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Vultr Review 2024 (Is This The Best Cloud Hosting Provider?)

March 16, 2022
12 MIN READ
Vultr Review

We all know that hosting your own website, game server, or web application is a pain.

But you also don't want to pay hundreds of dollars per month for hosting.

For example, did you know that Google Cloud charges you $225.93 per month for 2GB of bandwidth...

It's not 2001, it's 2024!

Vultr solves this problem by providing quality cloud servers with powerful CPUs, SSD storage, and plenty of RAM, with 100% uptime SLA, at an affordable price point.

You can even get started with as little as $2.50 per month!

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This Vultr review will cover everything you need to know about this hosting provider, from an overview with pros and cons to prices and how they interact with their customers.

In this Vultr hosting review, we will also go over if Vultr is a good choice for game server hosting or if you should only use it for web hosting.

What is Vultr?

SSD VPS Servers Cloud Servers and Cloud Hosting by Vultr Vultr com

Vultr, simply put, is a global cloud hosting solution from simple cloud instances, all the way to a dedicated server.

They offer features such as:

  • One-click deployment of applications
  • A powerful API
  • DDoS Protection
  • Custom control panel
  • ISO Uploading

The company was founded in 2014 by former Datapipe employee David Aninowsky, who aimed to create a service that would simplify cloud storage and server management.

Each leading board member has at least 15 years of IT experience in everything from infrastructure to software development and automation.

The Pros and Cons of Vultr

As with any other server host, Vultr has its benefits and drawbacks. This Vultr review will provide you with a quick and basic rundown of the company's most important pros and cons as a whole. Read on to later sections for specifics about products and service quality.

Pros

  • Quick and easy setup
  • Low latency times and high efficiency globally
  • Customizable plans to fit any need
  • Latest security features
  • High-performance CPUs

The software Vultr uses is ridiculously powerful. They can transfer and store vast amounts of data quickly and securely without the added worry of it becoming lost on long latency periods between locations.

All of Vultr's plans are highly customizable - you really do only pay for exactly what you need. They're priced reasonably for both solo web managers and companies looking to expand their online presence, so you don't have to worry about paying corporate prices at the individual level.

On top of that, Vultr is available on worldwide servers, so the latency and loading times are minimal while their overall efficiency is maximized. This also means your data is more secure, as each location is discrete and reasonably restricted in terms of access.

Vultr cloud servers also use the latest generation Intel CPUs, so no matter if you have a VPS or dedicated server, you are bound to have great performance and value for money.

Cons

  • Pricing hourly can be confusing
  • Technically worded website
  • Customer support is not the best at times
  • Small bandwidth cap

Vultr's pricing structure is a bit confusing. They charge hourly but have pricing plans set up as monthly billing, making knowing your actual rate difficult. They also charge on the first of the month, which can coincide annoyingly with many other everyday bills.

You can find a dedicated server elsewhere for a much better price.

Their website is very technically worded. If you're just setting up your company's web experience, you'll probably need a seasoned technical expert working with you just to understand what the services are and whether or not you need them.

They do offer comprehensive FAQs to combat this, however.

Customer support is not the best at times. The biggest con is their apparent lack of quality customer service, but more details on that are below.

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While the Vultr network is great, the fact that they have a monthly bandwidth cap on all their plans is pretty poor in my eyes.

How to Use Vultr

The Vultr control panel is a feature-rich control panel that gives you quick and easy access to all your servers. It also makes deploying cloud hosting instances easy as you can do it in just a few clicks.

Products-Vultr-com (1)

After you make an account and log in, you get an overview of your active instances. If you have not created any cloud services yet, then you will easily be able to start a new instance by clicking the "+" button in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

Deploy Servers Vultr com

This is where you can set up your cloud server. You get 3 choices of hosting plans.

  • Optimized Cloud Compute
  • Cloud Compute
  • Bare Metal Servers

What server you select totally depends on what you are using the server for. If you are running a small gaming network with friends or for low-traffic web hosting, then their Compute plan is good enough for you.

In fact, our website is hosted with Vultr using the "Intel High Frequency" plan.

Vultr has made it even easier to choose the right Cloud Compute VPS (Virtual Private Server) by giving you different CPU options, as well as a handy description of the differences.

Deploy Servers Vultr com 1

Once you have decided what server is best for you, it comes time to select a data center. Generally, you will select the server that is closest to your target audience as this will give you the best performance.

Deploy Servers Vultr com 2

After this, you can either select your server operating system or the application you want to run. Vultr offers One-Click Installs for lots of common applications (and games servers such as Minecraft).

vultr server locations

Do note that depending on the operating system or application you select in the control panel, there may be an extra cost to your instance. This can either be added to the monthly price of your server or a one-off cost.

