All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
ZAP-Hosting Lifetime Servers - Discussion, Updates
This should be a discussion Thread concerning ZAP-Hosting's Lifetime Servers/Offers
Website: https://zap-hosting.com/en/
Crunchbase Company profile: Click
Northdata: Click
Status Page: https://status.zap-hosting.com/
YABS (from April 2023): VPS, Root Server 1, Root Server 2
In General:
ZAP-Hosting (German company, founded in 2010), after providing Lifetime Minecraft Servers for many years, have recently extended their product line to include:
- Lifetime "vServer" (LXC); from 79€ for 2vCores, 8GB RAM, 25GB, 500 Mbit/s, 1 IPv4
- Lifetime "Rootserver" (KVM); from 154.80€, 4vCores, 8GB RAM, 60GB SSD NAS, 500 Mbit/s, 1Ipv4, Intel Xeon E5-2650v2/Intel Xeon E5-2667v2
- Lifetime Dedicated Servers; from 572.80€ for 1x Intel Xeon E5-2603v2, 4 Cores, 1,8 Ghz base clock, 64GB RAM, 500GB SSD, 1 IPv4
- Lifetime Webhosting; from 46.80€ for 5GB, 40 e-Mail accounts, 40 MySQL databases, they use Plesk.
You will find that the products first display the monthly price, but in the box to the right where the price total is displayed there is an option where you can click "OR xx€ lifetime".)
Sustainability:
According to the ZAP-Hosting website, there are currently 4043+ active Lifetime Servers , and about 32863 active servers in total. This suggests that while lifetime deals are often considered to be a rip-off and not sustainable, even after deducting 5000-lifetime servers, there would still be about 27000 active servers that are paid through subscriptions/prepaid contracts, suggesting that ZAP-Hosting has enough revenue to sustain their lifetime offers and/or doesn't just vanish overnight.
The total assets were counted as 1.926.615€ in 2021 according to data from Northdata (link above).
The catch (MUST READ!):
ZAP-Hosting, in the light of extending their lifetime server product line, seems to have updated their Terms of Service now requiring ALL their customers who purchased any kind of lifetime product (Minecraft Server/Webspace/vServer/Rootserver/Dedicated Server and future offerings) to log into their ZAP-Hosting Dashboard AND open up the respective product's control panel (e.g. if you have a vps with them, open the vps control panel; if you have a Minecraft Server..) once every 3 months to avoid suspension due to inactivity. If you service/product has been suspended due to inactivity you will apparently receive an email stating that you have 4 weeks to contact them, before your service/product gets cancelled permanently and any right to refund is waived.
ToS excerpt regarding lifetime products (April 9th, 2023):
§ 10 Lifetime products
(1) Products designated as lifetime products are paid for once instead of recurring.
(2) The term Lifetime/infinite/lifelong describes the lifelong right to use the product until it becomes inactive.
(3)** The case of inactivity occurs if the named lifetime product is not accessed by the customer in the customer web interface within 3 months. ZAP-Hosting then reserves the right to switch off and block the product.
If the customer does not contact us for a further 4 weeks after the blocking (grace period), the product will be permanently deleted and the entitlement to lifelong use will be cancelled.** The customer expressly waives the right to a refund of the purchase price.
After contacting us within the grace or blocking period, the inactivity case will be lifted for the time being and the product will be fully usable again.
(4) Lifetime products cannot be paid for with ZAP credits (ZAP Coins) or ZAP coin voucher codes.
I confirmed via Ticket that you DO NOT get a warning before the service gets suspended and was advised by the support staff to add a reminder on my phone (e.g. Google Calendar) to remember to log into the Dashboard and open up the product page. The support staff, however, indicated that during time of suspension, the data would not be removed from the service, albeit they stated that it's always good to have backups in the same sentence. I suggested they contact their customers 1-2 weeks PRIOR to suspension in order to avoid production service suddenly getting suspended and apparently my suggestion was forwarded to whomever (likely /dev/null ).
I also confirmed via ticket that the new change with the inactivity clause affects ALL lifetime products and ALL customers, no matter when the product was purchased.
