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Define "low end" hosting provider
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Define "low end" hosting provider

time4vpstime4vps Member, Host Rep

Hello,

What is your point of view for "low end" hosting provider?

What divides "low end" hosting service provider from "high end" provider? Is it feature set, is it price, is it support...?

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Comments

  • Only price in my view.

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran
    edited April 2015

    http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/15263/lowendtalk-rules-and-guidelines/p1
    read from the words "Low End offers only. Currently a price point must be met".

  • Almost all vps / web hosting have same features

  • NekkiNekki Veteran

    BuyAds said: Only price in my view.

    I agree, that's the only definition that remains consistent.

    Thanked by 1MikePT
  • MrXMrX Member

    Nowadays, it should probably be changed to Low-Margin instead of Low-End VPS. It used to be that LEB was about cheap VPS with 64, 96, and 128 MB (rarely higher) RAM. Now it's all about cramming as much as possible in for as little money as possible, leaving extremely little margin (not even profit margin - just margin).

    This low margin means hosts cannot afford the best technicians, the best support staff, the best sales, the best, and so on. You have to save money somewhere to have any profit margin at all, which is often accomplished by the owner/founder (eerily often a minor on school break) running the whole show him or herself. Some do a great job and even have a friend or two to help them out.

    When I get a low-end server, I know what to expect. The host may fold at the slightest problem, support might be terrible, the server might be unstable. But it is what it is. I don't host anything critical on these servers, and pity those that do.

    Not to say that all high-end hosts are good. There are some dreadful ones out there that try so hard but fall short on delivering quality. Some are very clearly trying to rake in the profit margin of high-end hosting without paying for and delivering the quality expected at such prices.

  • BuyAds said: Only price in my view.

    Nekki said: I agree, that's the only definition that remains consistent.

    Unfortunately that's the definition we're stuck with, even though it makes no sense.

  • time4vpstime4vps Member, Host Rep

    So, ultra low priced VPS's can't be premium?

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran
    edited April 2015

    MrX said: This low margin means hosts cannot afford the best technicians, the best support staff, the best sales, the best, and so on. You have to save money somewhere to have any profit margin at all, which is often accomplished by the owner/founder (eerily often a minor on school break) running the whole show him or herself.

    Nnnnnnnnnnope, not necessarily. This is the case where you can "make it up in volume". And you don't even need "the best", just good or sufficient is enough. For example see DO, the $5 plan is definitely low end, but at the same time it's not a one man show, and their stuff while getting varying opinions about the support quality, generally just works.

    And most certainly, it is not guaranteed that if you pay more at host A, you will get a better service than at the cheaper host B.

    Thanked by 2earl Maounique
  • Have we taken the price into account versus inflation? :P

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran

    eddynetweb said: Have we taken the price into account versus inflation?

    If anything, there is a deflation in the tech industry, i.e. stuff like servers and uplinks getting cheaper (while also getting better). That's in case you thought raising prices on an IT service such as VPS hosting each year to "account for inflation" was a good idea.

    Thanked by 1deadbeef
  • ehabehab Member

    this vps thingy is almost turning into shared hosting what will be coming is dedicatedLowEnd and maybe next year.. my definiation for Lowend is low price and fair enough resources .... one great offer against storage or ram may comeup but thats really it.

  • @sleddog said:

    It makes sense from the customers point of view, not so much the providers.

  • The surplus of dedicated server hardware is killing off VPS hosting, hitting low end providers real hard. Why deal with an oversold node when you can hammer your own hardware?

  • MrXMrX Member

    rm_ said:For example see DO, the $5 plan is definitely low end, but at the same time it's not a one man show, and their stuff while getting varying opinions about the support quality, generally just works.

    DO has VC up the wazoo. You can do a lot of things when people give you $40 million to grow your business.

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran
    edited April 2015

    MrX said: DO has VC up the wazoo. You can do a lot of things when people give you $40 million to grow your business.

    Oh and so do Vultr, and Wable, and the other dozen of DO clones (some down to the $5 pricepoint), even in expensive locations such as HK (36cloud) or Singapore (Simplercloud)? DO may be expanding faster than some others, but the basic business model is viable.

  • PremiumN said: It makes sense from the customers point of view, not so much the providers.

    I'm a customer and it doesn't make sense to me :)

  • Cheap with a higher likelihood of failure.

  • perennateperennate Member, Host Rep
    edited April 2015

    I don't know about "low end", it's a pretty vague term. But I do expect most providers here to be small operations, often participating a lot in the community. Their staff act as individual human beings, and not workers for a large organization with incomprehensible policies and motives.

