onionvps

Choosing & sizing

Do I need a managed VPS?

Short answer

You need managed hosting if nobody on your side will apply security updates, configure a firewall or restore a backup. Managed plans cost two to five times more and remove that work. Unmanaged hosting assumes you are comfortable in a terminal — every OnionVPS plan is unmanaged, which is why it is priced as it is.

The boundary on an unmanaged plan is clear: the provider owns the hardware, network, hypervisor and control plane; you own the operating system and everything above it. We will always get you a working console and a snapshot restore, but we do not administer your operating system.

A middle path many people miss: an unmanaged instance plus a configuration tool. Ansible, NixOS or a Docker Compose file makes rebuilding a server a five-minute operation, which removes most of the anxiety that drives people to managed hosting.

See also: Hypervisor · Snapshot

7 answers in Choosing & sizing

Back to all answers