Now it's time to select what "Server Size" you need. This includes how many CPU cores, ram, and monthly bandwidth. Again this depends on what you need your cloud server for.

Deploy-Servers-Vultr-com (3) (1)

You can also select additional features such as:

  • IPv6
  • Automatic Backups
  • DDoS Protection
  • Startup Scripts
  • SSH Keys
  • Server hostname

Now let's talk more about pricing.

Vultr's Pricing Plans

The biggest perk of Vultr is its pricing. Its plans are affordable for nearly everyone looking to work with hosted servers, meaning that you don't have to be a massive company to benefit from their use.

All of Vultr's servers are billed at an hourly rate, determined by the division of the monthly rate by 28 days (672 hours), up to a cap specified by your plan. Each plan has a different but clearly defined cap you can adjust at any time.

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These charges are invoiced to your account on the first day of the month. Vultr accepts most major credit cards, as well as certain forms of cryptocurrency and PayPal. The cryptocurrencies they accept are BTC, BCH, ETH, DOGE, PAX, BUSD, LTC, USDC, GUSD.

Cloud Compute - Cloud Servers

Vultr Cloud Compute

Vultr's Compute services come in basic and high-frequency plans with varying prices depending on the amount of storage your plan covers. There are 10 different plans catered for everything from individual to corporate use.

You can also choose from 4 different CPU and ram configurations depending on if you have a memory or CPU-intensive application.

  • AMD High PerformancePowered by latest generation AMD EPYC CPUs and NVMe SSD.
  • Intel High PerformancePowered by new generations of Intel Xeon CPUs and NVMe SSD.
  • Intel High FrequencyPowered by 3GHz+ Intel Xeon CPUs and NVMe SSD.
  • Intel Regular PerformancePowered by previous generation Intel CPUs and regular SSD.

Each plan has a separate storage, CPU, memory, and bandwidth allowance.

They start at $2.50 per month and go up to $640 per month. This is one of Vultr's most basic cloud servers

The base Cloud Compute plan starts with:

  • 1x CPU Core
  • 1GB Ram
  • 25GB SSD
  • 1000GB Bandwidth

Optimized Cloud Compute - Cloud Hosting

Optimized Cloud Compute

What sets a bare metal/dedicated server apart from Dedicated Cloud is you are not getting access to the entire server.

You are getting access to dedicated cores. The benefit of this means you can scale quite easily, while also keeping costs down.

This also means you are getting better performance than the standard cloud computing instance.

One difference when going with an Optimized Compute instance, is you get to choose from 4 different server types.

  • General Purpose - A balance between CPU, RAM, and Storage.
  • CPU Optimized - More focused on the CPU rather than RAM, andStorage
  • Memory-Optimized - More focused on RAM other than CPU,and Storage
  • Storage Optimized - More focused on Storage other than CPU, and RAM

The basic Optimized Cloud Compute plan includes:

  • 1x Intel CPU Core
  • 4GB Ram
  • 30GB NVMe SSD
  • 4000GB Bandwidth

Bare Metal - Dedicated Servers

Bare Metal Dedicated Servers

Vultr's bare metal service has three different pricing plans. Based on their storage, processor type, cores and threads, memory, bandwidth, and ethernet capabilities.

This gives you physical access to all the hardware on the machine. Not inside of a VM. This means you get the best performance along with the security. This also means it is the most expensive plan too.

They promise more combinations and options available soon.

The base Bare Metal plan includes:

  • 1x Intel E3-1270v6
  • 4 cores / 8 threads @ 3.8GHz
  • 32GB Ram
  • 10Gbps
  • 2x 240GB SSD

Block and Object Storage

Vultr offers expandable block storage that can mount directly to compute instances.

Instead of offering a set number of plans for this service, the storage is price-based on a more practical sliding scale. They start at $1 a month for 10GB of storage and scale up to $1000 a month for 10,000 GB of storage, with pricing for every 1GB added so you can get precisely the amount of storage you need without having to pay for anything extra.

They also offer object storage for specific data storage and transfer between buckets. The price for these is determined by the amount of storage and bandwidth needed, with flexible pricing from $5 a month for 250GB of storage and 1000GB of bandwidth up to $110 a month for 1000GB of storage and 10,000GB of bandwidth.

Other Services Vultr offers four other services with custom pricing plans.

These services are:

  • Dedicated instances at $60, $120, $180, or $240 a month, depending on the same stats as their compute plans.
  • DDoS protection from 11 of their locations for $10 a month for up to 10Gbps, with more plans on the way.
  • Direct Connect for $500, $750, or $1000 a month, depending on the gigabytes per second.
  • Load balancers for $10 a month.

