In case you’re not familiar, Liquid Web is a bit different from the standard hosting company.

While a typical hosting company is a sort of jack-of-all trades that offers a basic range of hosting, particularly shared web hosting, Liquid Web specializes in managed, high-quality solutions.

Liquid Web still offers a range of hosting within those parameters, but those are the basics.

Within those basics, Liquid Web has become very popular:

It may not be the biggest host around, but it’s a big presence in its specialty—one with a now-sizable reputation.

But if you need a managed, high-end hosting solution like VPS, is Liquid Web the right option for you? Is it overrated? Too expensive? Just right?

I’ll answer all those questions and more right here.

Let’s get started:

What is VPS?

Virtual Private Server/Servers, or VPS, are a form of hosting that exists as a sort of middle-ground between cheap and accessible, and high-end and expensive.

Shared web hosting is on the easy end of the spectrum: it’s cheap and gets the job done, but your resources are less private and more subject to performance issues because you’re sharing a server with many other people.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is dedicated hosting: renting out a whole server to yourself can deliver great performance, but requires a lot of tech proficiency. And a lot of money!

VPS is in-between these. Your resources are private, in a virtualized server—so you get better performance and security than basic web hosting.

But it’s still cheaper than dedicated hosting, while being able to scale resources smoothly.

But despite occupying a middle ground of sorts, VPS can still be tricky to manage.

There’s a learning curve involved in running a virtual server, and even when you have that down, basic administrative tasks can get time consuming.

That’s where Liquid Web comes in: as a company that specializes in managed products, the VPS plans are managed.

That means you just need to know the basics of what you need to run your site/project, and Liquid Web will handle the rest. You get the power of a virtual server, but none of the hassle.

Just about all the administration needed to run a virtual server is taken care of by them (though you’ll still have root access if you want it), letting you focus just on your sites.

With that cleared up, let’s dive right in to the good parts:

Pros of using Liquid Web VPS

Pro #1: Top-tier performance

Performance is one of the main reasons people seek VPS hosting. And Liquid Web has strongly tied performance and quality to its brand.

So does it really live up?

I already gave away the answer. Let me talk about WHY Liquid Web’s performance is so good.

Check this out:

It’s from a report by a third party analytics firm. They evaluated the virtual processors (vCPUs) of different companies.

Basically, in a VPS or cloud solution, the vCPU performs essential tasks. The faster the processor can finish those tasks, the better performance users will experience on sites.

So basically, the analysis shows that the virtual processors that Liquid Web uses in its VPS and cloud plans performs faster than the other major, top-tier competitors.

You can check out the full report here.

Additionally, Liquid Web also guarantees its users 100% uptime. It’s a promise they live up to. And on top of that, they’re as fast as that chart up there would lead you to believe.

If anything’s certain about Liquid Web’s VPS plans, it’s that the most basic and important thing is done very well. Performance is excellent.

Pro #2: Secured data centers

This overlaps a lot with the previous point—it’s part of “why” performance is so good—but it’s also worth its own focus, since it pertains to security.

Consistent with its brand and marketing, Liquid Web’s data centers are very high-quality and well-looked after:

One of the best points here is that the data centers are privately owned. Here’s why that matters:

Most hosting providers have some base level of security at their data centers. It’s just an industry standard.

But often, the hosting companies themselves don’t actually own the data centers—third parties own and run the data centers.

Now, such third parties CAN be totally harmless.

But, from a security standpoint, the less hands your data has to pass through, and the more transparency you have about who handles your data, the better.

So Liquid Web stands out, not just for how it maintains its data centers, but because it owns them directly.

Pro #3: Generous resources

First, let’s just take a look at the four main VPS plans:

Even the first tier alone is very well-equipped to handle demanding websites:

40 GB of storage is a lot more than many people realize, and 10 TB of transfer means customers can support a large amount of traffic.

In fact, when you consider that the 10 TB allowance goes for ALL the plans, its value on the first tier is highlighted even further.

If you upgrade your site, it’s mainly because you want more RAM and/or CPU. Storage too, of course.

But what’s extra impressive: all plans allow unlimited websites (some first-tier VPS plans do limit websites with other companies), and an extra 100GB for backup is given for free.

Pro #4: Excellent customer support

This shouldn’t come as a surprise: mainly because it has to do with the nature of Liquid Web’s products.

As Liquid Web offers managed hosting, and as these VPS plans are managed, having good customer support is absolutely essential.

So, rest assured—support takes care of a lot of the basics that would otherwise make your VPS plan complicated.

But you can also contact support directly for issues or questions that do pop up on your end:

Representatives respond quickly and effectively. In fact, Liquid Web promises certain response times:

And if you try it out for yourself, you’ll find those promises hold true:

As you can see from the time stamps, the representative responded within almost exactly a minute, and with a satisfactory answer too.

