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BuyVM / Frantech review. 3 year customer.
Hello, I've been a customer of Frantech / BuyVM for about 3 years.
I've been through a lot at Frantech, starting out with a single VPS, canceling it and then eventually getting up to a small army of VPS's for various services for my company and projects.
From the start I was highly annoyed that most of my orders would get rejected because my IP location doesn't match my own. I run a hotspot for internet - it's not really my fault the provider of the hotspot can't bother to Geolocate properly.
With that aside, everything has been very smooth. Services have been progressively getting better with more features being added to their Stallion control panel over time. Admittedly I do not take advantage of the DDoS protected IP's so I can't comment directly about them - I just know a lot of folks use them with great success.
I gravitated towards BuyVM at first because of the humor, with humor like that you know it's gon' be good. Later on learning that they are very pro-free speech. There's no arbitrary non-legal related restrictions in the AUP / ToS. If it's legal and you're not causing a problem you're good. At first I thought this as just a nice bonus.
That was till a project I run came under some intense social media pressure where a bunch of folks who thought they're doing good for the mob attempted to cancel me at the provider level. "Is it legal? Yes? Is it causing abuse of Frantech? No? Cool." Glad to know there are providers out there that understand these situations.
From a product standpoint, the VPS's are fantastic for the price. I understand my 512 slices are fair share cpu - but they're not limited so I can still install updates and compile some quick software updates as needed. Reliability is generally pretty great. No Frantech is not a 5'9s provider, I'm OK with a few minutes of downtime on a saturday night because someone got mad at Fran again. In terms of getting what I pay for, I get exactly what I pay for.
I've only submitted a few support tickets that were answered promptly.
But.
I get a lot more than what I pay for, BuyVM has a wonderous community around it on IRC / Discord where everyone who can shares tips, tricks and tries to walk people through tasks and issues.
The staff of a company make or break it in a lot of case, and the staff at Frantech have been absolutely outstanding the entire time I've been around.
On a slightly more personal note, my own interactions with Fran:
In my free time I have been building my own small VPS host, and specifically chose to rack my first VPS hardware node in the same DC as Frantech. I did this because I know I will have customers that want more single thread speed for their VPS's and I can easily refer them to Frantech for that a few racks over.
When my server arrived at the DC the techs went to rack it but it had two left rails. Something I didn't check when I shipped it out. Fran said to grab a right rail from his rail stash. Absolutely wonderful.
Then they racked it, and it wasn't powering on. Fran told me to have them drop it off in his private cage as he was going into the DC that night, and that he'd take a look at it. He didn't have to do this at all, and offered it as he'd be there.
Upon showing up Fran noticed that UPS had damaged my server, even though it was packed in 4" of foam.
Taken apart, the power button ribbon connector was ripped off of the pcb.
Fran pulled a power button assembly off of a spare chassis of his and installed it on my own node so it could operate again. Even powered it on to just make sure it starts. That's some serious dedication to the craft. I've been going through some stuff lately and having Fran step up like that to help me out means a lot more than I can really express.
Comments
Thank you sir!
Glad we were able to get your node fixed up.
They really really slammed it to bend the ear that way though, it's pretty thick steal.
Francisco
Pretty much this. I tried to buy vps from BuyVm 3 2 times. Everytime my order is cancelled because of this. I created a ticket whenever my order cancelled, and Karen told me I'm using vpn but I wasn't. Karen also told me ıf I use my home isp instead of vpn they will accept my order but like I said, I was already using my home ISP.
But I have heard nothing but good reviews about them. Wish them best.
Let me know if you’re ever wanting to try again and send me your ticket ID.
Francisco
I will let you know.
Keep 'em frantastic reviews comin'.
Wow. What is next? Francis producing organic pill food and ending world hunger? Getting peace between Israel and Palestine?
Just kidding. Frantech is doing a good job and as a customer of them I am pretty much satisfied with what I pay for. Kudos!
been a customer on and off for the past 4-5 years, the different kvm slices I've used all perform extremely well & the customer support has always been brilliant as well.
I can actually turn water into wine, but I don't drink at all, nor party much.
Francisco
Fixed that for ya, you party animal you! :-)
Have been a customer of BuyVM myself for the past couple of years, and throughout my time with them I've had nothing but good things to say about Fran and his team. They're friendly, cost-effective, and best of all their services are high-performing because of the hardware they use.
The improvements Fran and his team have made since I became a customer have been great, such as adding Path.net DDoS protection to his network, BGP sessions for customers, backups and snapshots, among others. They're also adding a Disaster Recovery storage node in Dallas, TX to ensure that customer backups and snapshots will be synced to an off-site location so that customers have access to their backups in the unfortunate event of OVH v3 occurring. Always great to have him and his team looking out for their customers.
I actually had this same problem myself years back, and this caused me to avoid using BuyVM. They also insisted at the time I was using a VPN even though I wasn't. Now that this issue is resolved, its all been smooth sailing, but I imagine there are others in the same situation.
It's always the little things they do for clients. Fran really stands out, and I like it.
Hoping to see more from him and BuyVM! Colocation/Dedicated Servers would be a huge hit.
I no longer have services there but Ive had several VPS's and reseller plans with them over the years. ZERO complaints. Id love it if they offered Dedis. Fran is first class.
Ah don't think I'll ever do either of those.
Our moderators on Discord get those though as compensation!
Francisco
I've been a customer of @Francisco for 6 years already - my BuyShared account was on LU-Shared 01 initially.
Been through a lot as well - first incarnation of LU-Shared 04 (where I was migrated) was a hell of a ride
Will ban everyone on that f..king Discord of yours for a BuyVM dedi!
Fair enough, would love to see you offer some colocation with Path
Fran is awesome, never really had a bad experience with BuyVM, and for the price it's such a good deal for what you get. I just recently setup a BGP session with them and Fran was super helpful and attentive.
Just an overall really chill guy that actually cares!
Thanks for the signup, it helped push some changes on our routeservers
I wouldn't want to compete with Path if I can help it
Francisco
I have read some really good reviews about them but personally I didn't have a good experience with Karen. Probably she is just having a bad day. The only thing i liked about their support was prompt replies.
Let me know if you got a ticket I can look into Karen can be pretty strict at times if your details are all over the place.
Francisco
@Francisco
Not a ticket, but while you're not too busy with getting Path out of the market, could you please look into FTP TLS certificate on LU-shared 04 once you have a minute?
Ticket #824749 & #448752
I think opening a ticket about it, or even shooting him a PM on Discord will work better.
@Francisco is good people and their operation.
Keep up the hard work and always innovating!
@Francisco ticket number is 824749 & 448752. Please take a look