These services can be added to their other service plans on the same account.

Using Vultr for Gaming

Vultr for gaming

Something that no other review covered when I first looked was how the game server performance was.

Vultr does offer servers specifically built for gaming, though it's difficult to tell the difference between these and their other types.

Their servers can be run and controlled on desktops, tablets, or mobile devices and start at about $5 a month to run for a small server working with one CPU core.

Most game servers are only single-threaded so this is why we suggest you always use the "High Frequency" instance for any game host.

You will notice a huge performance gain over their normal cloud hosting services.

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We have also used their dedicated servers for some games as we had some big Minecraft and Factorio worlds that had crazy CPU usage, but if I'm honest, these are really overpriced when you compared them to other hosts such as OVH.

So the final verdict on Vultr for gaming is YES. Their Vultr VPS plan is great value for money for a small game host (this is all most people really need), but if you need access to dedicated resources for hundreds of players, then something like OVH is going to be a better choice.

Using Vultr For Web Hosting

vultr for web hosting ghostcap gaming

As stated above, using Vultr cloud servers for web hosting is a great way to get a high-performance web host at a fraction of the price. In fact, we run our website on Vultr cloud hosting.

But there is a catch.

They only offer unmanaged services. This means unlike a web host like WPX hosting if you encounter a problem you are on your own.

You can use a One-Click Install of a web control panel such as Cpanel, Cyberpanel, Webmin, etc, but these only work well until something goes wrong.

If you have the time to troubleshoot or the knowledge to fix issues, then you can save lots of money.

Vultr for web hosting? Is it worth it? If you have technical knowledge then yes, otherwise just save yourself time and headaches by going with someone like WPX hosting.

Vultr's Locations

vultr 23 locations

Vultr has data centers in over 23 different cities around the world. These locations include:

  • Amsterdam, NL
  • Atlanta, Georgia
  • Chicago, Illinois
  • Dallas, Texas
  • Frankfurt, DE
  • London, UK
  • Los Angeles, California
  • Madrid, Spain
  • Melbourne, Australia
  • Mexico City, Mexico
  • Miami, Florida
  • New York (NJ)
  • Paris, France
  • Seattle, Washington
  • Seoul, South Korea
  • Silicon Valley, California
  • Singapore
  • Stockholm, Sweden
  • Sydney, Australia
  • São Paulo, Brazil
  • Tokyo, Japan
  • Toronto, Canada
  • Warsaw, Poland

Vultr also has locations in major cities all around the world, though, and is globally widespread.

This means that there are localized, timezone-specific servers available almost anywhere in the world, which cuts down on latency and loading times significantly for your target audience, especially when running many multinational servers. You can also request a server location to their support team and if enough people want that location, they start there.

You can test the speed of each of Vultrs data centers here.

Customer Support from Vultr

Knowledge Base Vultr com

Vultr's website offers a huge range of FAQs on all manner of common issues such as pricing, setup, and troubleshooting. Its information and resource centers are categorized by product and easily searchable with common keywords.

They have an easy-to-fill contact form that's accessible from their website's home page, which has options for new and existing customers, as well as an option to file a DMCA report. They're also available through their forums or through their social media, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin.

There have been some reports about some people submitting a support ticket and receiving bad support, that look bad on the surface, but when you dig deeper this is usually the case for an unmanaged service and people are expecting help with their applications.

I personally have not had any issues and I have been using them since 2015. I even have a response from a ticket I submitted in the past.

Support IWN 98AQO Vultr com

With that being said, according to some reviewers on Trust Pilot, many service ticket responses come across as impersonal and robotic, without directly answering the question asked.

This is apparently especially true when it comes to billing questions - many reviewers were left fighting to remove unnecessary charges for incomplete services.

Worryingly, the company has also been known to shut down accounts without warning or allowing project recovery, which can lead to huge amounts of irrecoverable data loss.

Conclusion

Overall, Vultr is an excellent cloud server hosting experience if you're looking to set up a small website, game server, or database. With extremely customizable pricing and service packages, you can choose to pay for only what you really need, and you can upgrade at any time.

GhostCap Rating: 5/5

They also offer a $100 voucher for new customers to try out their various server types before they commit. Simply click the button below and claim yours on signup.

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If you're a small company or gaming community looking for affordable cloud hosting, then Vultr might be for you.

However, if you need something to service hundreds or thousands of users, then Vultr isn't for you. Their dedicated hosting such as "Dedicated Cloud" or "Bare Metal" is just too expensive compared to other cloud hosting companies.

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