Hosting Models
Unmanaged Hosting
Hosting where you get raw infrastructure and handle all administration yourself, from OS patching to security.
Unmanaged hosting hands you a server and a root password. Everything after that is yours: the firewall, the updates, the backups, the 2am reboot when something wedges. Most VPS plans from DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, and Hetzner are unmanaged by default, which is exactly why they're cheap.
The upside is total control and no markup for hand-holding. The downside is that a missed security patch or a botched config is entirely on you. Plenty of teams run unmanaged fleets happily with automation, but a beginner's first unmanaged box is often a fast lesson in what a firewall does.
If you know Linux, unmanaged is the better deal every time. If you don't, the money you save gets spent in downtime and stress. That's the calculation managed hosting exists to solve.
Go deeper
- Managed vs Unmanaged Hosting: What You're Actually Paying ForThe real difference between a $5 VPS and a $25 managed instance running the same hardware.