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My Experiences With Various Hosting Providers
PrivacyInfinity
Member
These reviews are unbiased. I still am using some of these providers
BuyVM
Used them for: Webserver, VPN server (New York, Las Vegas, Luxembourg)
Pros: Great support, low prices. Their ToS is very good, and it looks like they don't give in under pressure. They've never sent me a bogus abuse report. (read: IP-Echelon, HBO, etc). DDoS protection is through Voxility and is decent. CPU on their KVM slices for single core performance is great. I don't know about multi-core because OpenVPN is single threaded. Their network is also really nice in Luxembourg and New York. Las Vegas server's network is okay. No downtime (other than nullroutes from DDoS on unprotected IPs). Anycast IPs. Block storage.
Cons: VPS is not provisioned instantly. Some IPs show in different places. Anti-DDoS IP for Luxembourg shows as Cheyenne, Wyoming. Las Vegas IP shows as San Jose. Could be wrong, but looks like they're using Colocrossing in New York. Not a problem to me, but I know some people strongly dislike them.
Quadranet
Used them for: VPN server (Dallas, TX)
Pros: Awesome support. You can negotiate on price usually. Network is awesome. Reliable. Comes with DDoS protection by default.
Cons: DDoS protection is 3gbps by default. Every single abuse report is forwarded, including bogus ones. Not the cheapest.
Makonix/Yourserver.se
Used them for: VPN server (Latvia, Sweden)
Pros: Instant provisioning. Cheap. DDoS protection included. Network is decent for price. Doesn't forward bogus abuse reports.
Cons: Not reliable. Sometimes servers would just drop and need a restart. Support wasn't the best.
Worldstream.nl
Used them for: DNS server, VPN server (Netherlands)
Pros: DDoS protection included. Low price. Great network. Haven't had any downtime, or needed to use support. Provisioned fast. Doesn't forward bogus abuse reports. It just works.
Cons: Any DDoS protection over 10gbps gets expensive.
OVH
Used them for: Webserver, VPN server, DNS server (France, Germany, Canada)
Pros: Kimsufi line up is cheap. DDoS protection is very good. OVH line up is reliable. Good pricing for what you get. Don't forward bogus abuse reports. Good network.
Cons: Support is god-awful. Provisioning time can say 120 seconds, but never get delivered. Kimsufi servers' have very old and unreliable hard drives. Sometimes they want ID.
Online.net
Used them for: VPN server (Netherlands, France)
Pros: Great pricing. Offers DDoS protection. No downtime. Doesn't forward bogus abuse reports. Good support. Good network.
Cons: Sometimes they want ID. Only accept PayPal after 3 months of paying via CC.
GTHost
Used them for: VPN server (Chicago, IL)
Pros: Good pricing. Awesome support. Fast provisioning. Good network. No downtime.
Cons: They don't like things that attract abuse reports, got suspended.
Limestone Networks
Used them for: VPN server (Dallas, TX)
Pros: Awesome support. Fast provisioning. Network is comparable to Quadranet's. No downtime.
Cons: They don't like things that attract abuse reports, got suspended. They want ID. Not the cheapest.
M247
Used them for: VPN server (Switzerland)
Pros: Support isn't the fastest, but the will do whatever it takes to fix an issue on their end. Bogus abuse reports aren't forwarded. Good for price. No downtime. Network is good.
Cons: No DDoS protection included. Not the easiest to use website.
Digitalocean
Used them for: DNS server, webproxy (Singapore, New York)
Pros: Great network. Great support. Provisions instantly. Reliable and fast VPS. Good for price.
Cons: No DDoS protection. IIRC, no windows VPS.
Vultr
Used them for: DNS server (Singapore)
Pros: Good network. Never needed support. Provisions instantly. Reliable and fast. Good for price.
Cons: No bitcoin payment until you've used CC or Paypal. Block storage is expensive (x20 what BuyVM's is).
Mivocloud
Used them for: VPN server (Romania)
Pros: Good network. Provisions instantly. Very good for price. Anti-DDoS included.
Cons: 100mbps port. Pricing is very similar to alexhost.md.
I've also used Flokinet.is, RamNode, VPS.AG, Nocix, Datawagon, Novogara, PieLayer, Ready Server, PulseServers, Linode, and OneProvider.
My favorite hosts are probably BuyVM, Quadranet, and Worldstream.nl.
For storage/price/speed in a VPS, BuyVM, hands down.
