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10 Best VPS Hosting Providers

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/10-best-vps-hosting-providers/

10 Best VPS Hosting Providers

If you’re looking to upgrade from your shared hosting plan to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) package, chances are your website is starting to do traffic numbers that exceed the capacity of your current plan. So, first, congrats! Now, it’s time to choose a VPS provider and this is the only guide you’ll need!

I like to call VPS hosting “the poor man’s dedicated hosting” – basically, with a VPS plan, you get to enjoy the perks of dedicated hosting – resources reserved just for you, exceptional scalability, exclusive IPs, you name it – for just a few dollars per month more than what you’re used to with a shared plan.

However, like shared hosting, VPS is also incredibly common and thanks to the thousands of hosting providers on the market, your options can be overwhelming. But you don’t have to worry, that’s what this guide is for. 

We’ll expand on how VPS hosting works, who should consider buying a VPS hosting plan, and then show you the 10 very best VPS hosting providers in 2024 and the qualities that make each provider stand out in the market. At the end of this guide, you’ll be armed with all the necessary info to zero in on the VPS provider just for you.

10 Best VPS Hosting Providers At A Glance

Hostinger

BlueHost

ScalaHosting

A2Hosting

Ultahost

Stablehost

Verpex

DreamHost

HostGator

IONOS

What Is VPS Hosting and How Does It Work?

VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting combines the best of both worlds of shared hosting and dedicated hosting. In a VPS hosting environment, you still share a physical server with other websites, however, using virtualization technology, the physical server is ‘split’ into several virtual machines or servers, each with its own dedicated amount of resources – RAM, storage, CPU.

When you pay for a VPS hosting plan, the entirety of the virtual server’s resources are dedicated to your website. Each virtual server acts as a completely independent machine and can have different operating systems, storage space, etc., even though they are all on the same physical server.

A key difference between VPS hosting and shared hosting is there are usually far less websites hosted in a VPS environment (typically 5-20) on one server than in a shared plan where hundreds of websites share one server. 

So when you really think about it, a VPS hosting plan is actually a form of ‘dedicated hosting’ only that you still share the same physical server. VPS hosting also gives website owners benefits like dedicated IPs – each virtual server can have its own IP address, shielding you from the consequences of your neighbors being flagged by search engines.

Who Is VPS Hosting For?

VPS hosting is the most popular kind of hosting for websites looking to upgrade from their shared hosting plan. If your website’s traffic is growing rapidly and you’re having more frequent disruptions, it may be time for a VPS hosting plan.

The virtualization technology that powers VPS hosting also makes it incredibly scalable. Many hosting providers allow you to adjust the amount of resources you want per time, hence VPS hosting makes a lot of sense for websites that experience traffic spikes often – e.g: eCommerce stores during seasonal sales and discount holidays.

VPS hosting is also more secure than shared hosting. Each virtual server is independent of the others, hence, attacks on one website will not affect your own website. This makes VPS hosting great for websites that need premium security – websites and databases that store sensitive customer data.

The 10 Best VPS Hosting Providers in 2024

Decided that a VPS plan is right for you? Ready to see our list of the very best VPS hosting providers? Let’s dive right in!

With Hostinger’s most basic VPS plan starting at $4.99/month, the provider gives most others a run for their money. Hostinger offers four VPS hosting packages KVM 1, KVM 2, KVM 4, and KVM 8 giving you 1-8 vCPUs, 4-32 GB RAM, 50-400 GB high-performance NVMe storage, and between 4-32 GB of bandwidth.

Every VPS plan with Hostinger promises premium performance with AMD processors and their KVM virtualization ensures that the hardware resources allocated to you are exclusively yours. Hostinger’s servers also peak at a record speed of 300 megabytes per second, making them excellent for resource-demanding tasks like gaming and streaming.

Backups of your website are taken weekly and should you encounter any errors, you can easily restore your website to a previous version. Hostinger’s VPS plans also allow you to choose the operating system you want to use as well as your control panel, giving you even more customization options.

A built-in firewall comes with all VPS plans for excellent DDoS protection. And what’s more? Hostinger allows you to upgrade your plans to a higher tier easily as your website grows.

One unique feature that comes with Hostinger’s VPS plans is the built-in AI assistant that guides you through most tasks when setting up and managing your VPS account. You also get 1-click installs on the most popular OSs, control panels, and applications.

And finally, in terms of server footprint, Hostinger’s servers are spread across Asia, Europe, North America, and South America ensuring your website performs superbly wherever your target audience is. In my Hostinger review, the host’s servers responded in an impressive 243 ms and had a 30-day uptime of 100%.

Here’s why you should choose Hostinger:

Their VPS plans are some of the most affordable

You get access to their AI assistant

1-click installs for popular software

Backups ensure website security

Exceptionally scalable plans

If you perform resource-demanding activities

Overall, if you are looking for a VPS plan on a budget that still delivers with premium features, Hostinger is your best bet!

Read Review →

Visit Hostinger →

2. BlueHost (Best pre-purchase support)

BlueHost is another well-known name in the hosting industry and is up there amongst the horde of VPS providers. BlueHost provides just three VPS hosting packages STANDARD, ENHANCED, and ULTIMATE, giving you between 2-8GB RAM, 120-240 SSD storage, and unmetered bandwidth on all plans.

With BlueHost’s VPS plans, you can host as many domain names as you want, have access to their signature VPS dashboard to manage your plans, all the while being backed by their 24/7 VPS-specialized support portal.

With your single BlueHost account you can manage your VPS plans as well as other services like shared and dedicated hosting, as you please. You are also granted root access and can create passwords for specific access to different environments in your servers. One thing I like about BlueHost’s VPS plans in particular is even before you pay for a package, you can reach out to their customer support agents via chat or phone call and get the best recommendations for your website.

In my BlueHost review, the host’s servers responded in 400 ms which is decent but not the most impressive. However, their 99.9% uptime guarantee is rock-solid.

Here’s why you should choose BlueHost:

BlueHost is especially great for WordPress websites

Website essentials are provided for free

They offer many useful complementary services 

BlueHost is very beginner-friendly

They boast excellent uptime

If your website is built on WordPress, then BlueHost may just be the best host for you.

