VPS.today - virtual server directory
In October, my project Search VPS will turn 5 years old. In 2013, I presented it to the public, and it was perceived by users and hosters extremely positively. Over the next year, I actively developed the site and added various functions, but since 2015 there have been almost no changes on the site. My opinion on almost everything - if something works well, then it is better not to touch it. The site works well enough, you only need to update the tariffs, but I always wanted more. Therefore, not so long ago, I decided to make a small branch of this project, and the result was a new site for searching virtual servers - VPS.today , which I want to talk about today.
Outwardly, these two sites are very similar, after all, these are search engines and the principle of their work is the same. On the new project, I tried to take into account all the errors and add many new features and improvements.
The first thing you can pay attention to is the absence of upper bounds for the search parameters. According to our statistics, when searching, users most often specify only the lower limit of server parameters, which is quite logical. For example, if a client is looking for a server with a hard disk of 20 GB, then options with a large disk will also work for it, so there is not much point in the upper boundary of the search query. The situation with the price is similar - you can specify only the upper limit.
The next improvement is smart sliders with uneven pitch. To explain this, I will give a simple example: on the VPS Search slider, you can select a disk with a capacity from 3 to 200 GB. The bandwidth with a slider is 160 pixels, so 1 GB is less than one pixel. In practice, it turned out to be very difficult to establish any particular value using a slider with a linear step due to the very high density of values. On VPS.todayimplemented a different logic of work. The slider has predefined values with non-linear pitch: 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400 , 500, 750, 1000, 2000. By moving the slider, the user can select one of these setpoints, and the slider pitch is equal to the length of the bar divided by the number of preset values. As a result, the density decreased, and it is equally easy to choose any value regardless of its value. If the user wants to specify a value that is not included in the preset list, then it can simply be specified in the input field.
Many hosters offer good discounts for long-term payments, so users can search not only for the price of 1 month, but also when paying for 3, 6 or 12 months. In the detailed information, the cost is indicated for 4 different periods and in 3 different currencies.
On the Search VPS user can select any of 6 types of disk: SATA, SAS, SSD, SSD NVMe, SATA + SSD, SAS + SSD. However, as shown by the analysis of requests, this diversity is absolutely not necessary, and most often customers are looking for either a “clean” SSD, or the type of disk does not matter for them. If the user needs a fast drive, he will choose only SSD, and he will not be interested in borderline options like SATA + SSD. If the speed of the disk does not matter, then it will suit any option. Therefore, the type of disk can be selected only with one tick: if the user puts it, then only the tariffs with a “clean” SSD are shown. If the tick is not checked, therefore the type of drive is not important, and the user is shown the tariffs without filtering by this parameter.
On VPS Search, the search by processor was performed not quite correctly: the user can search by the total frequency (the number of cores multiplied by the frequency of one core). Mathematically, everything is calculated correctly, but in practice, this approach does not work very well, so on VPS.today you can search for search parameters both by the number of processor cores and by the frequency of each core separately.
With traffic everything is quite difficult. Many Russian hosters use a marketing chip, saying that their traffic is not completely limited. On the one hand, this is true, and many people really do not limit traffic consumption, but there is nothing unlimited, and in fact the user will not be able to pump more traffic than the port allows. As a result, a situation may arise when one hoster provides 10 TB of traffic at a speed of 100 Mbit / s, and the second has no limit at a speed of 10 Mbit / s, although such a hoster can pump a maximum of 3 TB at a specified speed, and the first hoster is thus in a less advantageous position, although the amount of traffic and port speed it has more. Therefore, when a user specifies a traffic value, he will be shown only those tariffs, On which this amount can be pumped at the speed of the port specified by the hoster. That is, there are no options when a user is looking for a server with 5 TB of traffic, and now he is offered a server with no limit at a speed of 10 Mbit / s.
To make it easier for users to navigate, all tariffs with unlimited traffic when you hover the mouse over the infinity icon will pop up a hint indicating the maximum possible amount of data that can be pumped at this speed in 30 days. I want to note that a small number of hosters guarantees some sort of port speed on virtual servers, and therefore, if the tariff has a speed of 100 or 1000 Mbps, in reality it’s unlikely to use this band.
Some hosters practice the following scheme: traffic is completely unlimited, but the first few TB traffic is provided at maximum speed, and after they are exhausted, the port speed is greatly reduced. The site takes into account such options and correctly determines the maximum possible traffic in such a “unlimited” case, however, to make it easier for the user to determine, the infinity icon for such tariffs is red.
Search options by payment method only 6:
We decided to focus only on the most popular options, since the search for other methods was practically not conducted. Such a solution allowed to slightly unload the interface and simplified the work of editors.
