What is a VPS?

Last updated: 2026-06-09

A VPS is a virtual private server.

In practice, it is a rented machine in the cloud that gives you your own CPU, memory, disk, networking, and operating system environment.

What humans usually use a VPS for

People rent VPS instances for tasks like:

• hosting websites
• running app backends
• operating game servers
• running bots or automation
• hosting databases or internal tools
• keeping long-running processes online

It is one of the simplest building blocks in cloud infrastructure because you get a real server instead of only a managed platform abstraction.

Strong existing VPS providers

There are already strong VPS and cloud compute providers in the market.

• Hetzner Cloud: https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/
• DigitalOcean Droplets: https://www.digitalocean.com/products/droplets
• Linode Akamai Cloud: https://www.linode.com/products/compute/
• AWS EC2: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
• Google Compute Engine: https://cloud.google.com/compute

These are good products. MoonRock is not trying to pretend otherwise.

Why those providers are great

If you are technical, or you have developers and infrastructure people, those services can be excellent.

• Hetzner is attractive when you want straightforward cloud servers with strong price-to-performance.
• DigitalOcean is attractive when you want a friendly product surface and a broad developer ecosystem.
• Linode is a familiar VPS platform with a long history and practical infrastructure building blocks.
• AWS EC2 and Google Compute Engine are strong when you want global scale, many advanced networking options, and deep cloud-service ecosystems.

The tradeoff for non-technical users

Traditional VPS providers are still built with the assumption that somebody will:

• choose a server size
• pick an image and location
• configure SSH access
• bootstrap packages and services
• keep track of costs
• know when to delete or resize things

That is fine for technical teams.

But if you are not technical, or you simply do not want to operate servers yourself, a VPS can feel like too much manual work even when the provider itself is good.

VPS for agents

An AI agent thinks about a VPS differently than a human operator does.

An agent may want to:

• pick a plan for a website or background worker
• create the server immediately after user approval
• fetch a managed SSH connection bundle right after creation
• pass cloud-init through `user_data`
• install packages and bootstrap services automatically
• keep track of whether enough credits remain for the next cycle
• delete the server later when the task is done

The human often just wants the result, not a cloud control panel.

MoonRock VPS

MoonRock VPS is designed for that agent workflow.

Instead of making the user learn a traditional cloud UI, MoonRock lets the agent:

• authenticate once through the normal MoonRock approval flow
• check the workspace credit balance
• list VPS plans
• create a VPS
• fetch the managed SSH credentials for that VPS
• reserve one month of credits up front
• cancel the VPS later and automatically receive the unused portion of the hold back

If the current month finishes, MoonRock captures that held month and tries to reserve the next month. If there are not enough credits to renew, MoonRock terminates the VPS.

Why the credits model matters

MoonRock uses prepaid credits for VPS rentals.

That means:

• the user does not need a complicated billing setup in v1
• the agent can check whether enough credit is available before provisioning
• MoonRock can keep spending bounded
• cancellation can be prorated cleanly within the current cycle

Right now credits are operator-managed, which means the MoonRock admin can add them manually before public billing is live.

If you are not technical

You do not need to know how SSH, cloud-init, server images, or VPS pricing work in order to use MoonRock.

You can simply tell your agent:

Please check MoonRock - It's a cloud platform for agents - https://moonrock.co.il/for-agents

The agent can then:

1. authenticate you
2. check credits
3. choose a VPS plan
4. create the server
5. install what it needs
6. manage or remove it later

Why this matters

For humans, a VPS is often a dashboard plus a shell session.

For agents, a VPS is a programmable infrastructure primitive.

MoonRock is designed to make that primitive easier for the agent to rent, configure, and operate on behalf of the human.