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HostHatch Review
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HostHatch Review

IshaqIshaq Member
edited October 2013 in Reviews

Hey guys,

Today I'm doing another review of a provider which deserves more attention on the low end market.

Note: All reviews I make are unbiased and are based on my experience.

Today I'm going to review:

image

These guys are good at what they do, and since they don't have any reviews here I thought I'd write one up for them.

I plan on reviewing by firstly giving a score out of 5 and then a brief review. We're going to look at the following:

Price (how fair the pricing is)

Reliability (of the company)

Support (reply times and helpfulness)

Stability (of the network)

Uptime (of the hardware)

Performance (of the VPS)

Let's start:

Price: ★★★★/5

The price I'm paying ($3 for 512MB and 10GB SSD disk) is fair for a provider in Europe with SSD. I got it during a promotion, it's normally sold at $4 with half the RAM.

Reliability: ★★★★★/5

The company is a registered Incorporation in the state of Florida and have been in business for over 2 years. @Abdullah and the rest of the team know how to operate so I have no complaints there.

Support: ★★★★★/5

I opened about 3 tickets and they're all answered in a matter of hours, with helpful and to the point replies. They follow up which is also a plus.

Stability: ★★★★/5

The network is stable, I haven't noticed any major outages. I'm able to download at 100Mbps+ pretty much all the time. Latency is around 35ms for me (I'm UK based and the server is in NL)

Uptime: ★★★★/5

Apart from the short downtime due to DDoS which they quickly resolved (happens to everyone), my VPS has a month of uptime.

Performance: ★★★★★/5

Access to 4 shared cores on an E3-1270 V3 processor, you can certainly feel how snappy it is. The disk's I/O is a whopping 1.1GB/s so for the price I pay I'm pleased to say the least :)


That's it for today folks, if a provider would like to be honestly reviewed please send a PM my way and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks.

«13

Comments

  • SCAM from HostHatch! They STEAL MY MONEY after pre-payment for 6 months!

    I deposited in Advance to my HostHatch account a 6 month pre-payment, incl. the cPanel option, so that when the invoice arrives, my websites and service won’t be interrupted.
    HostHatch, by mistake, suspended my account because no invoice was generated.
    I contacted them, they apologised and re-activate my account, BUT now all my websites were not working, my DNS was not resolving as it was before.

    I asked them politely either fix or refund me because I don’t know how to fix deal with it.
    They said I should pay another company that they recommend to fix it for me, because for this price they only provide hardware, not support.

    Since it’s been less than 7 days from my payment/billing cycle, I asked them for a refund. On top of that they never wish to help, like most other hosting providers do. I pay 30$ per month for a VPS including a cPanel (a 6 month pre-payment), I believe at least I should get some support, especially when the problem started after they, by mistake, suspended my account after which all my sites don’t work!

    I Canceled my service for which I prepaid through my Control Panel, so they know that I am not using it since I am asking for a refund in which they replied: "Submitting a cancellation request is not the channel to request for a refund, this is your choice to cancel your service immediately (early) or at the end of the billing period (the end).”
    So now I prepaid for 6 months then canceled after few days and they keep all my money. Do you guys believe is right to treat your customers this way? Any Recommendation guys you can give me or to them regarding this situation?

    Thanked by 1colingpt
  • I have used HostHatch for over a year, and are very happy. So they are not a scam.
    Here is my review of them, and like the OP, I'm happy with them.

  • Nice bump

    Ishaq this is why imageshack is crap

  • @myhken said:
    I have used HostHatch for over a year, and are very happy. So they are not a scam.
    Here is my review of them, and like the OP, I'm happy with them.

    I guess you are not in my situation. They RIPPED me off! no Money no Service!

  • @alexsosn it's seems like they restored service, but you did not know that it can take 24-72 hours before all DNS servers is updated. I expect it was in that time you "polite" ask them to fix or give you a refund.
    Most likely the server was up an running at this time, so there was nothing HostHatch could fix for you, for you manage your own DNS.