This means that anyone who purchased a Minecraft lifetime server from any of these Threads ( Thread LES, Thread 1 LET, Thread 2 LET) is affected by this and should log into the dashboard and open up their Minecraft server page asap to avoid any suspension for inactivity and/or possible deletion.
This affects, among others, @Logano @Jamph @dedipromo @kalimov622 @yokowasis @Radi .
Ironically, @Neoon mentioned in one of the threads that ZAP Hosting had such an inactivity clause in the past, but at the time of ordering the Minecraft Servers back then this clause had been removed and only came back to light with the extension of the lifetime product line, it seems.
This part about the inactivity clause sounds tedious and annoying, but I'm sure some people might still be tempted and bite. I am/was tempted myself but holding back due to the annoying clause about inactivity.
I am a lifetime hoarder at heart and I can live with Ivacy VPN requesting me to contact them once every 5 years to extend the offer, but logging into the Dashboard once every 3 months is really annoying.
The company has been around for 13 years now and it's likely not going anywhere so fast. It has, however, also never been known to have a stellar reputation in the german gamserver market in terms of performance and customer reviews.
Comments
That's just their business model. Because they people will buy this, eventually end up not using this, and well, they basically paid for like say 30 months of service while just using 14 (just a example), so this is how they make their profit.
I find the VPS thing also silly. Yes, okay, it's understandable that for the MC server you have to only log in to their panel to actually manage it, but for VPS? just because I do not log into my panel doesn't mean it's not being used, so it's really silly, but again. it is what it is. Just accept the fact you can't have lifetime anything, we too one day will die you know? Even living isn't a lifetime, how do you expect VPS's and stuff to be
Yeah, I agree. It's silly for VPS. Like, after I setup my VPS, I only login from MobaXterm and won't open the VPS panel for months.
That said, I assume logging in wouldn't be that much of an effort for me, as I also go through the lengths to cancel my Readly sub always after the 2 free months, wait a couple months for their newsletter and sign up for a free 2 months again. So I always have to put reminders in Google Calendar to cancel Readly sub + PayPal sub after 2 months so I won't get charged. I learned this the MyDealz way so..I am used to such "tasks" to keep/earn free/cheap stuff. Not saying it's good or convenient..
Plus, now I have to log in every 3 months anyway, because I already have a lifetime Minecraft Server from 2021 lol.
Till they fail or change their rules. Or out of money. There was a many examples. Everyone wants everything running forever. And never pay again.
Trust me, Lifetime is a joke.
Remind some Canadian provider with their Lifetime promises. But they quickly fail and asking for monthly payments. Quick money always sweet.
Anyone purchasing "lifetime" subscriptions to services that require electricity/bandwidth/upkeep are just asking to be disappointed. Don't do it. Things cost money, all day every day, regardless if you're paying monthly or not.
What happens when that provider faces unforeseen costs due to maintenance/emergency repairs or price increases? Once you burn through that "one time" money, it's gone. You are still obligated to provide those people with service. Every day those people keep those servers on and using resources, it's costing that provider. You can only bleed so long before you completely bleed out.
If you think a provider is going to keep your "Lifetime" vps running while dipping into their personal funds iinstead of just cutting bait and bailing out with whatever cash they may have, I've got a lifetime VPS to sell you.
I agree, but I usually buy such lifetime deals with the intention to last long enough to get my money's worth, not to last for a lifetime.
I bought @MikePT lifetime a couple of years ago and even if he closes shop one day, I paid peanuts. I also picked up Keepsolid VPN lifetime in 2016 for 40$ and Ivacy VPN Lifetime for 40$ in 2017, same for Windscribe lifetime. If they close shop it's sad, but it's been a good ride. Ivacy was funded in 2008, Keepsolid was funded in 2013 iirc. They must be doing something right (even if it's selling user data) to keep them alive. And as long as they are alive, I'll enjoy their services. pCloud was also funded in 2013, I bought my lifetime sub a couple years ago. If it lasts 2 more years I'm already happy and will have gotten my money's worth. pCloud, too, has been around for a long time. I totally agree with you, it's unrealistic to expect such services to last forever or be sustainable for decades to come. But that's not what I expect either. Hence why I wish those deals would be labeled "one time charge" instead of "lifetime" as to not create false expectations.
