I’m thinking about getting some proper web hosting via User-mode Linux. UML is a cheap virtual server system, like IBM VM or VMWare only lower tech. Each user has their own virtual system image with full root access, but it’s only $20/month instead of $50/month or more. Also known as Virtual Private Server (vps). The downside is you share CPU and RAM, although the numbers below are worst-case scenarios.

Here’s what $20/month gets you on a few hosting sites:

	Disk GB	Ram MB	Cpu MHz	Xfer GB	$/GB Xfer
TekTonic ($15)	3	64	150	50	2
RimuHosting	4	64	?	30	2
Linode	3	64	100	25	1
RedwoodVirtual	4	128	?	20	5
Quantact ($15)	3	64	100	20	2

That’s really cheap. Of course, this table doesn’t capture important things like how reliable they are, how good their peering is, what kind of backup (if any) they offer, or how good the support is.