Moving from shared hosting to your own server means speed, flexibility and full control. But choosing the right VPS among hundreds of providers and plans can be confusing. Here are seven things to check:
1. Location. The closer the server is to your visitors, the faster your site loads. Pick a data center near your main audience.
2. Memory (RAM). For a single WordPress site, 2 GB is often enough. If you plan several sites, a store or a game server, 4–8 GB is more comfortable. A mail server needs extra memory.
3. CPU type. Shared cores are cheap and fine for most sites. For heavy traffic or game servers, dedicated cores run more steadily.
4. Disk. NVMe or SSD is a must. Backups, logs and images grow over time; plan for at least twice what you need today.
5. Operating system. Ubuntu and Debian are the most common and best documented. Captanel also works on AlmaLinux and Rocky.
6. Backups and snapshots. Check whether the provider offers server snapshots, but do not rely on them alone: keep your own backup somewhere else too.
7. Support and contract. Hourly billing is ideal for trying things out; monthly contracts are often cheaper but cannot be cancelled right away. A support team you can actually reach matters when things go wrong.
Once you have chosen, add the server to Captanel and set up security, automatic backups and SSL in a few clicks. No server yet? Create one from Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Vultr or Linode inside the app.
Read more: Install WordPress on a VPS: one click, with SSL and backups · Try it free for 14 days