Read Review →

Visit BlueHost →

3. ScalaHosting (Best custom VPS plans)

The ability to create custom plans just for you and your website is one feature I like to see and Scalahosting’s VPS plans are a cocktail of such great features. The host offers four VPS hosting packages Build 1, Build 2, Build 3, and Build 4, with Build 1 starting at $29.95/month.

You get 2-12 CPU cores, 4-24 GB RAM, 50-200 GB NVMe SSD storage, automatic backups, and unmetered bandwidth on all plans. And my favorite feature – Scalahosting allows you to build a custom VPS plan by setting the number of cores, amount of RAM, and storage you need.

Once you pay for one of their VPS plans, you have access to their support agents 24/7 via live chat or support ticket. What’s more? Migrating your website to Scalahosting is free of charge. They are also one of the very few hosts to offer an unconditional anytime money-back guarantee.

Managing your VPS plans and website in general is super easy with SPanel – Scalahosting’s native control panel. The provider also takes your security seriously – you get a free SSL certificate, their SShield firewall, powerful caching for faster website load speeds, remote daily backups, and anti-spam protection.

Scalahosting’s VPS plans are also especially great for developers giving you access to staging tools, tweak your PHP versions, web servers managers, a NodeJS manager, easy CloudFlare integration, and over 400 1-click installs, through SPanel. 

Here’s why you should choose Scalahosting:

Allows you to create custom plans

Exceptionally developer-friendly

SPanel is very easy to use and highly functional

Offer free website migrations

Anytime money back guarantee is unmatched

Choose Scalahosting if you want to be able to scale your resources at your own pace or if you are a web developer.

Read Review →

Visit Scalahosting →

4. A2Hosting (Best high-performance host)

A2Hosting is one of the most impressive VPS hosts on the market both in terms of performance and out-of-the-box features. They offer six managed VPS plans – three with their high-performance servers and three with the signature Turbo servers. 

With these plans, you can get between 4-32 GB of RAM, 150-500 GB SSD or NVMe SSD storage, 2-8 CPU cores, and 2-4 TB data transfer. Their most basic VPS plan starts at $35.99/month while their Turbo basic plan starts at $54.99/month.

Some of the hosting goodies you get out-of-the-box – 24/7/365 support, free website migration by A2Hosting’s agents, free SSL certificates, the Imunify360 Security Suite, CloudLinux OS, and cPanel.

With A2Hosting’s managed VPS plans, the provider takes care of most of your website’s maintenance, sets up your security, and performance tweaks. You also get a free dedicated IP address that’s unique to your virtual server, ensuring a unique identity in the eyes of search engines.

A2Hosting’s unmanaged VPS plans are tuned for developers who are comfortable with code and want strong root access to customize their servers fully. In my A2Hosting review, the provider’s servers responded in an excellent 102 ms and also held up to their 99.9% guarantee proving their incredible performance.

Here’s why you should choose A2Hosting:

Very powerful servers

A2Hosting provides multi-channel support

They provide a custom control panel for WordPress

A2Hosting’s Turbo plans promise exceptional speed

Free features out-of-the-box

A2Hosting allows you to configure server locations.

Choose A2Hosting if you want high-performance servers and the most free features out-of-the-box.

Read Review →

Visit A2Hosting →

5. Ultahost (Best collaboration feature)

Ultahost is another provider that offers very affordable VPS hosting plans with their most basic VPS BASIC starting at $5.5/month. You get between 1-4 CPU cores, 1-6 GB RAM, 30-100 GB SSD NVMe storage, and a dedicated IP address on each plan.

Their VPS plans are categorized by the control panel you decide to use – Hestia & CyberPanel, Plesk and cPanel. And when setting up your plan, you can choose between 7 popular operating systems for your convenience.

On each of Ultahost’s VPS plans, you get unmetered bandwidth, a dedicated firewall, free backups, free SSL certificates, an IP whitelisting feature, their auto healing servers, the BitNinja Security suite, free website transfers, and a free CDN pre-installed. Your website data is also stored on SSD NVMe drives ensuring premium performance and you also get full root access for server-level configurations.

Another great feature that comes with Ultahost’s VPS plans is its team collaboration portal – you can conveniently share limited or full access to your VPS servers or applications among your team team members to enhance productivity and seamless workflow.

In terms of support, Ultahost connects you with its agents via live chat, an active community of customers and experts, an extensive knowledgebase, and a ticketing system. In my Ultahost review, the provider’s servers started sending data back in an impressive 128 ms, proving their high-speed performance.

Here’s why you should choose Ultahost:

Their plans are very affordable

Backups are free unlike many other providers

They offer Node.JS socket

Several operating system options

Unique team collaboration feature

Extensive support portals

Choose Ultahost if you want to grant other team members access to your server with specific roles.

Read Review →

Visit Ultahost →

Stablehost is another decent VPS host and provides only unmanaged VPS hosting split into five tiers. Their most basic plan VZ 1GB starts out at $10.95/month making them quite affordable.

You get between 1-16 of RAM, 1-8 CPU cores, 40-300 GB of storage, and 2-16 TB of data transfer across their plans. Stablehost’s SSD storage disks promise high performance and on each VPS plan, you are guaranteed level 3 customer support from trained agents.

With Stablehost’s VPS plans you are in charge of installing your own operating system. What’s more? You don’t get a control panel built-in, but you do get a VPS control panel that allows you to tweak your VPS package. To get cPanel, you’ll have to purchase their management add-ons which include a WHM/cPanel license.

All Stablehost’s VPS plans also come with SSH and full-root access giving you complete control over how you tweak your virtual server. If you are just getting into VPS hosting and are not code-savvy, Stablehost is probably not for you. However, if you are a web dev who wants command-line-level access, then you’d feel right at home.

In my Stablehost review, the web host’s servers sent the first byte of data in 300 ms which is dancing right on the line between ‘quick’ and ‘could be better’. 

Here’s why you should choose Stablehost:

Gives you total control over your servers

No server setup fees included

Straight-to-the-point VPS packages

High-level customer support

Choose Stablehost if you want complete control over your servers – setup, security, management, control panel, etc. – as all their plans are unmanaged.

