Hey all! I'm looking for a solid and somewhat inexpensive US-based vps provider and it seems like all of the top 10 lists from media sites are focusing on beginner friendliness and web hosting which I don't really care about
Buy VM/ Frantech I have had them for years unlimited bandwidth reliable and great uptime. Their availability is limited but they are always adding additional hosting. So check back it is so worth the wait. Also reach out to them over email sometimes they will stand up more resources.
Yep came here to say Frantech. Been with them for years as well, absolutely love them. Amazing pricing, amazing support. The ISO system is really cool. They even allow changing reverse DNS and will open email ports if you ask. I've only ever had one problem and it turns out it was my own fault, but Francisco still helped me troubleshoot it. Cannot recommend them enough.
I've been using ionos.com (formerly 1&1) and so far their support has been great and the price is pretty good. They originated in Europe, but have long ago since moved to the US and have datacenter in both the US and Europe. I chose them because I wanted something cheap with unlimited bandwidth and this ticked those boxes.
I've had good experiences with Ramnode and BuyVM, and in the distant past, also Linode.
Edit: Ramnode has competent support without a lot of time wasted with "cannon fodder" / tier 1 if you have a problem, sounds like that may be an asset for you. They are definitely oriented toward customers who know what they're doing.
Just as a counterpoint: I've had some bad experiences with Ramnode. This was years ago, but my VPS with them just kinda disappeared (went offline, permanently). And support's response was basically, yeah that happens sometimes.. guess you gotta restore from backup. And this wasn't an isolated occurrence! It just struck me as total amateur hour over there. Maybe they got better in recent years?
My favourites are HostHatch and GreenCloudVPS. They have very good deals when they're running sales, especially during Black Friday. HostHatch's regular pricing (listed on their site) is pretty decent too, just not as good as the sale pricing.
I've got a list of all my VPSes here: https://d.sb/servers. Most are for https://dnstools.ws/ but there's various others too. Feel free to ask about any one of them.
I migrated my 8GB VPS from Linode to Hetzner. They have VA and OR DCs in the US. They are strict with account validation, but performance is up and costs are halved.