Of the payment methods, the popular item “Bank transfer” disappeared: almost always this payment method was needed only for legal entities, therefore in the “Miscellaneous” section you can put a mark “Work with legal entities”, and only those hosters who work will be shown in the search with Russian legal entities, accept payment by bank transfer in rubles to an account in a Russian bank and provide a complete set of accounting documents.
The list of countries is made in the form of a pop-up window - it is much more convenient to choose from a large list, and this made it possible to make the necessary buttons: “Invert”, “Mark all”, “Unselect all”. In addition, due to numerous requests, the “ Not Russia ” button has been added .
On the VPS Search, the IPv6 Support field has 3 values: Not Important, Supported, and Not Supported. The “Not supported” option was practically not used, which is quite logical: the user either needs an IPv6 address, or its presence is not important. And even if the IPv6 address is not needed, but the hoster provides it, it makes no sense to refuse to buy - you can simply not use it, especially since many hosters provide this type of address on request, and by default they are not allocated. Thus, a user can now select servers that have IPv6, if he needs such an address, or servers will be shown regardless of IPv6 addressing support.
There are only 3 popular commercial server control panels - ISPmanager, cPanel and DirectAdmin. Many hosters, to stand out before competitors, offer with the server a free license for the control panel. Naturally, since such licenses are not free for hosters, the cost of the panel is simply included in the price of the server. The cost of a license for ISPmanager is from $ 3.5, and for hosters it is even lower, so it is often possible to find offers when the hoster offers this panel bundled with the server. You can say exactly the opposite about the two other panels - their price often exceeds the cost of the server itself, so it’s extremely rare to meet them with VPS, and if the user needs just such a panel, it’s easier to buy the server and the license separately.
When creating Search VPS, I made a rather serious mistake. For some reason, I thought that a Windows Server license could be included in the cost of a virtual server only if the server supports the installation of only this OS. Therefore, the Windows icon can be seen only in such tariffs, although in reality it is not so: many hosters offer a free license and on those tariffs where you can install other operating systems. On VPS.today this defect was corrected, and now users always see when a license is included in the price. This parameter can also be searched on the basis of either exactly needed or no difference.
I was asked to add this parameter for a long time, but I didn’t fully understand how to do it better so that the situation didn’t happen when one hoster who made simple protection against flooding on the server side and the second hoster with expensive equipment turned out to have the same marks in the information that their rates have protection. At the moment, I still do not know how best to implement this function, so as an experiment, information on the availability of protection is displayed for all hosters who have indicated this on their website. Perhaps a little later there will be information about the power of the attack, which can be fought off hoster and other parameters.
To make it easier for users to view tariffs, automatic loading of tariffs was realized when scrolling through the page. The function is activated only when you click on the corresponding button at the bottom of the page with the possibility of subsequent shutdown. If the option is not activated, then the classic page turning works.
Another interesting feature is the tariff comparison. The user can select several tariffs and view them on a separate page in order to compare all the parameters. To add tariffs to the comparison list, simply click on the weights icon in the last column of the general table.
The section with all hosters is made without navigating through the pages and sorted alphabetically. By this, I want to show users that there is no rating system based on minor parameters on my project (for example, whether the hoster bought an advertisement or paid an account for the Pro), and it is impossible to artificially distinguish a hoster from others in any way.
It's no secret that in addition to selling advertising on such a project, you can earn on the affiliate program, which offers a fairly large number of hosters. When you click an affiliate link, the user loses nothing (and sometimes even earns a discount), and the project in turn receives a commission from the hoster. Unfortunately, referral links have one big drawback: in almost all cases, they lead to the host’s home page, and the user needs to independently search for a tariff he likes, which is not always a simple task. As an experiment, some hosters referral links lead to a page with a description of the desired tariff, thus the need to search for information about the tariff after the transition to the site to the hoster is no more. If the experiment is successful,
Also on the site you can find offers hosters for SSL certificates and control panels ISPmanager 5 Lite and Business . The prices for these additional services often vary greatly, therefore, finding an option with a lower price will always be pleasant.
Not implemented there are quite a lot of ideas. For example, in the near future there is an idea to add information on the cost of additional resources (disk, RAM, processor core, etc.) to the description of each tariff. Also, information about the cost of Windows Server licenses and the ISPmanager panel can be added to the tariff description (the latter has lower prices for “internal” licenses than external ones, and sometimes sometimes it is more profitable to buy a panel with a server than separately from different hosts). It is possible that the site will appear a simplified version of the calculator for the tariff, so that you can quickly find out how much a certain tariff will cost with additional resources and options.
