VPS hosting for a social network

Question

I've developed a social network and I've been using shared hosting for that since it was launched. With that I wasn't able to send emails in bulk in cases like "newsletters" and "invitations to join my site". Plus most importantly most of the mails I send ended up in user's SPAM list.I'm planning to move into VPS as it may not have limits added.

I'm wondering what's the cheapest VPS host available. I'm not pretty much familiar with Linux commands and seeking cPanel to do the work for me.

Will the following configuration suit for a "new" social network like mine which has a less load?

• 1000Mhz Guaranteed 512MB Guaranteed
• RAM 20GB (RAID) Disk Space
• 1000GB/month Bandwidth 2 IP(s) & 5
• Backups
• Semi Managed

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

If the sending of bulk mail is the only reason for you to switch to your own server, you might as well just "outsource" your email delivery to a specialized provider.

The performance specs of the VPS you mentioned should be fine for a moderately visited site*.

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*: purely uneducated guess since you didn't write how many visitors you have, what technology your application is using etc.

Answer 2

I use SliceHost as mentioned in my other answer. Basic plans are pretty cheap, but you have to do most the work by hand. In my opinion the setup is not hard at all, plus they have a very helpful chat where some staff members will gladly point you in the right direction if you have any issues setting something up.

Answer 3

Your emails are going to get marked as spam regardless of how you send them, if the recipients mark them as spam: GMail, &c, will learn from this, and mark other emails from you as spam. Make sure that people want to receive the emails you send.

What perfomance you need will depend pretty heavily on what the social networking software will need, as well as on the number of users and what they do. As a rule, say, PHP sites are less resource intensive than Ruby sites.