    I expect them to be more transparent about their hardware and network setup than other providers, although less transparent about outages and other problems. I don't have to pay for support staff to respond to support queries like "how to set up website? help pl0x", or provide phone support. I expect to wait a few hours or even a day before getting a ticket response on non-urgent issues, but expect to be talking to a competent staff member who is closely involved with the core operations of the business.

    I get a basic billing and virtual machine management panel, probably lacking features like snapshots/backups/volumes/two-factor authentication, and possibly requiring a manual ticket for things like setting rDNS; they probably have a minimal proficiency in web programming. They care more about the core of their service, i.e. the VPS, than these other things.

    There are also a lot of them (just as there are a lot of providers who don't visit here), and many of them suck. Many do not.

    On virtual machine performance, though, I have the same expectations as any other provider. I check the reviews and usually get what's expected, but sometimes the CPU or disk performance is less than I wanted. Same for network uptime; although they might have more downtime than some services like AWS since less people are paying attention, they still try their best to keep services online and most outages are out of their control. In the end, a VPS provider is simply a VPS provider.

    Thanked by 2MikePT Maounique
  • A VM with 64MB memory and 2GB disk is lowend. Even if it costs $20/month.

    If you accept that premise as true, then you're agreeing that lowendedness is determined by resources.

    So a VM with 8GB memory and 500GB disk is not lowend. Even if someone offers it for $7/month.

    Thanked by 1Lm85H4gFkh3wk3
  • perennateperennate Member, Host Rep
    edited April 2015

    sleddog said: A VM with 64MB memory and 2GB disk is lowend. Even if it costs $20/month.

    If you accept that premise as true, then you're agreeing that lowendedness is determined by resources.

    Who is accepting that as true? According to the (Merriam-Webster) dictionary, "low end" means "lower in price and quality than most others". Says nothing about resources :)

    Here, maybe low end used to mean something, but it doesn't anymore. We can debate whether we should change the rules to limit resources instead of price, but debating what "low end" means is silly.

  • perennate said: Who is accepting that as true?

    No one but me :) That's why I said, "IF you accept that premise as true..."

    perennate said: We can debate whether we should change the rules to limit resources instead of price, but debating what "low end" means is silly.

    I'm not trying to change any rules, that debate was lost long ago. But I don't think debating is a bad thing, even if you think it's silly.

    If we accept the rule as it stands, then a VM with 8GB memory and 500GB disk for $7/month is lowend. OK, I accept it.

    But a VM with 8GB memory and 500GB disk for $8/month is not lowend. Isn't that silly? :)

    Thanked by 1perennate
  • @sleddog said:

    For me as a low end "buyer", i wouldnt want to pay so much unless the provider has other overwhelming features.

  • Low End really just means expect low quality from most providers in the low end market. Not every provider, just most.

  • @rm_ said:
    If anything, there is a deflation in the tech industry, i.e. stuff like servers and uplinks getting cheaper (while also getting better). That's in case you thought raising prices on an IT service such as VPS hosting each year to "account for inflation" was a good idea.

    Not at all. Just something to think about.

  • Also after so many summer hosts and pump-and-dumps, the only way I would go with a VPS provider was from an established one. I think RamNode is the only one that falls under this. If it looks/sounds like they rent/lease from their DC, I move to the next provider. If they have an IP assignment, this looks better long term.

    Thanked by 1J1021
  • Is colocation permitted, m'lord?

  • PwnerPwner Member

    @perennate said:
    According to the (Merriam-Webster) dictionary, "low end" means "lower in price and quality than most others". Says nothing about resources :)

    If that's the actual definition of it, a lot of providers on here have really been taking the definition a little too literally.

  • SSDBlazeSSDBlaze Member, Host Rep

    Low End means lower in price. It does NOT always mean quality but don't expect to get Ramnode quality at $5 per year because that will not happen.

  • time4vpstime4vps Member, Host Rep

    SSDBlaze said: don't expect to get Ramnode quality

    Can you provide example of "Ramnode quality"? Curious.

  • SSDBlazeSSDBlaze Member, Host Rep

    @time4vps said:

    First off, Im not trying to start any wars here.

    Some customers who end up getting a $5 - $10 per year plan expect 1 hour ticket support with hands on help and Xeon E5 processors. Yes, I am aware some low end hosts run that kind of hardware. Im just saying that overall, most of the time a cheap per year host will not provide the same quality service as one of the reputable companies like Ramnode.

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