I will be glad to hear feedback and suggestions on the development of this project!
Outwardly, these two sites are very similar, after all, these are search engines and the principle of their work is the same. On the new project, I tried to take into account all the errors and add many new features and improvements.
No upper bounds
The first thing you can pay attention to is the absence of upper bounds for the search parameters. According to our statistics, when searching, users most often specify only the lower limit of server parameters, which is quite logical. For example, if a client is looking for a server with a hard disk of 20 GB, then options with a large disk will also work for it, so there is not much point in the upper boundary of the search query. The situation with the price is similar - you can specify only the upper limit.
Smart sliders
The next improvement is smart sliders with uneven pitch. To explain this, I will give a simple example: on the VPS Search slider, you can select a disk with a capacity from 3 to 200 GB. The bandwidth with a slider is 160 pixels, so 1 GB is less than one pixel. In practice, it turned out to be very difficult to establish any particular value using a slider with a linear step due to the very high density of values. On VPS.todayimplemented a different logic of work. The slider has predefined values with non-linear pitch: 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400 , 500, 750, 1000, 2000. By moving the slider, the user can select one of these setpoints, and the slider pitch is equal to the length of the bar divided by the number of preset values. As a result, the density decreased, and it is equally easy to choose any value regardless of its value. If the user wants to specify a value that is not included in the preset list, then it can simply be specified in the input field.
Price
Many hosters offer good discounts for long-term payments, so users can search not only for the price of 1 month, but also when paying for 3, 6 or 12 months. In the detailed information, the cost is indicated for 4 different periods and in 3 different currencies.
Disc type
On the Search VPS user can select any of 6 types of disk: SATA, SAS, SSD, SSD NVMe, SATA + SSD, SAS + SSD. However, as shown by the analysis of requests, this diversity is absolutely not necessary, and most often customers are looking for either a “clean” SSD, or the type of disk does not matter for them. If the user needs a fast drive, he will choose only SSD, and he will not be interested in borderline options like SATA + SSD. If the speed of the disk does not matter, then it will suit any option. Therefore, the type of disk can be selected only with one tick: if the user puts it, then only the tariffs with a “clean” SSD are shown. If the tick is not checked, therefore the type of drive is not important, and the user is shown the tariffs without filtering by this parameter.
CPU
On VPS Search, the search by processor was performed not quite correctly: the user can search by the total frequency (the number of cores multiplied by the frequency of one core). Mathematically, everything is calculated correctly, but in practice, this approach does not work very well, so on VPS.today you can search for search parameters both by the number of processor cores and by the frequency of each core separately.
Traffic
With traffic everything is quite difficult. Many Russian hosters use a marketing chip, saying that their traffic is not completely limited. On the one hand, this is true, and many people really do not limit traffic consumption, but there is nothing unlimited, and in fact the user will not be able to pump more traffic than the port allows. As a result, a situation may arise when one hoster provides 10 TB of traffic at a speed of 100 Mbit / s, and the second has no limit at a speed of 10 Mbit / s, although such a hoster can pump a maximum of 3 TB at a specified speed, and the first hoster is thus in a less advantageous position, although the amount of traffic and port speed it has more. Therefore, when a user specifies a traffic value, he will be shown only those tariffs, On which this amount can be pumped at the speed of the port specified by the hoster. That is, there are no options when a user is looking for a server with 5 TB of traffic, and now he is offered a server with no limit at a speed of 10 Mbit / s.
To make it easier for users to navigate, all tariffs with unlimited traffic when you hover the mouse over the infinity icon will pop up a hint indicating the maximum possible amount of data that can be pumped at this speed in 30 days. I want to note that a small number of hosters guarantees some sort of port speed on virtual servers, and therefore, if the tariff has a speed of 100 or 1000 Mbps, in reality it’s unlikely to use this band.
Some hosters practice the following scheme: traffic is completely unlimited, but the first few TB traffic is provided at maximum speed, and after they are exhausted, the port speed is greatly reduced. The site takes into account such options and correctly determines the maximum possible traffic in such a “unlimited” case, however, to make it easier for the user to determine, the infinity icon for such tariffs is red.
Payment Methods
Search options by payment method only 6:
We decided to focus only on the most popular options, since the search for other methods was practically not conducted. Such a solution allowed to slightly unload the interface and simplified the work of editors.
Of the payment methods, the popular item “Bank transfer” disappeared: almost always this payment method was needed only for legal entities, therefore in the “Miscellaneous” section you can put a mark “Work with legal entities”, and only those hosters who work will be shown in the search with Russian legal entities, accept payment by bank transfer in rubles to an account in a Russian bank and provide a complete set of accounting documents.