Read Review →

Visit StableHost →

Founded in 2018, Verpex is one of the new kids on the block, but their VPS hosting packages prove you can do great stuff in little time. Verpex offers managed and unmanaged VPS plans for Linux-based servers and Windows-based servers with their most basic managed Linux server starting at $23.4/month.

You get between 4-16 GB of RAM, 80-320 GB of SSD storage, and 2-8 Xeon CPU cores. And on every package, you enjoy high-performance NVMe disks, unmetered traffic, access to cPanel/WHM, and free daily backups.

Once you buy one of Verpex’s VPS plans, you have dedicated support agents who you can reach out to 24/7 via live chat and email. Their support will also give you a free consultation to help you choose the best hosting type and tier for your website.

Some of the other features you get include a free SSL and built-in firewalls for your website. You can also choose between cPanel, Plesk, or DirectAdmin for your account management. Daily backups ensure your website’s most recent data is stored so you can easily reverse changes to these restore points. 

If there’s one other thing that makes Verpex stand out, it’s their server footprint. Their servers are spread across 12 data centers around the world, giving your website excellent performance to global users. In my Verpex review, the host’s servers responded in 400 ms which wasn’t as impressive as I expected but still decent overall.

Here’s why you should choose Verpex:

Wide server footprint guarantees excellent performance

Offers managed and unmanaged for Linux and Windows

High-performance NVMe on all plans

Free website migration and consultation

Provides daily backups

Choose Verpex, especially if you are targeting a global audience for your business.

Read Review →

Visit Verpex →

Founded in 1996, DreamHost is one of the oldies on the market and gives you sage-level VPS hosting plans. Their VPS packages are mostly managed, taking the technical aspects of server management out of your hands, however you can still choose unmanaged plans. The provider has four VPS plans, with the most basic starting at $13.75/month for a yearly payment schedule.

1-8 GB of RAM, 30-240 GB of SSD storage, unmetered traffic, a free SSL certificate, and the ability to host unlimited websites are some of the great features you get. What’s more? DreamHost’s VPS plans allow you to create as many professional emails (@ yourdomain) as you need.

You can quickly scale your resource demand grows in between their VPS plans or to a completely different hosting category like cloud or dedicated hosting. DreamHost is also one of the few hosts on this list that give you a custom control panel, further simplifying your website management.

Some of the more advanced features include unlimited IP addresses, the ability to configure user access, 1-click installs for some of the most popular apps (WordPress and co.), SSH access, and several others. You can also easily reach out to DreamHost’s agents via live chat and email.

One slam-dunk feature I like about DreamHost is the sheer number of complementary services they offer. You can hire their experts for website design and branding, web development, website management, marketing services, and training.

Here’s why you should choose DreamHost:

One of the most reputable hosts on the market

They offer excellent complementary services

Custom control panel is incredibly easy-to-use

Unlimited email setups

Choose DreamHost if you want a web host that’s well known and also provides complementary services so you can consolidate all of your website’s critical infrastructure.

Visit DreamHost →

HostGator is another VPS hosting provider you should definitely consider – they offer three VPS hosting plans giving you between 2-8 GB RAM, 2-4 CPU cores, and 120-240 SSD storage – with their most basic plan starting at $36.99/month.

Unmetered bandwidth, free migration, unlimited domains and emails, make HostGator’s VPS plans a great choice. You also get full root access to configure your desired CMS, powerful Intel and AMD servers, the Softaculous script installer built-in, cPanel/WHM, and a free SSL.

As you’d expect, scaling your plans in between VPS packages is super convenient. HostGator also offers expert server guidance where an agent guides you through the server setup process. There are also a ton of advanced features for web devs and IT professionals who want even more control.

HostGator also has a thriving support hub, allowing you to reach out to their agents via phone, live chat, and Twitter(X). 

Here’s why you should choose HostGator:

Offers expert server setup guidance

Unmetered bandwidth, domains and emails

Softaculous installer for popular apps

Thriving support hub

Visit HostGator →

IONOS is hands-down the most affordable VPS hosting provider on the market right now with their most basic VPS Linux XS plan starting at $2/month. You can enjoy between 1-24 GB RAM, 1-12 vCPU cores, and 10-640 GB SSD storage across their plans.

On every plan, your servers are backed by NVMe disks ensuring extremely low latency. I also like the fact that you can choose to pay per month or per year as your budget enables.

Some of the goodies? You can choose your preferred data center location, accommodate unmetered traffic, and up to 1 GBit/s bandwidth. For security, you get a free SSL certificate out-of-the-box, plus firewall management and an optional cloud backup solution for 6.5 cents per GB/month.

You can between several Linux and Windows operating systems, have access to Cloud Panel and cPanel, and can assign up to 2 email addresses with 2GB inbox storage each, and also have a free dedicated IP address assigned to you. 

IONOS is also one of the very few hosts on the market that offers dedicated support. Once you buy one of their VPS plans, you have a particular support agent assigned to you and you can reach out via phone, chat and email, without paying any extra fees.

Here’s why you should choose IONOS:

The most affordable VPS host on the market

Offers dedicated support like no other

Allows you to choose your data center location

A wide range of VPS plans for easy scaling

Comes with a ton of out-of-the-box features

Choose IONOS if you want the cheapest VPS hosting plans you can find, ever, but still don’t want to compromise on performance.

Visit IONOS →

How We Chose The Best VPS Hosting Providers

We’ve seen some of the very best VPS providers on the market so how did we choose them? What were some of the qualities we looked out for that can also help you zero in on the one for you out of these ten we listed? Let’s see them:

Server specs

The very essence of a VPS plan is to be the ideal upgrade from your shared plan for your growing website. When considering the VPS hosts, we focused on providers that gave you virtual servers with as much storage space, memory (RAM), number of CPUs (cores), and bandwidth as possible.

On our list, A2Hosting and IONOS offer the most storage at 500 GB and 640 GB respectively. We were also on the lookout for providers that gave you NVMe SSD storage for superior performance – NVMe (nonvolatile memory express) drives deliver the highest throughput or transfer data the quickest.

Pricing and plans

Another appeal of VPS plans is they give you the benefits of dedicated hosting at a steal, so choosing hosting providers that offer the most affordable VPS plans is important. IONOS, Hostinger, UltaHost, and StableHost are some of the most affordable VPS providers on the market with plans starting at $2/month, $4.99/month, $5.5/month and $10.95/month respectively.

