You already know what a VPS is and what size you need. Now comes the fun part: making one exist. In the next twenty minutes, you'll pick a company to rent from, click a few settings, and end up with a real computer, sitting in a real building, that's yours.
Sign up for and create a real server.
Choosing a provider
The company you rent your VPS from is called a provider. Think of it as choosing a landlord for the apartment building from Module 1. A few names come up again and again, and honestly, they're all good landlords:
- Hostinger — our recommended pick for this course. Beginner-friendly, and its KVM 2 plan gives you lots of headroom for the price.
- DigitalOcean — very beginner-friendly, with thousands of free tutorials online if you ever get stuck.
- Hetzner — usually the cheapest, with excellent value. Based in Europe, so a strong pick if your visitors are there too.
- Vultr and Linode (now part of Akamai) — solid, reliable, right in the middle.
Every one of these works perfectly for this course. If you want a simple answer: go with Hostinger and the plan on our Get a VPS page. Nothing below assumes a specific company — the buttons look slightly different everywhere, but the ideas are identical.
The plan we recommend
Hostinger VPS — KVM 2: 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe, 8 TB bandwidth, for $13.99/month. Enough to run several real projects, not just this course.
In plain words
A provider is just the company whose building your "apartment" sits in. You could move to a different provider later without changing anything about how you use your server — the skills transfer completely.
Reading the price tag without surprises
Pricing pages can look scary, but the math is simple once you know the pattern. Here's what to expect:
- You're charged by the hour, but there's a monthly cap — so a $5/month plan never charges you more than $5 in a month, even if you leave it running the whole time.
- The smallest plan usually costs around $4–$6 a month — less than a coffee.
- Extras like automatic backups or extra storage cost a bit more, and they're often shown as add-on checkboxes during signup.
Cost check
For this course, you don't need any paid add-ons. If a checkbox for backups or extra storage is ticked by default, feel free to untick it — you can always turn it on later.
Watch out
Before you create anything, find your provider's billing or alerts settings and turn on a spending alert (usually somewhere like Billing → Alerts). It emails you the moment your spending crosses a threshold you pick — like $10. It costs nothing to set up and means you'll never be caught off guard.
Three quick choices: OS, region, and size
When you click "Create," you'll be asked a handful of questions. Here's exactly what to answer.
Operating system: pick Ubuntu LTS
Every computer needs an operating system — the base software everything else runs on top of. For a VPS, pick Ubuntu, specifically the LTS version. You'll see it written like "Ubuntu 24.04 LTS." New LTS versions come out every couple of years — always pick the newest LTS shown to you, whatever number it happens to be.
Region: pick somewhere close to your visitors
A region is simply which city your server's building is in. Data has to physically travel between your server and each visitor's device, so a shorter distance means a faster-feeling site. If most of your visitors are in the United States, choose a US region. If you're not sure yet, pick the region closest to you — that's a perfectly good default.
Size: what you already decided
Remember your answer from Module 1? We recommend the Hostinger KVM 2 — 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe, for $13.99/month — because it leaves room to grow. The tiny ~$5 plan also works if you're keeping it minimal. Pick your size and move on.
Good to know
DigitalOcean calls a VPS a "Droplet." Other providers just say "Instance" or "Server." Different word, exact same apartment-in-a-building idea from Module 1.
SSH key or password?
Near the end of setup, you'll be asked how you want to log in later: with an SSH key or with a password. SSH keys are the safer choice, and Module 3 walks you through setting them up properly, step by step.
For right now, don't stress about it. If the provider offers "password" as an option, it's completely fine to choose that just to get started today. We'll switch you over to a key next module — think of it as swapping a regular lock for a fancier one, on a door that isn't open to anyone yet anyway.
✏️ Hands-on: create your server
Time to make it real. Keep this page open in one tab and your provider's site open in another.
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Create an account
Go to your chosen provider's website and sign up. You'll need an email address and a payment method — this is normal, since even the smallest plan costs a few dollars a month.
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Turn on billing alerts
Before creating anything, find the billing or alerts settings and set a spending alert. Two minutes now, total peace of mind later.
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Create your server
Click "Create" (it might say "Create Droplet," "Deploy Instance," or similar). Choose the newest Ubuntu LTS image, a location near your visitors, and your size (we recommend KVM 2). When it asks about login, password is fine for now. Click create.
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Find and write down your IP address
Within a minute or two, your server will be ready, and your dashboard will show its IP address — something like
203.0.113.45. Copy it into a notes app right now. You'll type this address constantly for the rest of the course.
Try it
Go do it now — sign up, flip on billing alerts, and create the server. It genuinely takes less time than reading the rest of this page.
Take a breath. You just rented a real computer somewhere in the world, and it's already switched on, waiting. It's costing you pennies a day. Nothing on it is visible to anyone yet — it's an empty apartment with a locked door and no sign outside. In Module 3, you'll open that door for the first time and step inside.
- A provider is who you rent your VPS from; we recommend Hostinger's KVM 2, but DigitalOcean, Hetzner, and Vultr all work.
- You pay by the hour up to a monthly cap; our recommended plan is $13.99/month (tiny ones start near $5). Turn on billing alerts before you create anything.
- Pick the newest Ubuntu LTS image, a location near your visitors, and your size (we recommend KVM 2).
- Password login is fine for now — Module 3 upgrades you to a safer SSH key.
- You created your server and wrote down its IP address — your server's phone number on the internet.