Blog topic

VPS basics in plain English

Plain-English concepts and choices.

Start here if virtual servers are new to you. These explainers cover what a VPS is and how KVM divides one physical host, how a VPS compares with shared hosting, dedicated servers and cloud instances, and how to pick a server location from latency math instead of guesswork. Each post defines its terms, cites the official documentation and shows the reasoning behind its advice. Read What is a VPS? first: it links to every other post in this group. When you are ready to log in to a server of your own, connecting over SSH is the next step.

4 posts
Last review October 3, 2026

Posts in VPS explained

WireGuard vs OpenVPN: Speed, Security and Privacy Compared (2026)
WireGuard is smaller and usually faster; OpenVPN handles TCP, proxies, logins and layer 2. A doc-sourced 2026 comparison, including OpenVPN's in-kernel DCO and WireGuard-based overlays.
- WireGuard uses one fixed cipher suite (Noise_IK, Curve25519, ChaCha20-Poly1305, BLAKE2s) and has run inside the Linux kernel since 5.6…
- The often-quoted speed gap comes from the whitepaper's old benchmark (Linux 4.6.1) against user-space OpenVPN…
- WireGuard is UDP-only and does not try to hide itself; OpenVPN can run over TCP, through HTTP or SOCKS proxies and, since 2.7…
19 min readLast reviewed Oct 3, 2026
What Is a VPS? A Plain-English Guide to Virtual Private Servers (2026)
A VPS is a virtual machine you rent: its own OS, root access, RAM, disk and IP on shared hardware. How KVM slices a host…
15 min readLast reviewed Oct 3, 2026
How to Choose a VPS Location: Latency Math, Tests and the Law
Distance adds about 1 ms of round-trip time per 100 km. The math, a 6-step checklist, test commands…
18 min readLast reviewed Oct 3, 2026
VPS vs Shared Hosting vs Dedicated vs Cloud: How to Choose (2026)
Shared, VPS, dedicated, hyperscaler cloud and managed hosting compared on isolation, performance, billing and upkeep…
18 min readLast reviewed Oct 3, 2026