With these VPS hosting plans, you don’t need to get a budget shock especially coming from a shared plan. You’ll only be paying a few $ extra per month for powerful VPS services.

Support

If you are migrating to a VPS hosting plan for the first time, you should only go for a managed plan. You also want a provider that handles as much as the technical aspects of your website for you and provides personalized support along the way.

All the providers we showcased give you support and access to their agents via one or several of these portals – live chat, phone, email, tickets, etc. They also have documented resources where you can find answers to commonly asked questions by other VPS customers for convenient self-service.

Scalability

And finally, we looked out for providers that allow you to upgrade your plans and scale your resources as your website grows to accommodate traffic. Some of the providers we also listed allow you to create custom plan to fine-tune the amount of resources you pay for even further and control how much you spend.

And their scalability isn’t restricted to VPS plans only. As your website grows even more, you’ll be able to conveniently transition to a cloud or dedicated hosting plan from these providers.

[10bmnews]

Will 2025 be the 'Summer of Punk'? | The Express Tribune

KARACHI: Summer is here. And if the Karachi heat isn’t enough to melt you, CM Punk’s promos definitely will. On Monday Night Raw, The ‘Best in the World’ came face to face with WWE Champion John Cena and challenged him to a match for the title. Cena accepted the challenge and the two will face off at the Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia on June 28. The two had a brief encounter at WWE…

[thebatgurrl]

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What an adventure this search for the Drummer Bridge has been! Did I find a piece of this lost bridge and road? Despite looking we never did find a piece of it. As it turns out it wasn’t that easy with a lot of false starts. However, in the end we do have a pretty clear idea of WHERE over 130 years ago this bridge existed. Before I get into the weeds I have to say that the best part of this…

[argentsurleweb]

Découvrez Comment installer WordPress, PrestaShop & autres CMS sur l'hébergeur LWS en 1 clic ✨ et Transformez Votre Stratégie Web ! : Faites la Différence sur le Web dès Aujourd’hui ! - Améliorez Votre Visibilité en un Clin d’Œil !

En savoir plus sur Découvrez Comment installer WordPress, PrestaShop & autres CMS sur l'hébergeur LWS en 1 clic ✨ et Transformez Votre Stratégie Web ! : Faites la Différence sur le Web dès Aujourd’hui ! – Améliorez Votre Visibilité en un Clin d’Œil ! Faites de votre site une véritable machine à conversions grâce à Découvrez Comment installer WordPress, PrestaShop & autres CMS sur l'hébergeur LWS…

[thegazeofaparisienne]

Save the date février 2025

5 expositions à voir à Paris : Chiharu Shiota, Ribera, Edi Dubien, Cimabue, Laïa Abril, Quand les artistes pensent l’économie Chiharu Shiota – The Soul Trembles, au Grand Palais Jusqu’au 19 mars Une exposition co organisée avec le Mori Art Museum Tokyo.  « Les fils s’emmêlent, s’entrelacent, se cassent, se defont. D’une certaine façon, ils symbolisent mon état mental vis-à-vis de la…

[liadf123]

https://www.xn--sk4bt7frra86ac54ad1cmxg.kr/bbs/board.php?bo_table=yp_board02&wr_id=13710

https://hd-mania.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=free&wr_id=316&page=1

[krautjunker]

Gebackene Hecht-Nocken mit Tempura-Gemüse und Safran-Aioli

Am Donnerstagabend, dem 15. Juni 2023 fing ich bei 24 °C Außentemperatur im Hücker Moor bei der Landzunge hinter dem Café Seerose einen schönen Hecht von 73 cm, der nun seine Bestimmung in meiner Küche fand. Ausrüstung: Tasche: Waldkauz Waxcotton-Tasche „Fischland“Rute: DAIWA Ninja, Länge 210 cm, Wurfgewicht 3 – 15 gRolle: Shimano Ultegra FC 2500Schnur: Daiwa J-Braid Grand x8 | Multi Color 100 m…

[jeshaisabookworm]

Are You Glad to See Punk in WWE Poll

Hello! I am doing a poll right now. Not sure if you can fill it here because this is my first time doing those so I’ll just leave the link here.… Are you happy that CM Punk is back in #WWE? #SurvivorSeries— ThatCrazyBookLover (@1CrazyBooklover) November 26, 2023

[vocaltv]

सीएम बघेल आज YouTubers और सोशल मीडिया इंफ्लुएंसर्स से करेंगे भेंट-मुलाकात

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[xinfinityl0ve17]

When and how did you first start playing the guitar? How did you feel at that time?

I was captivated by the heavy distortion sound of 44MAGNUM and Mötley Crüe.

Why did you decide to become a guitarist?

When I strummed the guitar through a beat-up 10W amp with an Arion distortion pedal, the cool sound made me think, "This is it!"

Have you liked music since you were young? How were your grades in music class during your school days?

I liked music, but I hated music classes.

Have you ever played any other instruments besides the guitar? If yes, which ones?

Yes, I’ve played vocals, bass, and drums—just kind of ended up doing it.

If you were to play another part besides guitar, what would it be and why?

Vocals. I'd like to express myself through singing.

Do you think there are any advantages or disadvantages of playing guitar compared to other parts?

None.

Which guitarists have influenced you?

Yngwie Malmsteen, Carcassi, and Sor.

Are there any guitarists you respect or aspire to be like?

I’m a guitarist, but I’m not aiming to be someone else.

Who do you consider your rival guitarist?

Sanzo.

What sets you apart from other guitarists?

I don't limit myself to expressing myself through just the guitar.

What do you always do before going on stage?

Think and imagine.

What do you focus on when it comes to your stage performance?

How to bring the best out of the songs.

What inspires you in your musical activities?

Everything, it’s too hard to sum up in a word.

What's the most important thing for a guitarist?

Feeling. Also, treating the guitar as if it were my lover.

What do you currently need as a guitarist?

More finger technique.

Do you want to keep playing guitar for your entire life?

No, I don’t really feel tied to the guitar.

What does playing guitar mean to you?

It has no specific meaning.

