I do not often write reviews of products and services but I feel compelled to do so for VPS.NET’s Cloud Servers.

I have had for some time a single node hosted in order to give me VPN access within the UK (I am based in Sweden).

In setting up the node I selected, from a huge range of templates, a virtual machine based on Ubuntu and OpenVPN. Within 15 minutes the node was up and running and I was connected to it from my Macbook Pro having followed the instructions I found on VPS.NET’s community forum.

Whilst this is only a single node (0.6Ghz CPU, 386Mb memory, 10GB HDD and 1TB network traffic), it has proved an incredibly useful and reliable VPN host. 

Since the initial setup I have also installed Monit to run monitor a website I host elsewhere. The five minute interval heartbeat checks I setup have saved my bacon on at least two occasions in the past year (I should really be hosting that website on VPS.NET too!)

I have also setup Ruby, Apache and Passenger to run small rack application prototypes from the same node. I set this up manually, but I believe there are templates for this too now.

The web interface for managing the account and nodes has an in-browser console that has proved useful when I’ve been away from my own laptop when I’ve wanted shell access.

VPS.NET is part of the UK2 Group of companies and I should also state that I also have an account with UK2.net. I have to say that the customer service from the group is very good with online chat, status updates on the web and twitter. The recurring billing is easy and very competitively priced.

I’ve seen many positive tweets from other customers about VPS.NET and so I can only whole-heartedly recommend them if you are looking for a UK-based (they have servers in other countries too) VPS service.