But even aside from the excellent customer service representatives, there’s plenty of informational material available.

Most prominently, the knowledge base:

This is just a snippet of the knowledge base, but there are three main things I’d like to point out that should give you a sense of quality:

First: The article seen here is recent. This is a knowledge base that is continually updated and added to.

Second: The read time is 8 minutes. It’s useful to get a read time preview in itself, but more importantly, it shows us that these aren’t shallow articles. True, this is a “tutorial” from the tutorials category—so it’ll be longer than a typical article.

But it’s still a good sign of quality.

Third: Look at the category list on the right. There are HUNDREDS of support articles, covering a range of topics.

And in general, if you take a look through their knowledge base, you’ll find Liquid Web offers great informational support.

So when you look at customer support all-together, it’s very impressive:

Customer support works smoothly in the background to keep your managed service running, there are multiple ways of contacting reps, reps respond quickly and are helpful, and there’s loads of info on the site.

Pro #5: Flexible pricing

Let’s look one more time at the price tags for the four main plans (in this case, Linux, but it’s similar for Windows):

Those are prices if you pay up-front for a year of service.

BUT, you can still pay for plans on a monthly basis:

It should go without saying that, in the long run, paying monthly is much more expensive. On every tier, you can save HUNDREDS of dollars if you pay annually instead of monthly.

But, what’s key here is that you at least have the CHOICE.

There are bound to be businesses out there that want the quality of Liquid Web, but can’t afford a year’s worth of service out of pocket. And there are going to be some people who need Liquid Web for projects that are important, but short-term.

Such people will, with this, be able to get the quality and features they want at a pace they can keep up with.

Pro #6: Choice of control panels

It may seem minor, but it’s a pretty nice touch. Control panels make everything easier to run, even in a managed hosting environment.

And people may have a particular preference for a certain control panel, whether it’s out of familiarity (if your past experience is web hosting, you’re probably used to cPanel) or for practical reasons.

So props to Liquid Web for making sure that, even in managed VPS plans, customers can make themselves “at home” managing their sites and projects.

Cons of using Liquid Web VPS

Con #1: May be pricey in general

It depends on how you look at it, and what your needs are. But, there are two things I want to make clear:

First, VPS hosting can be pricey, and managed VPS hosting is almost always pricey.

Second, when you take those things into account, and the other things Liquid Web gives you (quality support, resources, performance, etc), the prices are appropriate.

So relative to the market, Liquid Web’s prices are very reasonable.

However, that doesn’t necessarily translate to your bottom line.

Managed VPS hosting, especially at Liquid Web’s quality, is still going to be a bit expensive for a lot of smaller businesses—such businesses may need to consider what kind of hosting is best for them.

For instance, some may find that it’s better for them to figure out unmanaged VPS or cloud solutions, which can deliver similar results at lower cost. And people who just want to set up a decent site affordably can always check out higher-end shared web hosting.

But two pieces of good news:

1) You can get a lower price, and save money, if you use our special link to Liquid Web’s plans!

2) Liquid Web DOES have other plans aside from managed VPS—like managed WordPress, which is more affordable but still offers great performance.

Con #2: Specifically, Windows VPS is expensive

The previous point was intended to refer to Liquid Web’s VPS plans overall. But the Windows plans are just expensive even when you take some of the previous points into account:

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not insane relative to the market. Windows plans are almost always more expensive than Linux plans. But it’s still kind of high.

Con #3: Not as flexible as self-managed VPS

This isn’t really an issue with Liquid Web specifically, but with the genre of managed hosting in general.

And it’s not inherently bad—after all, the point of managed hosting is to reduce complexities for the customer.

But it’s worth pointing out nonetheless for people who may not realize what their options really are.

Some people, and small businesses, may be better off handling the learning curve for VPS themselves, and acquiring a self-managed VPS plan.

The benefits of this would include lower costs (as I mentioned), but also a greater ability to customize a package with the right amount of resources at checkout; more flexibility in adding resources; and often, an ability to pay per use rather than a fixed price per month.

Again, it’s not really a flaw of Liquid Web’s, just a natural limitation in the overall format that may not be great for some interested readers.

Do we recommend Liquid Web VPS?

It’s actually pretty easy to answer the question you’ve all been waiting for.

There are just two conditions:

First, do you want managed VPS hosting in general? Second, would you pay those prices?

If the answer to both of those is “yes,” then Liquid Web easily gets my recommendation. It does everything else right.

More than just “right,” in fact, with performance and customer support in particular being of exceptional quality.

But hey, don’t take my word for it!

The best way to know if Liquid Web’s VPS plans are for you is to just use them. Remember—you can pay for just a month of service!

Happy hosting!