LIVE Schedule: 1/6 ON AIR WEST

Bucket list

Real name: Mana

Date of birth: March 19

Height/Weight: 173 cm, 49 kg

Hobbies/Special skills: Cooking, night walks

Albums I’m listening to lately: None in particular

Recent events/news that caught my attention: —

Things I want as a present: Treatment bags, spring water, toys

Message to the fans: Be afraid.

Mana

MALICE MIZER

[jcmarchi]

Powering Search With Astro Actions and Fuse.js

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/powering-search-with-astro-actions-and-fuse-js/

Powering Search With Astro Actions and Fuse.js

Static sites are wonderful. I’m a big fan.

They also have their issues. Namely, static sites either are purely static or the frameworks that generate them completely lose out on true static generation when you just dip your toes in the direction of server routes.

Astro has been watching the front-end ecosystem and is trying to keep one foot firmly embedded in pure static generation, and the other in a powerful set of server-side functionality.

With Astro Actions, Astro brings a lot of the power of the server to a site that is almost entirely static. A good example of this sort of functionality is dealing with search. If you have a content-based site that can be purely generated, adding search is either going to be something handled entirely on the front end, via a software-as-a-service solution, or, in other frameworks, converting your entire site to a server-side application.

With Astro, we can generate most of our site during our build, but have a small bit of server-side code that can handle our search functionality using something like Fuse.js.

In this demo, we’ll use Fuse to search through a set of personal “bookmarks” that are generated at build time, but return proper results from a server call.

Starting the project

To get started, we’ll just set up a very basic Astro project. In your terminal, run the following command:

npm create astro@latest

Astro’s adorable mascot Houston is going to ask you a few questions in your terminal. Here are the basic responses, you’ll need:

Where should we create your new project? Wherever you’d like, but I’ll be calling my directory ./astro-search

How would you like to start your new project? Choose the basic minimalist starter.

Install dependencies? Yes, please!

Initialize a new git repository? I’d recommend it, personally!

This will create a directory in the location specified and install everything you need to start an Astro project. Open the directory in your code editor of choice and run npm run dev in your terminal in the directory.

When you run your project, you’ll see the default Astro project homepage.

We’re ready to get our project rolling!

Basic setup

To get started, let’s remove the default content from the homepage. Open the  /src/pages/index.astro file.

This is a fairly barebones homepage, but we want it to be even more basic. Remove the <Welcome /> component, and we’ll have a nice blank page.

For styling, let’s add Tailwind and some very basic markup to the homepage to contain our site.

npx astro add tailwind

The astro add command will install Tailwind and attempt to set up all the boilerplate code for you (handy!). The CLI will ask you if you want it to add the various components, I recommend letting it, but if anything fails, you can copy the code needed from each of the steps in the process. As the last step for getting to work with Tailwind, the CLI will tell you to import the styles into a shared layout. Follow those instructions, and we can get to work.

Let’s add some very basic markup to our new homepage.

--- // ./src/pages/index.astro import Layout from '../layouts/Layout.astro'; --- <Layout> <div class="max-w-3xl mx-auto my-10"> <h1 class="text-3xl text-center">My latest bookmarks</h1> <p class="text-xl text-center mb-5">This is only 10 of A LARGE NUMBER THAT WE'LL CHANGE LATER</p> </div> </Layout>

Your site should now look like this.

Not exactly winning any awards yet! That’s alright. Let’s get our bookmarks loaded in.

Adding bookmark data with Astro Content Layer

Since not everyone runs their own application for bookmarking interesting items, you can borrow my data. Here’s a small subset of my bookmarks, or you can go get 110 items from this link on GitHub. Add this data as a file in your project. I like to group data in a data directory, so my file lives in /src/data/bookmarks.json.

Open code

[ King Arthur Baking", "url": "<https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/our-favorite-sandwich-bread-recipe>", "description": "Classic American sandwich loaf, perfect for French toast and sandwiches.", "id": "007y8pmEOvhwldfT3wx1MW" , "pageTitle": "Chris Coyier's discussion of Automatic Social Share Images , "pageTitle": "Automatic Social Share Images , "pageTitle": "Emma Wedekind: Foundations of Design Systems / React Boston 2019 - YouTube", "url": "<https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXb2jA43A6k>", "description": "Emma Wedekind: Foundations of Design Systems / React Boston 2019 Presented by: Emma Wedekind – LogMeIn Design systems are in the world around us, from street...", "id": "0d56d03e-aba4-4ebd-9db8-644bcc185e33" , "pageTitle": "Editorial Design Patterns With CSS Grid And Named Columns — Smashing Magazine", "url": "<https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/10/editorial-design-patterns-css-grid-subgrid-naming/>", "description": "By naming lines when setting up our CSS Grid layouts, we can tap into some interesting and useful features of Grid — features that become even more powerful when we introduce subgrids.", "id": "13ac1043-1b7d-4a5b-a3d8-b6f5ec34cf1c" , "pageTitle": "Netlify pro tip: Using Split Testing to power private beta releases - DEV Community 👩‍💻👨‍💻", "url": "<https://dev.to/philhawksworth/netlify-pro-tip-using-split-testing-to-power-private-beta-releases-a7l>", "description": "Giving users ways to opt in and out of your private betas. Video and tutorial.", "id": "1fbabbf9-2952-47f2-9005-25af90b0229e" , "pageTitle": "Netlify Public Folder, Part I: What? Recreating the Dropbox Public Folder With Netlify , "pageTitle": "Why Is CSS So Weird? - YouTube", "url": "<https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aHUtMbJw8iA&feature=youtu.be>", "description": "Love it or hate it, CSS is weird! It doesn't work like most programming languages, and it doesn't work like a design tool either. But CSS is also solving a v...", "id": "2e29aa3b-45b8-4ce4-85b7-fd8bc50daccd" , "pageTitle": "Internet world despairs as non-profit .org sold for $$$$ to private equity firm, price caps axed • The Register", "url": "<https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/org_registry_sale_shambles/>", "id": "33406b33-c453-44d3-8b18-2d2ae83ee73f" , "pageTitle": "Netlify Identity for paid subscriptions - Access Control / Identity - Netlify Community", "url": "<https://community.netlify.com/t/netlify-identity-for-paid-subscriptions/1947/2>", "description": "I want to limit certain functionality on my website to paying users. Now I’m using a payment provider (Mollie) similar to Stripe. My idea was to use the webhook fired by this service to call a Netlify function and give…", "id": "34d6341c-18eb-4744-88e1-cfbf6c1cfa6c" , "pageTitle": "SmashingConf Freiburg 2019: Videos And Photos — Smashing Magazine", "url": "<https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/10/smashingconf-freiburg-2019/>", "description": "We had a lovely time at SmashingConf Freiburg. This post wraps up the event and also shares the video of all of the Freiburg presentations.", "id": "354cbb34-b24a-47f1-8973-8553ed1d809d" , "pageTitle": "Adding Google Calendar to your JAMStack", "url": "<https://www.raymondcamden.com/2019/11/18/adding-google-calendar-to-your-jamstack>", "description": "A look at using Google APIs to add events to your static site.", "id": "361b20c4-75ce-46b3-b6d9-38139e03f2ca" , "pageTitle": "How to Contribute to an Open Source Project , Netlify", "url": "<https://www.netlify.com/docs/functions/>", "description": "Netlify builds, deploys, and hosts your front end. Learn how to get started, see examples, and view documentation for the modern web platform.", "id": "3bf9e31b-5288-4b3b-89f2-97034603dbf6" , "pageTitle": "Serverless Can Help You To Focus - By Simona Cotin", "url": "<https://hackernoon.com/serverless-can-do-that-7nw32mk>", "id": "43b1ee63-c2f8-4e14-8700-1e21c2e0a8b1" , "pageTitle": "Nuxt, Next, Nest?! My Head Hurts. - DEV Community 👩‍💻👨‍💻", "url": "<https://dev.to/laurieontech/nuxt-next-nest-my-head-hurts-5h98>", "description": "I clearly know what all of these things are. Their names are not at all similar. But let's review, just to make sure we know...", "id": "456b7d6d-7efa-408a-9eca-0325d996b69c" , "pageTitle": "Consuming a headless CMS GraphQL API with Eleventy - Webstoemp", "url": "<https://www.webstoemp.com/blog/headless-cms-graphql-api-eleventy/>", "description": "With Eleventy, consuming data coming from a GraphQL API to generate static pages is as easy as using Markdown files.", "id": "4606b168-21a6-49df-8536-a2a00750d659" , ]