    Then you went ballistic, and told them you would do a chargeback. Then all communication broke down, for if any body threaten with a chargeback, the host normally don't want to communicate anymore with you.

    Are I'm correct on most point, or please show us screenshots of your polite tickets and replies, proving me wrong.

  • IshaqIshaq Member

    linuxthefish said: Ishaq this is why imageshack is crap

    Gyazo or Lightshot is to blame, can't remember which one I used.

    Thanked by 1KwiceroLTD
  • matthewvzmatthewvz Member, Host Rep

    @alexsosn said:
    I guess you are not in my situation. They RIPPED me off! no Money no Service!

    I'm fairly certain that HostHatch is unmanaged. Unmanaged means taking care of the network and the node, nothing inside of your VM. Perhaps you should look into hiring a sysadmin or finding a more managed solution.

  • RadiRadi Host Rep, Veteran
    edited March 2015

    @alexsosn said:
    I guess you are not in my situation. They RIPPED me off! no Money no Service!

    You had an active server, just websites were not resolving. Did you check if it's booted in SolusVM?
    Did you try restarting it? Did you check the VM for any errors?

    //I assume your nameservers were on same vps.

  • How do you know all that I went ballistic, is not true! ))) I was very polite and I asked them politely to fix the problem they created or refund me asap as per 7 days money back policy, they refused me on several occasions.

    You guys won't help me solve this problem with them. I am just writing a review.

  • @Radi said:
    //I assume your nameservers were on same vps.

    I tried all. I just can't get why they treat customers like that. Put yourself in my situation. No money I prepaid! I even asked to at least give me back the cPanel licence I prepaid. they also keep it!
    So.

  • @alexsosn when you tell the host that you will do a chargeback, then something in your communication has gone wrong.

    You have seen this text when you add funds there:

    And did you buy a managed service or DNS service from HostHatch? If no, when they put your VPS online again, you have to manage the server and fix any issues with your setup. It's not HostHatch task. If you want that kind of service, you have to go with a fully managed host, and use ALLOT more money per month.

    Of course, HostHatch should refund money prorata for the days/hours the server was down because of this error. But only to the point there they restored service.
    But I think you went ballistic before that was any topic.

  • RadiRadi Host Rep, Veteran

    @alexsosn Is your server active right now?

  • No they shut down my account and kept all my money!

  • RadiRadi Host Rep, Veteran

    Ah, I was thinking to try to help you bring the stuff online. But it's gone anyway. Better luck next time. :)

  • @Radi said:
    Ah, I was thinking to try to help you bring the stuff online. But it's gone anyway. Better luck next time. :)

    I appreciate, Thanks @Radi!

  • KwiceroLTDKwiceroLTD Member
    edited March 2015

    alexsosn said: No they shut down my account and kept all my money!

    ...
    Customer: "i know it's unmanaged but you must fix my services i pay you to!"

    Company: "Buy a managed service and we can help you, otherwise you're on your own"

    Customer: "i will charge back!"

    Company: "Good bye, account closed."

    Just my attitude on the situation.

  • hosthatchhosthatch Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    Hi guys. I'd like to clarify this from our point of view. Just went through @alexsosn's tickets and spoke with the person who handled his account on our side.

    Let me start from the beginning:

    Alex purchased the server from us about half an year ago and faced management issues from day one. We helped him out but we also clarified that we are an unmanaged provider and that we cannot help with such issues in the future.

    The next day, he faced issues with DNS. His nameservers were incorrectly configured. Reading through the ticket, we were blamed for this as, according to Alex, Godaddy had told him to contact his hosting provider as it was not Godaddy's fault. We again clarified that we are not a managed hosting provider but shed some light on how the issue can be fixed. To this, Alex told us that he was disappointed and in his 15 years of experience in the VPS hosting industry, he had never seen a provider not help him with these things.

    I see quite a few tickets from that day till today, including us being blamed for cpanel blocking his login requests, being blacklisted from the VPS CP for failed login requests and quite a few other things. Every time his tone seems to suggest that we are responsible for his server issues and help, which was not included in the service was 'demanded', not 'requested'.

