Can you, as a web developer, share your experience with using cloud servers from Europe or the United States for hosting websites?
I am particularly interested in your opinion on European servers that offer dedicated IPv4 and unlimited traffic (or 1 TB). I need a server for a small blog site and potentially a few others in the future, as well as for use as a VPN server. Ideally, I would like to use Debian 8-9 or Ubuntu 16.04.
Although Google has not banned these servers, there are a plethora of options to choose from, along with varying prices. Therefore, I would appreciate your feedback on specific providers and any advice you may have to offer on the matter.

When it comes to hosting, do you prefer a panel or not? There is a VPS available for 5 euros per month with 500 GB SSD, unlimited traffic, and 8 GB RAM, featuring your choice of a percent, atom, or ARM processor. The server is typically located in Germany or Amsterdam, but the French now offer it as well. If the ping is not significant, the price and resources should be top considerations.

P.S.
Ubuntu is a popular option, but it's usually only installed by geeks or large corporations for testing. Some individuals may choose Ubuntu out of familiarity. However, for serious projects, redhat, centos, or Debian is usually preferred. I would hesitate to install Ubuntu on systems that I am administrating, as issues can arise during updates.

Serverspace provides VPS hosting for $7 per month, with the following specifications: 2 cores at 3.1 GHz, 2 GB RAM, and 125 GB SSD. One of the advantages of Serverspace is their use of the new hyperconvergent vStack platform and the bhyve hypervisor, which has proven to be more efficient than KVM. Additionally, this technology allows for quick scaling of VPS resources. The provider operates data centers in Amsterdam and New Jersey (USA) and has a 99.9% SLA level, utilizing Intel Xeon Scalable v2 CPUs and SSD drives with an IOPS index of up to 30,000. Operating system options include CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, and Windows, and tests are available for servers with configurations of up to 4 CPUs and 16 GB of RAM.

One may benefit from Serverspace's free trial period without the need to link a card. Additionally, servers can be created in under one minute and billing is conducted every ten minutes with no fixed payments.

AdminVPS offers VPS hosting for $12 per month, with 2 cores at 2.6GHz, 2 GB RAM, and 100 GB SSD. They operate data centers in Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands, utilizing the KVM virtual infrastructure and NVMe disks for storage. While backups are available weekly for VPS, shared virtual hosting can be backed up daily. For servers located in their Netherlands data center, AdminVPS offers strong CIS and European connectivity with DDoS protection and moneyback guarantees.

The only downside to AdminVPS is the lack of a test period.

When it comes to European servers, there are several good options that offer dedicated IPv4, unlimited or generous traffic allowances. Providers like DigitalOcean, OVH, and Hetzner are worth looking into. They have a good reputation for performance and reliability.

DigitalOcean is quite user-friendly, and it allows you to quickly spin up a server with your desired operating system, like Debian or Ubuntu. However, their pricing structure can be a bit higher compared to others if you decide to scale your resources later on. OVH is known for its affordable pricing, especially for dedicated servers. They also offer a wide range of configurations, but their user interface can be a bit clunky at first. Hetzner is another great option that often provides very powerful servers at competitive prices. They also have a straightforward setup process, and their customer support is quite helpful.

When selecting a server, consider how much traffic you expect for your blog and potential other sites. Since you plan to use the server also as a VPN, ensure that it has enough resources to handle that as well. A server with at least 1 CPU and 2-4 GB of RAM should be sufficient for light usage, but more may be needed as you grow.

Another point worth noting is the performance of the data centers. European servers might offer faster speeds for your target audience if you're primarily targeting users in Europe. Latency can be an issue if you decide to host your site on a server located in the United States and your audience is primarily in Europe.

Also, consider the data protection regulations like GDPR if you're hosting in Europe. It may influence your choice of provider and their data handling practices.

I use VPS hosting from hostpro.com and my experience has been nothing but positive. I was able to choose the location of the server and chose Amsterdam for the European audience as it provides speed and reliability. It is also important that hostpro.com provides automatic backups that are kept for 30 days. This gives me peace of mind and confidence that my data is safe. I have heard from colleagues that the servers in Tampa have excellent performance for users from the US, and Warsaw is a good choice for nearby countries. With user-friendly control panels such as cPanel and DirectAdmin, managing your VPS has become easy and efficient. I recommend it to anyone looking for reliable hosting!

Performance can be hit or miss, especially for users outside Europe. Providers like Hetzner and OVH have had reliability issues in the past.
Moreover, unlimited traffic plans often come with hidden fair use policies. For a small blog, consider US-based providers like Linode or Vultr, which offer better performance and more transparent policies. For a VPN, go with a proven provider like NordVPN or ExpressVPN, not some no-name European host.