Now that the data is in the project, we need for Astro to incorporate the data into its build process. To do this, we can use Astro’s new(ish) Content Layer API. The Content Layer API adds a content configuration file to your src directory that allows you to run and collect any number of content pieces from data in your project or external APIs. Create the file  /src/content.config.ts (the name of this file matters, as this is what Astro is looking for in your project).

import defineCollection, z from "astro:content"; import file from 'astro/loaders'; const bookmarks = defineCollection( schema: z.object( pageTitle: z.string(), url: z.string(), description: z.string().optional() ), loader: file("src/data/bookmarks.json"), ); export const collections = bookmarks ;

In this file, we import a few helpers from Astro. We can use defineCollection to create the collection, z as Zod, to help define our types, and file is a specific content loader meant to read data files.

The defineCollection method takes an object as its argument with a required loader and optional schema. The schema will help make our content type-safe and make sure our data is always what we expect it to be. In this case, we’ll define the three data properties each of our bookmarks has. It’s important to define all your data in your schema, otherwise it won’t be available to your templates.

We provide the loader property with a content loader. In this case, we’ll use the file loader that Astro provides and give it the path to our JSON.

Finally, we need to export the collections variable as an object containing all the collections that we’ve defined (just bookmarks in our project). You’ll want to restart the local server by re-running npm run dev in your terminal to pick up the new data.

Using the new bookmarks content collection

Now that we have data, we can use it in our homepage to show the most recent bookmarks that have been added. To get the data, we need to access the content collection with the getCollection method from astro:content. Add the following code to the frontmatter for ./src/pages/index.astro .

--- import Layout from '../layouts/Layout.astro'; import getCollection from 'astro:content'; const bookmarks = await getCollection('bookmarks'); ---

This code imports the getCollection method and uses it to create a new variable that contains the data in our bookmarkscollection. The bookmarks variable is an array of data, as defined by the collection, which we can use to loop through in our template.

--- import Layout from '../layouts/Layout.astro'; import getCollection from 'astro:content'; const bookmarks = await getCollection('bookmarks'); --- <Layout> <div class="max-w-3xl mx-auto my-10"> <h1 class="text-3xl text-center">My latest bookmarks</h1> <p class="text-xl text-center mb-5"> This is only 10 of bookmarks.length </p> <h2 class="text-2xl mb-3">Latest bookmarks</h2> <ul class="grid gap-4"> bookmarks.slice(0, 10).map((item) => ( <li> <a href=item.data?.url class="block p-6 bg-white border border-gray-200 rounded-lg shadow-sm hover:bg-gray-100 dark:bg-gray-800 dark:border-gray-700 dark:hover:bg-gray-700"> <h3 class="mb-2 text-2xl font-bold tracking-tight text-gray-900 dark:text-white"> item.data?.pageTitle </h3> <p class="font-normal text-gray-700 dark:text-gray-400"> item.data?.description </p> </a> </li> )) </ul> </div> </Layout>

This should pull the most recent 10 items from the array and display them on the homepage with some Tailwind styles. The main thing to note here is that the data structure has changed a little. The actual data for each item in our array actually resides in the data property of the item. This allows Astro to put additional data on the object without colliding with any details we provide in our database. Your project should now look something like this.

Now that we have data and display, let’s get to work on our search functionality.

Building search with actions and vanilla JavaScript

To start, we’ll want to scaffold out a new Astro component. In our example, we’re going to use vanilla JavaScript, but if you’re familiar with React or other frameworks that Astro supports, you can opt for client Islands to build out your search. The Astro actions will work the same.

Setting up the component

We need to make a new component to house a bit of JavaScript and the HTML for the search field and results. Create the component in a ./src/components/Search.astro file.