    About a month ago, Alex requested us to downgrade the server package for him and provide him a discount as he had been a customer with us for 6 months. We did so and his service was downgraded. The service was renewed for the next 6 months here. A few days later, after the due date, due to an error on our side, his service was suspended on a cron run as the billing system thought his service is overdue. I am not exactly sure what caused this but I believe it was because the invoice was paid from his available account credit and not a direct payment gateway. This was fixed a few hours later and the server was rebooted.

    About a day later, Alex told us that his DNS is not working and asked us what his IP addresses are. We told him we have never changed the IP addresses. He said that the IP address is not resolving anywhere and showed us a test that was trying to resolve an IP address to a domain. We clarified that an IP address is not supposed to resolve anywhere, it is the domain that needs to resolve to the IP address. For this, we were told that he wants a refund but is unable to take any backups from the server because the domain isn't resolving. As a domain not resolving should have no effect whatsoever on the server itself and backups can still be taken, we saw that there was a clear lack of server management skills and again referred him to hire a management company to take care of this for him.

    We told him that a refund would not be possible because we have a 7 days money back in case of problems on our side and it applies to all new services. His service was not a new one. After he was clearly told that his service does not qualify for a refund, he chose to place an immediate cancellation request which automatically cancels the service. Once that was processed, he again asked for a refund because "he had no service, why should we keep any money"...we clarified that placing a cancellation request does not mean that we can provide a refund. We told him that we can reactivate his service if he would like. Alex said that he will open a dispute if we do not provide a refund. We told him if a dispute was opened, we will provide the exact same details to Paypal as we have provided him and let them decide the outcome however we will not reactivate his service again in that case.

    He opened a dispute, we provided the details to Paypal and the dispute was decided in our favor. The same day, Alex chose to spam-call the number listed in our domain's whois. The person on the phone told him to send in a ticket as his personal phone is not something used for support. We received a ticket from Alex asking us to either provide the service or provide a refund. We told him that we were more than happy to provide the service and offered to do so, before he chose to open the dispute. From that day onwards, we've received quite a few tickets, emails and spam-calls even at 3 AM. His phone number was blocked to prevent any further calls at 3 AM and his account with us was closed.

    As a personal courtesy (after all, I had to do a couple hours of reading and now this writing, on a Sunday evening of the only multiple-weeks vacation I have took from HH in the past 4 years), I can reactivate his account if he chooses to hire someone for the management of his server.

  • alexsosnalexsosn Member
    edited March 2015

    Yes, that was the order of things, thank you for not lying. On the other hand, I never experienced such a bad customer service, especially as an existing customer. All my sites were working fine before HostHatch made an error of suspending my account. I asked them for help to fix the small server problem, NOT demanded, or provide me with a refund since for $30/month I can get a VPS with cPanel somewhere else. I told them I don't want any war and asked them to help me fix this in a friendly manner but they refused at all times! I believe I was polite enough until I realized I was left with nothing, never used bad words in my communication, including the 2 times I spoke to someone on the phone.

    In the end, after all my attempts, I wrote this reply after which they accused me with a threat of a charge back, closed my account and kept all my 6 Months pre-payment money for Hosting and cPanel licence:

    "As you can see we cant get along since i believe in customer support and

    respect and you dont. I even renewed my contract expecting all to stay the
    same. Is either you refund my money under 7 days money back policy, it
    doesnt say in there initial contract only, or you are forcing me to do a
    credit card charge back."

    Sorry, I think we can not work together, I am simply asking for a refund please.

  • jvnadrjvnadr Member
    edited March 2015

    alexsosn said: Yes, that was the order of things, thank you for not lying. On the other hand, I never experienced such a bad customer service, especially as an existing customer. All my sites were working fine before HostHatch made an error of suspending my account.

