Whew! That's quite a tough headline to swallow. But choosing the right cloud hosting provider for your next virtual private server (VPS) shouldn't be difficult, too. Sometimes, it just comes down to price. Whether you're a cash-strapped student or just someone who wants to run a few essential applications without emptying our your wallet, you're in luck—there are a lot of low-cost options these days. That's why we're breaking down a bunch of 1GB RAM KVM plans in this new cloud hosting price comparison.

Some essential notes about the competitors

All options are unmanaged. An unmanaged hosting service means that you have to install applications and administer the server yourself.

All offer full root access via SSH.

These are KVM plans. KVM offers more flexibility than other options, like OpenVZ, but comes at a slight cost increase. Still, we recommend KVM for most users.

You can choose your operating system. At the very least, each of these providers offers Ubuntu, Debian, and CentOS.

The prices listed are the cheapest possible options. For some providers, the billing cycle is monthly, and for others, the billing cycle is early. You have to decide whether signing up for an extended commitment is worth an evitably lower price over the same period.

Sorting is random! Don't just think that one side of a given chart is better/cheaper than another. Make sure you take a look at all the prices to get the full picture.