@hazardwarning For expensive, there’s a $1 USD/month VPS here: https://www.chicagovps.net/services/cloud-vps
For advanced, that’s no help. I did find a VPS easier in some ways than shared hosting due to more freedom to poke around and see what’s wrong. No need to work at arm’s length using some weird control panel that is nothing like the standard interfaces an OS provides. But if I wasn’t already comfortable doing that sort of poking around, it probably would have been harder, not easier, since there’s no overall, focused list of what you can do. :\
/@matigo