<form id="searchForm" class="flex mb-6 items-center max-w-sm mx-auto"> <label for="simple-search" class="sr-only">Search</label> <div class="relative w-full"> <input type="text" id="search" class="bg-gray-50 border border-gray-300 text-gray-900 text-sm rounded-lg focus:ring-blue-500 focus:border-blue-500 block w-full p-2.5 dark:bg-gray-700 dark:border-gray-600 dark:placeholder-gray-400 dark:text-white dark:focus:ring-blue-500 dark:focus:border-blue-500" placeholder="Search Bookmarks" required /> </div> <button type="submit" class="p-2.5 ms-2 text-sm font-medium text-white bg-blue-700 rounded-lg border border-blue-700 hover:bg-blue-800 focus:ring-4 focus:outline-none focus:ring-blue-300 dark:bg-blue-600 dark:hover:bg-blue-700 dark:focus:ring-blue-800"> <svg class="w-4 h-4" aria-hidden="true" xmlns="<http://www.w3.org/2000/svg>" fill="none" viewBox="0 0 20 20"> <path stroke="currentColor" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" d="m19 19-4-4m0-7A7 7 0 1 1 1 8a7 7 0 0 1 14 0Z"></path> </svg> <span class="sr-only">Search</span> </button> </form> <div class="grid gap-4 mb-10 hidden" id="results"> <h2 class="text-xl font-bold mb-2">Search Results</h2> </div> <script> const form = document.getElementById("searchForm"); const search = document.getElementById("search"); const results = document.getElementById("results"); form?.addEventListener("submit", async (e) => e.preventDefault(); console.log("SEARCH WILL HAPPEN"); ); </script>

The basic HTML is setting up a search form, input, and results area with IDs that we’ll use in JavaScript. The basic JavaScript finds those elements, and for the form, adds an event listener that fires when the form is submitted. The event listener is where a lot of our magic is going to happen, but for now, a console log will do to make sure everything is set up properly.

Setting up an Astro Action for search

In order for Actions to work, we need our project to allow for Astro to work in server or hybrid mode. These modes allow for all or some pages to be rendered in serverless functions instead of pre-generated as HTML during the build. In this project, this will be used for the Action and nothing else, so we’ll opt for hybrid mode.

To be able to run Astro in this way, we need to add a server integration. Astro has integrations for most of the major cloud providers, as well as a basic Node implementation. I typically host on Netlify, so we’ll install their integration. Much like with Tailwind, we’ll use the CLI to add the package and it will build out the boilerplate we need.

npx astro add netlify

Once this is added, Astro is running in Hybrid mode. Most of our site is pre-generated with HTML, but when the Action gets used, it will run as a serverless function.

Setting up a very basic search Action

Next, we need an Astro Action to handle our search functionality. To create the action, we need to create a new file at ./src/actions/index.js. All our Actions live in this file. You can write the code for each one in separate files and import them into this file, but in this example, we only have one Action, and that feels like premature optimization.

In this file, we’ll set up our search Action. Much like setting up our content collections, we’ll use a method called defineAction and give it a schema and in this case a handler. The schema will validate the data it’s getting from our JavaScript is typed correctly, and the handler will define what happens when the Action runs.

import defineAction from "astro:actions"; import z from "astro:schema"; import getCollection from "astro:content"; export const server = search: defineAction( schema: z.object( query: z.string(), ), handler: async (query) => const bookmarks = await getCollection("bookmarks"); const results = await bookmarks.filter((bookmark) => return bookmark.data.pageTitle.includes(query); ); return results; , ), ;

For our Action, we’ll name it search and expect a schema of an object with a single property named query which is a string. The handler function will get all of our bookmarks from the content collection and use a native JavaScript .filter() method to check if the query is included in any bookmark titles. This basic functionality is ready to test with our front-end.

Using the Astro Action in the search form event

When the user submits the form, we need to send the query to our new Action. Instead of figuring out where to send our fetch request, Astro gives us access to all of our server Actions with the actions object in astro:actions. This means that any Action we create is accessible from our client-side JavaScript.

In our Search component, we can now import our Action directly into the JavaScript and then use the search action when the user submits the form.

<script> import actions from "astro:actions"; const form = document.getElementById("searchForm"); const search = document.getElementById("search"); const results = document.getElementById("results"); form?.addEventListener("submit", async (e) => e.preventDefault(); results.innerHTML = ""; const query = search.value; const data, error = await actions.search(query); if (error) results.innerHTML = `<p>$error.message</p>`; return; // create a div for each search result data.forEach(( item ) => const div = document.createElement("div"); div.innerHTML = ` <a href="$item.data?.url" class="block p-6 bg-white border border-gray-200 rounded-lg shadow-sm hover:bg-gray-100 dark:bg-gray-800 dark:border-gray-700 dark:hover:bg-gray-700"> <h3 class="mb-2 text-2xl font-bold tracking-tight text-gray-900 dark:text-white"> $item.data?.pageTitle </h3> <p class="font-normal text-gray-700 dark:text-gray-400"> $item.data?.description </p> </a>`; // append the div to the results container results.appendChild(div); ); // show the results container results.classList.remove("hidden"); ); </script>

When results are returned, we can now get search results!

Though, they’re highly problematic. This is just a simple JavaScript filter, after all. You can search for “Favorite” and get my favorite bread recipe, but if you search for “favorite” (no caps), you’ll get an error… Not ideal.

That’s why we should use a package like Fuse.js.

Adding Fuse.js for fuzzy search

Fuse.js is a JavaScript package that has utilities to make “fuzzy” search much easier for developers. Fuse will accept a string and based on a number of criteria (and a number of sets of data) provide responses that closely match even when the match isn’t perfect. Depending on the settings, Fuse can match “Favorite”, “favorite”, and even misspellings like “favrite” all to the right results.

Is Fuse as powerful as something like Algolia or ElasticSearch? No. Is it free and pretty darned good? Absolutely! To get Fuse moving, we need to install it into our project.

npm install fuse.js

From there, we can use it in our Action by importing it in the file and creating a new instance of Fuse based on our bookmarks collection.

import defineAction from "astro:actions"; import z from "astro:schema"; import getCollection from "astro:content"; import Fuse from "fuse.js"; export const server = search: defineAction( schema: z.object( query: z.string(), ), handler: async (query) => const bookmarks = await getCollection("bookmarks"); const fuse = new Fuse(bookmarks, threshold: 0.3, keys: [ name: "data.pageTitle", weight: 1.0 , name: "data.description", weight: 0.7 , name: "data.url", weight: 0.3 , ], ); const results = await fuse.search(query); return results; , ), ;

In this case, we create the Fuse instance with a few options. We give it a threshold value between 0 and 1 to decide how “fuzzy” to make the search. Fuzziness is definitely something that depends on use case and the dataset. In our dataset, I’ve found 0.3 to be a great threshold.