For reliability and speed, Quadranet.
For purposes requiring unmetered bandwidth, Worldstream.nl.
Feel free to ask me about any host I've mentioned, including the ones listed that I didn't review.
Comments
No, we've not been at CC in many moons. We've in 25 broadway for NY.
The GEO's are usually old, at this point most GEO's should be fixed but I'll do another pass this weekend
Thanks for the review, I'm always appreciative of feedback.
Francisco
Looks like someone had VPN business and sold VPN's to customers. Thx for the info.
He runs sigavpn.com
ah, got you, I have disabled signatures on LET.
Thank you.
Useful thread for me , since I was stuck deciding where to provision openvpn for people other than me.
I think it's a neat privacy oriented service you offer, especially offering a free tier. How important is DDoS protection for a VPN provider? I have to say, a US based provider offering a privacy oriented service sounds like an oxymoron.
It depends on your userbase. Ever week or two I'll receive a DDoS attack. Probably streamers using the service, or somebody being controversial. Occasionally the infrastructure will get attacked.
Unfortunately, I can't pack up and leave my life behind. Yes, gag ordered National Security Letters can be issued to me requiring logging. Same applies to Private Internet Access. However, since there are no logs stored, I can't divulge anything in the event of subpoenas, court orders, etc.
@Francisco don't worry about it. I just don't want to come off as a shill.
Just remember, hosts are run by people as well contrary to popular belief.
Just out of curiosity, how much does it cost you to maintain all of those?
I don't use all of the ISPs. I've used some in the past. I currently use BuyVM, M247, Quadranet, OVH, Online.net, Worldstream.nl, Ready Server, Digital Ocean, Vultr, Mivocloud, and PieLayer.
The servers cost a total of $881.07 per month.
And you pay that out of your own pocket (except for the $2 doantions you get)?
Hey, you should look at those with expensive hobbies. 1 grand is nothing.
Donations pay for 100%
A little bit. It's not going to stop most intentional floods but it should prevent small ones.
Once you get a government mandate requiring you to enable logging what will you do? If you decide to end the project can they hold you in contempt or go after you legally in some way for disobedience? The US has secret Courts such as FISA/FISC.
Well aware of secret courts.
If I'm forced to log, well, I'm not sure what I'll do. I'd probably ask for help from the EFF and fight it. Maybe pull a Lavabit or slowly make the service as shitty as possible. If I knew contempt would be less than 6 months of incarceration, I'd probably do that.
@PrivacyInfinity I will agree with Kimsufi. Hard drives on most of their servers are damn too old. I just bought a server and checked the SMART status of hard drive. HGST hard drive is running from over 4.5 years but still no errors.
I have another Kimsufi server and on that server luckily I got a brand new HGST hard drive that was only few hours used. So it's all your luck too.
good to know informative and helpful.
what did you think of floki? i personally liked there romania server never tried the iceland one though
You could just shut down the company or go the canary route https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary
you could probably just get the ACLU EFF to successfully block any attempt to gag order log cuck you. or set something into your system that if you change or anyone attempts to edit the logging output it dbans all the servers and if it comes it comes.
alternatively prison doesen't have to be all that bad its not like shawshank lol.
plenty of vpn's genuinely dont log and face no legal issues and since its a non profit model them trying to force you would probably fail look at riseup.net offering VPN and shit to activists for years and has US servers etc and they survived even though the users of there service are almost exclusively the type of people the government wants to keep an eye on.
Which one does ignore best DMCA's? Best servers in Dallas?
You're paying peanuts for the service, I wouldn't expect new hardware.
4.5 years runtime is not that bad honestly (about 40k hours).
which host sent you the fewest abuse complaints?
Throwback to when you said this and I bought your service that was supposed to be sustainable but is now shutdown.
This is why you never buy one time pricing products lol.
Yes this is a Necro.
lol. wow. sad.
Is summer over already?
It's hard to pay $2 one time for a VPN and except it to be sustainable. I don't think you could be that silly.
Also, I don't remember him promising to keep the service going, he said multiple times in Reddit that the service woulnd't probably last another year.
@SirFoxy that was in March.
And he's still didn't say it was gonna be a lifetime thing or sustainable forever. That's just silly.
I'm sorry for your loss.
Lmao I'm not really upset but still March is literally not that long ago. And a VPN doesn't cost much to run, openvpn is single threaded.