnownHost VPS, and they did it very quickly without any data loss, and that too without any down time. KnownHost offers free website migration.
VPS Performance and Security: KnownHost pre-optimizes all new VPS for security and performance. I got secure VPS with firewall and cpHulk (brute Force Protection for WHM/cPanel) installed which protects my VPS from unauthorized access.
After moving my site to new VPS, I felt my sites are opening slowly, and, after reporting about this, they optimized my VPS as per my sites requirements, and my sites started opening fast.
Support: I don’t know about others, but I don’t think anyone can beat KnownHost support. All my questions are answered in less than 5 minutes. If there is any optimization work it never takes more than 15 to 30 minutes to complete which is very fast. I am from India and KnownHost is US Company, a big time difference. KnownHost provides 24×7 support, and all staff is well trained.
Site Uptime: In last 10 months I have only faced one downtime of few minutes which was because of power failure. They cleared their situation and tried to restore all servers as soon as possible. With my previous VPS host, I regularly faced downtimes, but not with KnownHost.
VPS Options: KnownHost offer various VPS options, their plan starts as per RAM and storage requirements. They offer 7 options which starts from 512MB RAM to 5632MB RAM. I opted for 2GB RAM plan which is more than enough for my requirement. One can start from VPS-1 plan which comes with 512MB RAM, 20GB storage, 2500GB bandwidth etc.
KnownHost also offers SSD (Solid-State Drive) powered VPS plans, which gives fast performance. SSD VPS plan cost little more. I am hosted with them on SSD-2 VPS plan.
VPS Pricing: KnownHost VPS pricing are competitive, which starts from $25 for VPS-1 plan with 512MB RAM. You can find the lot of VPS providers who cost much less than KnownHost, but if you are looking for a solid hosting with great support than you need to pay some extra money.
VPS Control Panel: KnownHost offers cPanel/WHM License, Parallels Plesk, and DirectAdmin control panel which cost $5 extra per month. You will get latest control panel which is set to auto update. Whenever there is a new update for the control panel it is auto updated, so you don’t need to worry about any updates. I am using cPanel control panel on my VPS which works great.
I have not used their dedicated hosting, but I am sure it will be great, because I know about their servers and support.
If you run WordPress based sites and always getting suggestion for expensive WordPress specialist hosting than its better to test VPS hosting by KnownHost. You can start with VPS-1 plan which comes with 512MB RAM, which is more than enough for less traffic sites. You can host unlimited websites on your VPS, unlimited database, email etc which you will not get with specialist hosting.
To rate KnownHost VPS hosting I will give 4.5 out of 5 which will be excellent. I am totally satisfied with the KnownHost service and will recommend them for those who are looking for good VPS provider.
