Hostigation.Com Review - Team Tim!
Hostigation.Com Review - Team Tim!
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So I completed my BuyVM Review, and since then have waited before moving on to my Hostigation review. Bit of background, I'm just a customer who uses a lot of VPSs for different websites, web applications, phone applications and CRM based applications. I currently have services spread over Crucial Paradigm, Exigent, RackSpace and LiquidWeb, BuyVM and OnePoundWebhosting.
Signup Process
Well, if you're not scared off by the Zombie on the front of Hostigation you will find yourself in familiar waters, WHMCS signup form. Tim informs me that the Zombie keeps the scammers away, I can see how that would work 
VPS Setups
I have all KVM based VPSs with Hostigation:
1x 2048mb KVM Monthly (Webserver)
1x 2048mb KVM Monthly (Webserver)
3x 1024mb KVM Monthly (SQL, Web & Application Servers)
1x 512mb KVM Monthly (Application Server)
1x 100gb NAS
VPS Reliability
100% Uptime for the first month across all current VPS'. Included below is a photo of the uptime of one of my WebServers running DirectAdmin.
Uptime: http://i.imgur.com/2aVj2.png
The 1 Man Band
Now I really feel I need to bring this to attention, in a positive way. I see a lot of companies out there that try to pretend to be bigger than they are, make aliases on their support desks to give the look that they have multiple staff etc. Tim however does not, and I really appreciate his no bullcrap approach to this and being up front. After getting to know Tim a bit over the last month I would say I trust him more with my services than some of the larger known providers I use, in fact, his support and attention to detail has been far superior in some aspects.
Support & Communication
Both have been flawless, absolutely flawless. Whilst i'm on unmanaged VPSs there are things I need to open tickets for, regarding additional IPs, Hard Drive Space, NAS storage etc. No tickets have gone unanswered, and all tickets have been answered quickly. Most certainly Tim takes the support side of Hostigation seriously, as the responses are either "done." Or they are "done + explanation" which avoids you needing to open another ticket asking "what now?"
Tim keeps his Announcements page up to date, more so than many other hosts. I realised this after a hiccup with my first VPS I had purchased there which at the time was a small 30gb backup, and he shot me a link to the announcements.
Hostigation Ticket: http://i.imgur.com/v0zL8.jpg
Hostigation Ticket: http://i.imgur.com/7zp59.jpg
Technical Proficiency
I call him "Team Tim" in private, so this will be the first he hears of it. However Tim has the technical proficiency of a whole team between those two ears of his. There has been times where I have struggled with things and I have spent a lot of time (in some cases multiple days) reading and researching the issue. Tim so eloquently puts it to me that "can only watch a man beat himself in the head for so long" and 20 seconds later all is well in the world and my issues are solved. At which point I then go and look in the history to see what he has done, and sure enough it's one of his ninja lines of code that has solved everything.
There hasn't been an issue that Tim has had to "research" associated with my account. He just "knows." All of my VPSs with Hostigation are KVM based, I have enough confidence in Hostigation even though they're a budget provider that I have confidently put production level services with Hostigation.
The Network & Nodes
MY KVM's are based in LA, California. The network is good to excellent, and I am getting well above the speeds and rates I expected to get at this price range for a VPS. Certainly is not over saturated, and I don't get huge gaps in transmission and packet loss, it is consistently stable and reliable. The performance of the Nodes themselves I find excellent for high CPU usage applications.
Below is taken from my 1gb KVM Webserver:
joel@web:~$ wget -O /dev/null http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test --2012-01-05 17:09:49-- http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175 Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[============================================================================================================>] 104,857,600 56.4M/s in 1.8s 2012-01-05 17:09:51 (56.4 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
GeekBench Score 5813: http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/539040
Overall
After nearly 2 months with Hostigation I simply can't fault them, the term "under promised and over delivered" is what comes to mind. For a 1 man band outfit Hostigation punches well above its weight, and consistently delivers reliable results. When I initially looked at Hostigation I was looking for value for money, now I don't look at Hostigation the same way, what I see is quality for the money I spend there.