The keys array allows you to specify which data should be searched. In this case, I want all the data to be searched, but I want to allow for different weighting for each item. The title should be most important, followed by the description, and the URL should be last. This way, I can search for keywords in all these areas.

Once there’s a new Fuse instance, we run fuse.search(query) to have Fuse check the data, and return an array of results.

When we run this with our front-end, we find we have one more issue to tackle.

The structure of the data returned is not quite what it was with our simple JavaScript. Each result now has a refIndex and an item. All our data lives on the item, so we need to destructure the item off of each returned result.

To do that, adjust the front-end forEach.

// create a div for each search result data.forEach(( item ) => const div = document.createElement("div"); div.innerHTML = ` <a href="$item.data?.url" class="block p-6 bg-white border border-gray-200 rounded-lg shadow-sm hover:bg-gray-100 dark:bg-gray-800 dark:border-gray-700 dark:hover:bg-gray-700"> <h3 class="mb-2 text-2xl font-bold tracking-tight text-gray-900 dark:text-white"> $item.data?.pageTitle </h3> <p class="font-normal text-gray-700 dark:text-gray-400"> $item.data?.description </p> </a>`; // append the div to the results container results.appendChild(div); );

Now, we have a fully working search for our bookmarks.

Next steps

This just scratches the surface of what you can do with Astro Actions. For instance, we should probably add additional error handling based on the error we get back. You can also experiment with handling this at the page-level and letting there be a Search page where the Action is used as a form action and handles it all as a server request instead of with front-end JavaScript code. You could also refactor the JavaScript from the admittedly low-tech vanilla JS to something a bit more robust with React, Svelte, or Vue.

One thing is for sure, Astro keeps looking at the front-end landscape and learning from the mistakes and best practices of all the other frameworks. Actions, Content Layer, and more are just the beginning for a truly compelling front-end framework.

[mikufigureoftheday]

hi! i did a search through your blog to check but i hope this hasn’t been asked before.

are there lolita or lolita-ish miku figures?

I probably have, but I can't find it either and doing another one on this one won't hurt ✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ )

I still don't really know how fashion works, but I believe quite a few match the style so I can't really link all of them and I'll just share a good selection instead~

Special shoutout to the lolita fashion one

[thebatgurrl]

Across the Cedar River we Go

[exitrowiron]

Kickr Run Treadmill Review

Our True treadmill was 20 years old and though still functional was starting to show its age after thousands of miles. I did some research on the new Wahoo Kickr Run treadmill and was intrigued. We have two Kickr bike trainers and I've ridden thousands of miles on mine. When it started to malfunction 3 years after purchase, they replaced it quickly for free. That's the kind of company that deserves more of my business.

The treadmill has received universally positive reviews, especially from DC Rainmaker. I like running on a treadmill and I envisioned doing run workouts similar to those I can do on the Kickr bike trainer. I can program very detailed (I.e. exact watts) bike workouts in Zwift and Training Peaks and expected to do the same on their treadmill. The treadmill also has a unique innovation called RunFree in which a sensor monitors your position on the belt and automatically speeds up or slows down as you move forward or back on the belt. Just start running faster and the belt speed will instantly adjust.

The Kickr treadmill is a 400 lb beast. Wahoo requires that it be professionally delivered and setup and it must have a dedicated 15 amp circuit. The treadmill is very well made and sturdy and I'm confident it will last for many years. It is one the few treadmills that can be used to run a 4 minute mile (not that I will ever experience this). Wahoo correctly assumes that most people have their own TV so instead of attaching a crappy one they provide a deck for tablet or laptop with an integrated USB C charging port. That's the perfect solution for using the treadmill in a virtual environment like Zwift.

I ran 20 miles on the treadmill this afternoon and while I can't say the time flew by, it was a good experience. The treadmill works well in Zwift and automatically adjusted the incline (including a 3% decline) as I ran a Zwift course. The incline and speed paddles are intuitive and responsive. Unfortunately you cannot program a run workout in Zwift like you can for the Kickr bike trainer and according to a Zwift help desk rep, it isn't on the roadmap. Wahoo has its own app that includes some preprogrammed training workouts though. It is possible to create a running workout in Training Peaks, but with limited specificity - for example you can't program 400 meters at an 8:00 pace, you have to choose a Zone or percentage of threshold.

The other disappointment was the RunFree function. It is too dynamic, constantly changing the speed of the belt. I've run thousands of miles on a treadmill and wasn't able to stay in the 2 cm zone of the belt which would ensure a consistent speed.

Our last treadmill cost $3,800 in 2005 and lasted 20 years. The Kickr cost - $5,500 (including delivery) and I expect it will last as long. Although I'm a little disappointed in some of the features, I'm still happy with it.

[dashi-inu]

alastor from hazbin hotel 📻 i'm gonna be honest; he's difficult to redesign—though i loved trying! this might be my most 'incomplete' reference sheet of a character, but that's because i think i want to give him a go again. next time, i'll amp up on the animalistic features. i think he deserves a snout like a deer. i know he's one of fandom's favorites, so i tried making him charming as hell. i hope i succeeded.

rewrote the info on alastor’s reference sheet under the cut 🦌

ALASTOR ( DEER, RADIO DEMON )

6'3 ft (190.5 cm)

HAIR. Curly and unkempt.

EYES. Can glow

FUR. Subtle coat.

BODY. Triangular, redefined. Broad shoulders and chest. Has narrow hips and deer-like features (antlers, ears, nose, hooves, tail)

HOOVES. Hooves instead of hands and feet.

[unseenbox]

Im watching TK at the scrum rn and I genuinely think that in the long run AEW will be better for having had cm punk and him getting fired than if it never happened at all.

He just seems so much more sure of himself than he used to be. Still amped of course but like he has good people behind him and he knows how to handle the people that aren't.