ZAP is such a shitty company. They totally disregard that you cancel their servers and just keep billing. Threats about transferring you to collection service is sent automatically - simply part of the business model. No matter how many times you cancel ZAP will just say "you forgot to cancel you have to pay".
one of the worst companys in germany. Support is very unqualified, many downtimes,....
What software you are using for your real uptime site?
Running YABS in the background. Meanwhile some stats:
Says who? Nexusbites is lifetime. if you have any doubts, check https://heartbeat.nexusbytes.com after 120 years and all systems will still be operational.
yes
they also got a new website recently, https://nexusbytes.com - now its in swedish, aiming for different market perhaps?
YABS (Geekbench 6 aborted,Geekbench 5 worked).
Disk speed is kind of meh (it's no ssd though), and IP Location shows Pakistan (not correct) but still I'll be able to make use of this machine.
Absolutely. Zap-Hosting is also not a good provider for any kind of promises.
Nice, I have been using their services for a while, happy with their performance and uptime.
@Ympker
I have learned one thing during my time as a hosting company: No matter how hard I try to create a lifetime calculation, I fail every time. It is simply not possible, especially in combination with their fair-use clauses. What prevents me from permanently utilizing the server to its maximum capacity with "legal" services that do not violate the TOS? From a hosting perspective, this is absolutely unpredictable, and my personal opinion is that hosts who offer such things are not to be taken seriously professionally.
Here is my Geekbench 6 result:
I can see where you are coming from, but here it's probably worth it for them, because they get lots of upfront cash, while the main part of their income (about 27000 recurring subscriptions when deducting their lifetime servers) is coming through recurring renewals allowing them to stay afloat. On top of that, they've made it so people who forget to login every 3 months might have their product suspended and even permanently deleted if they don't contact them in a certain timeframe. While offering only lifetime servers might not be feasible, I doubt they'd be doing something that's not in their interest.
Bad reputation or not, they've got about a million euros in total assets so they must be doing something right. What's more, not everyone would host production on their servers. There are hobby projects who will happily bite on lifetime servers and overall just don't want to worry about recurring fees, too.
@alt_ what's your intended use case atm? I'll setup a private vpn some time these days.
Just received an email from ZAP Hosting reminding me to login and open the dashboard of one of my lifetime servers before December 30th in order to avoid suspension. They even put a direct link to the dashboard of the specific product. Quite nice tbh. This way they remind you to login and avoid suspension. Even after suspension you'd have 30 days to contact them to re-activate it though.
zap hosting lifetime game servers are a joke and support sucks i regret giving them my money
My lifetime gameserver crashes constantly without even any mods. Trick is to ask to be moved to another host system, then it works for 2-3 months. I bought the lifetime Gameserver before they had lifetime vps. Lifetime vps are working just fine, so just get that one in case you need another gameserver and install your own
zap-hosting sucks from their beginning
They've had quite the history, however, my two lifetime vps are doing just fine atm
Had a lifetime dedicated since ~May and it's been pretty solid so far. Used it for a few gameservers and other projects.
Also had the same email that @Ympker had which was a handy reminder to log in.
they suck since the beginning and they still sucks. People wont get happy buying from them imo
ZAP Hosting Lifetime VPS 35% off for 30 more minutes: Save 35% on Lifetime VPSs
Code: FgiCThMu
https://zap-hosting.com/en/shop/product/lifetime-linux-vserver/
ZAP Hosting Flash Deal on Lifetime VPS is back but "only" 25%off (yesterday it was 35% iirc).
Save 25% on Lifetime VPSs
Code: xX8QFGfY
More Black Friday deals: Click
Ends in:
3o Minute(s)
https://zap-hosting.com/en/shop/product/lifetime-linux-vserver/
Windows Server that is offered is server 2016 and 2019 both of these OS's are EOL
Also if you using Linux OS you can't update the OS via dist update as it breaks the VM