Country
The list of countries is made in the form of a pop-up window - it is much more convenient to choose from a large list, and this made it possible to make the necessary buttons: “Invert”, “Mark all”, “Unselect all”. In addition, due to numerous requests, the “ Not Russia ” button has been added .
IPv6
On the VPS Search, the IPv6 Support field has 3 values: Not Important, Supported, and Not Supported. The “Not supported” option was practically not used, which is quite logical: the user either needs an IPv6 address, or its presence is not important. And even if the IPv6 address is not needed, but the hoster provides it, it makes no sense to refuse to buy - you can simply not use it, especially since many hosters provide this type of address on request, and by default they are not allocated. Thus, a user can now select servers that have IPv6, if he needs such an address, or servers will be shown regardless of IPv6 addressing support.
Control panels
There are only 3 popular commercial server control panels - ISPmanager, cPanel and DirectAdmin. Many hosters, to stand out before competitors, offer with the server a free license for the control panel. Naturally, since such licenses are not free for hosters, the cost of the panel is simply included in the price of the server. The cost of a license for ISPmanager is from $ 3.5, and for hosters it is even lower, so it is often possible to find offers when the hoster offers this panel bundled with the server. You can say exactly the opposite about the two other panels - their price often exceeds the cost of the server itself, so it’s extremely rare to meet them with VPS, and if the user needs just such a panel, it’s easier to buy the server and the license separately.
Windows Server License
When creating Search VPS, I made a rather serious mistake. For some reason, I thought that a Windows Server license could be included in the cost of a virtual server only if the server supports the installation of only this OS. Therefore, the Windows icon can be seen only in such tariffs, although in reality it is not so: many hosters offer a free license and on those tariffs where you can install other operating systems. On VPS.today this defect was corrected, and now users always see when a license is included in the price. This parameter can also be searched on the basis of either exactly needed or no difference.
DDoS protection
I was asked to add this parameter for a long time, but I didn’t fully understand how to do it better so that the situation didn’t happen when one hoster who made simple protection against flooding on the server side and the second hoster with expensive equipment turned out to have the same marks in the information that their rates have protection. At the moment, I still do not know how best to implement this function, so as an experiment, information on the availability of protection is displayed for all hosters who have indicated this on their website. Perhaps a little later there will be information about the power of the attack, which can be fought off hoster and other parameters.
Automatic loading tariffs
To make it easier for users to view tariffs, automatic loading of tariffs was realized when scrolling through the page. The function is activated only when you click on the corresponding button at the bottom of the page with the possibility of subsequent shutdown. If the option is not activated, then the classic page turning works.
Tariff comparison
Another interesting feature is the tariff comparison. The user can select several tariffs and view them on a separate page in order to compare all the parameters. To add tariffs to the comparison list, simply click on the weights icon in the last column of the general table.
Hosters list
The section with all hosters is made without navigating through the pages and sorted alphabetically. By this, I want to show users that there is no rating system based on minor parameters on my project (for example, whether the hoster bought an advertisement or paid an account for the Pro), and it is impossible to artificially distinguish a hoster from others in any way.
Referral links
It's no secret that in addition to selling advertising on such a project, you can earn on the affiliate program, which offers a fairly large number of hosters. When you click an affiliate link, the user loses nothing (and sometimes even earns a discount), and the project in turn receives a commission from the hoster. Unfortunately, referral links have one big drawback: in almost all cases, they lead to the host’s home page, and the user needs to independently search for a tariff he likes, which is not always a simple task. As an experiment, some hosters referral links lead to a page with a description of the desired tariff, thus the need to search for information about the tariff after the transition to the site to the hoster is no more. If the experiment is successful,
SSL certificates and licenses ISPmanager 5
Also on the site you can find offers hosters for SSL certificates and control panels ISPmanager 5 Lite and Business . The prices for these additional services often vary greatly, therefore, finding an option with a lower price will always be pleasant.
Future plans
Not implemented there are quite a lot of ideas. For example, in the near future there is an idea to add information on the cost of additional resources (disk, RAM, processor core, etc.) to the description of each tariff. Also, information about the cost of Windows Server licenses and the ISPmanager panel can be added to the tariff description (the latter has lower prices for “internal” licenses than external ones, and sometimes sometimes it is more profitable to buy a panel with a server than separately from different hosts). It is possible that the site will appear a simplified version of the calculator for the tariff, so that you can quickly find out how much a certain tariff will cost with additional resources and options.
I will be glad to hear feedback and suggestions on the development of this project!