Choosing a VPS – side by side comparison
Needed a VPS for one of my websites, so I’ve been doing some research on various hosts and plans. Here is what I found, as a side-by-side comparison matrix. From various sources, the hosting companies listed here generally seem to have good reputation:
| Linode (XEN) | RimuHosting (XEN) | eApps (Virtuozzo) | WiredTree (Virtuozzo, managed) | LiquidWeb (Virtuozzo, managed) | SliceHost (XEN) | ||||
| Plan | 360 | VPS1 | VPS2 | standard | standard plus | standard max | VPS384 | VPS Basic | 256 slice |
| Memory | 360MB | 160MB | 400MB | 160MB | 288MB | 432MB | 384MB | 384MB | 256MB |
| Disk | 12GB | 4GB | 4GB | 2GB | 4GB | 6GB | 40GB | 20GB | 10GB |
| Transfer | 200GB | 30GB | 40GB | 30GB | 60GB | 90GB | 600GB | 200GB | 100GB |
| IP | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 1 |
| Price | $20 | $20 | $30 | $10 | $20 | $30 | $44 | $60 | $20 |
My budget was around $20-$30 month, so I only listed the lower end plans of each host. Hopefully this can be helpful for someone who is looking for an entry-level VPS. Guess what host I chose at the end? 
Update: I ended up choosing Linode. I narrowed down to slicehost & linode; both hosts look good and have good reviews at webhostingtalk. Slicehost’s website and management console are more appealing. But slicehost only provides 64 bit environment, which uses more memory than a 32-bit system. Here is a comparison. Also see this thread at slicehost forum: Might I have to say goodbye to Slicehost? (64-bit vs. 32-bit). Linode provides both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. Besides, linode provides more resources for the same 20 bucks (especially memory: 360MB vs 256MB); linode has data centers at four different locations to choose from while slicehost has only one. So far I’m a happy customer with Linode.