    I think that the company is not a scam, but you are. In fact, you are foolish enough to buy an unmanaged service only because it is cheap, when you obvious do not know a sh*t about handling a server, and then blaming an unmanaged vps provider because of your lack of knowledge. And when you lose the case to paypal, you do what? Spaming and speculating your provider to forums you subscribe to just today to write as first post this... "review"! People like you should be banned from all unmanaged vps providers, even more when calling names and speculating a provider that as it seems, tried to do his best to help you.

  • alexsosn said: Sorry, I think we can not work together, I am simply asking for a refund please.

    And, please, hosthatch, DO NOT refund him. Even better, report him for fraud!

  • IshaqIshaq Member

    This was a small review I did 2 years ago. Now it's turned into an argument and should really be discussed in private or in a separate thread.

    Shall I get this closed?

    Thanked by 1geekalot
  • matthewvzmatthewvz Member, Host Rep

    @Ishaq said:
    This was a small review I did 2 years ago. Now it's turned into an argument and should really be discussed in private or in a separate thread.

    Shall I get this closed?

    Probably.

  • mikhomikho Member, Host Rep

    But we are so close ...... Give it a few more replies and when resolved or not, I'll split the topic.

    Thanked by 3Ishaq KwiceroLTD cassa
  • mikho said: But we are so close ...... Give it a few more replies and when resolved or not, I'll split the topic.

    We just really need a dedicated thread for non-sense, angry customers who pay for unmanaged services, and people who can't read the fine print.

  • 4n0nx4n0nx Member

    How can they stay so calm when dealing with such a customer. o.O

  • timnboystimnboys Member
    edited March 2015

    @alexsosn if you don't have server admin skills why did you get a vps which requires it instead of like shared hosting where everything is mostly taken care of(like the upgrades, etc of the server and software like cpanel)?
    And fyi they aren't a scam they didn't just take off with your money, and you are in the wrong not them.
    as reading what the provider above said you're in the wrong not them they tried helping you all they could but you wouldn't help them help you you decided instead to go crazy instead.

    Thanked by 2xDragonZ KwiceroLTD
  • I am seeing a bias towards the host here. But fairly speaking, If a host can not refund the money taken then he should not cancel the service also. Let the client keep the VM idle. But don' t deny him the access.

    Take the case of some goods you have bought. If you cannot return it for a refund you get to keep it. The merchant can not take the goods and keep the money also.

    Thanked by 1geekalot
  • @mashokk369 said:
    I am seeing a bias towards the host here. But fairly speaking, If a host can not refund the money taken then he should not cancel the service also. Let the client keep the VM idle. But don' t deny him the access.

    Take the case of some goods you have bought. If you cannot return it for a refund you get to keep it. The merchant can not take the goods and keep the money also.

    Yes I agree with that but you do know if he prepaid for 6 months he gets to keep it for 6 months? but after hearing what the host went through trying to help him and him blaming them I would just hand him the money back and tell him to go to shared hosting instead. as what I was saying above it would help him better if someone else took care of the server & etc(including software like cpanel) until he gets the server admin skills required to handle/manage a vm or vps.

  • hosthatchhosthatch Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited March 2015

    @mashokk369 said:
    I am seeing a bias towards the host here. But fairly speaking, If a host can not refund the money taken then he should not cancel the service also. Let the client keep the VM idle. But don' t deny him the access.

    Take the case of some goods you have bought. If you cannot return it for a refund you get to keep it. The merchant can not take the goods and keep the money also.

    We did not cancel the service. After his refund request was denied, he placed an immediate cancellation request and told us "he has no service, so why should we keep any money?" We offered to reactivate his service. Once a dispute was threatened, we told him if a dispute was opened, the account will be closed and no service will be possible. This was clear to him before he opened the dispute. Please don't confuse the words refund and dispute.

    I've offered above to reactivate his service, even though he has tried to take money by force (that's what a dispute is) but we are also not going to take any further blame for any further management related issues. That is why the OP needs to have someone take care of his server or learn to correctly manage it (there's quite a bit of cPanel documentation out there).

  • HWAYSHWAYS Member

    I used HostHatch a lot in the past and I am more than glad.

This discussion has been closed.