BTW, after looking a few of the options (both those I found on my own and those mentioned here), I saw that some of them mention things like OpenVZ. I guess that is the virtualization software used. Do we need to know something about the underlying virtualization software / hypervisor that runs the VPS, or is it enough to know Linux? Last VPS I used, I only interacted with Centos, and did not know what the virtualization software was.
>You should include your own time in calculating the cost of a VPS host.
Thanks, good point. I had just started to think, after posting the question, that maybe I shouldn't bother about $5 vs. $2.5 or $3, and instead look at the reliability of the host. As you say, if more of my own time is needed with the cheaper option, it would actually be more expensive.