VPS terms, in plain English
Short answer
18 short answers to the questions that come up when you read a VPS plan table.
Checked October 14, 2026. How we rank
Questions
- What is a VPS?
- What is a VDS, and how is it different from a VPS?
- What is a vCPU?
- What does KVM virtualization mean for a VPS?
- Why does NVMe matter on a VPS?
- What is the difference between bandwidth, traffic and port speed?
- What does unmetered bandwidth mean?
- What does DDoS protection on a VPS actually do?
- What is a VPS snapshot?
- How do provider backups work?
- Why do some VPS providers charge for IPv4?
- How does hourly VPS billing work?
- What is a managed VPS?
- What does a 99.9% uptime SLA mean?
- How much latency does server location add?
- What is an acceptable use policy (AUP)?
- What is RDP and how do I connect to a Windows VPS?
- What does root access mean on a VPS?