If and when Tim does decide to expand and bring on staff, I just hope they are 25% as knowledgable and proficient as he is.
A final note, I pay for all of my VPS's with Hostigation. I'm not on some "deal" and Tim doesn't give me any freebies, there's no sponsorship, back-scratching or shady endorsement deals going on that you see with some companies throwing 12 years olds free VPSs. I am more than happy to give you a link if you send me a PM to sites hosted with Hostigation for your own curiosity, and a link to the status page where you can see the loads and current network I/O etc.
Regards,
Joel
Comments
Hostigation is a good VPS provider. I have two vps with them and I would like to keep them both.
Nice review Joel! Too bad I live in Europe, so I guess the speeds would suck over here. But maybe not. Would like to know what sites you're hosting, maybe to test some speed to Holland?
I sent you a few sites via PM, you can do trace routes etc and pings back on them. I should actually setup a SpeedTest off one of them, i'll do that tonight and post up again so you can test from my VPS straight to you.
Regards,
Joel
Way to go Tim!
Is Tim going to share the room in SJC with Fran? :P
I know Tim is doing well in his business and am satisfied with the performance of my tiny KVM with hostigation. Zero problem so far.
Can you also PM me your site? It's interesting to see what kind of site can be hosted on these huge VPS's.
I heard your hosting joeltheodoreforpriminister.com.au and sendthewelshladyhome.com.au .
I will get a vps from hostigation, i'm just curious about the ping back to Nsw
Karl, you in Australia ?
Yeah
I dropped you some links and IP to services I have there so you can see yourself.
Thanks
Thanks for the review, Tim and Hostigation rocks!!!
but isn't taking services from a one man show company risky?
What if some unfortunate thing happens and the person is not available for say a week?
What if some unfortunate thing happens and the person is not available for say a week?
A good point, but Tim has been in the providing business in one form or another since the mid 90s. You don't last nigh on 20 years without having contingencies in place, I'm pretty sure he has arrangements with his DCs in case of such a scenario :P
Are the KVM nodes you are on really in San Jose? I see Los Angeles as the only West Coast choice. (and LA is where my Hostigation VPS is)
Tim and Hostigation have been fantastic. Very very good network and IO performance. And connection from Asia is very stable and good. Support tickets are promptly attended to. Can't recommend enough.
Again, thumbs up to Hostigation. :-)
Ahh good point, my BuyVM KVMs are in San Jose. These are in LA!
I was switching between them all day today doing backups, so a total brain fart. I'll edit.
I've had companies with multiple staff have nothing unfortunate happen and take more than a week to answer a ticket. In the end keep backups, I do this even with my LiquidWeb accounts, no matter how big or small the provider.
+1 for Hostigation - superb service & support.
The SC location has been great for me here in eastern Canada.
Tim continues to prove that you dont need a large support team to provide a quality service, +1 from me to Hostigation
I have nodes in South Carolina, and soon in Charlotte proper that have excellent routing to Europe, but still there are so many great choices in the UK, France and Germany, unless you want a VPN for the hulu/youtube content, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Well, the pricing in the EU is a bit higher on KVM and hearing about the awesomeness of Hostigation I might be interested. Too bad i missed the X-mas deal
It was only available in LA.
True, but it could be faster if Level3 or nLayer would be in the BGP mix. It takes 99 ms to reach my VPS in SC from NL.
The space I added is Level3 and RoadRunner, and will probably add Cogent to that mix after I get back to growth mode for the east coast. I have no real complaints about where I am now, I just cannot grow the location anymore.
Awesome awesome review! I would like to say, even as a kid being too cheap to spend $10 a month on a server, Tim has been an awesome help, often assisting me with silly problems and mistakes (usually created entirely by myself!). If you go with Hostigation, you will not regret it.
Also, good to know that the zombie I Googled and placed on the front page during design scares away scammers! He does excellent work!
It is not politically correct to say "zombie". It is a "necro american" ;-) Just kidding, hope nobody felt offended.
As promised http://hostigation.speedtest.j0el.in/
That's running off one of the KVMs.