When selecting a hosting provider, what factors are most important to you?

dustinc

@velton said:
Ticket support. im not a hosting guy. im just web ui designer. i dont know much about hosting. this is why im only looking for reliability support. i have no clue at all when my client asks me about hosting technical issue.

to talk about reliability , i would like to give a credit to @dustinc and his support team. their team helps to resolve a lot of issue of mine. well done.

with the affordable price i surprised excellent support from Racknerd. im writing this because i have some my country local hosting provider which far more expensive but not good in support.

disclaim, im not affiliate from Racknerd.

Hi @velton -- We sincerely appreciate you recognizing our efforts and commitment to providing quality support. While we're not perfect, right from our inception, we've always given it our all to ensure that our customers receive true, 24x7 customer support they can count on. Despite the surge of AI in this day and age, we are sticking to good old human touch within our support team. We truly believe that nothing beats real, human interaction -- and that's why we guarantee the availability of numerous staff members on every shift, as we understand our customers not only deserve affordable services, but also human support that’s constantly there for them.

Thank You for your continued support and business over the years Here's to many more together.

Babak

@fatchan said:
Here are a few of mine:

• Define limits clearly in a fair use policy, and be careful saying "unlimited" or "unmetered". If you say unlimited/unmetered transfer on a typical 1gbps port, would you really tolerate running up several hundred TB in a month on that $10 vps? Most likely no, but many providers will still advertise this lie and mislead inexperienced or naive customers. Don't be afraid to give an exact number.

• Communicate downtime and/or incidents responsibly. If there is planned maintenance or downtime, communicate this to any customers that may be affected in advance. If there was an unscheduled incident, communicate to affected customers and if possible produce a post-mortem of what the issue was and the steps you will take to prevent a recurrence of this issue in the future.

• When an abuse report is received about something hosted by one of your customers, unless there is egregious or repeated violation of your terms of use or obvious violation of laws, forward the report to the customer and give them the opportunity to remedy the problem. Here is an excerpt from OVH's abuse report email response which is a good example:

OVHcloud conducts its activities in compliance with applicable laws and we prohibit the use of our services for purposes contrary to our general terms and conditions.

It is important to note that most of our services are rented "unmanaged" to our customers. This means that we only have access to the power supply of the server. We can only maintain the hardware of the infrastructure and we are prevented from being able to access to its content (no root, administrator, or user access).

Please note that we cannot guarantee that your request will achieve the desired outcome. We are subject to the policies of ICANN of the respective registries and, where applicable, local and international laws.
We are also bound by the contracts with our customers. As we do not manage the server, we are technically not able to modify or delete any content, or to prevent any abusive behavior by intervening directly on the server.

We are able to block a domain only in the case of clear and obvious violations of the law. Before practicing any blocking of a domain, we usually try to contact the domain owner to give him the opportunity to solve the problem before taking any action on our side.

Furthermore, we are not allowed to disclose the customer information to third parties. Therefore, before reporting us any abuse, we can only advise you to check if it is not better to fill a complaint or to contact directly the domain holder to achieve the desired outcome.

Great points,

Thank you for sharing

dahartigan

They must have an interesting business name and also the service must be strong on plow and all chickens must lay bricks.

desperand

When selecting a hosting provider, what factors are most important to you?

1. Price
2. Latency
3. Resources for price like 3.5 USD for 1RAM GB, 7GB SSD/NVMe Disk, and CPU Core 2Ghz+
4. Easy registration without any issues
5. Optionally DDoS Protection (at least something)
6. no issues while using (mostly about performance and downtime issues), so I will return back again and again to use more services.
7. Optionally knowledge base for basic adminstrative stuff like to use their own CP
8. Functions inside CP (os re-install to modern actual server distros, because in 2023 to see Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, and 20.04 not okay on some providers)

What does not matter at all:

• design
• "reputation shit"
• SEO shit
• optional addons/perks per VPS

What is really important:

• performance for paid money. I agree to boost price for 1GB RAM + 7GB SSD/NVMe even to $5 / mo, if provided services with quality like ExtraVM or AlphaVPS has. Not need very cheap shit, just provide quality, and it will self-promote your services. I do invite a lot of people who related to me to use ExtraVM or AlphaVPS without any refferal shit, because these providers do excellent job.

emgh

@rcy026 said:

@Babak said:
Is a back solution essential for VPS services? If yes, what kind of backup solutions do you usually use?

Nice yes, essential no.
I would not trust my backups to the same provider that hosts the server anyway. If they fuck up my server they will probably fuck up the backup too. Or, as seen so many times here on let, they deadpool and both server and backup are gone.

I think backups and/or snapshots with a good API for scheduling is a must.

Clearly you should have offsite backups, but backups allow the provider to restore from latest backup themselves if they fuck my server up while I sleep.

And snapshots at least allow for me to restore it in a few seconds to minutes without pulling up backups.

emgh

@SirFoxy said:
I don’t use new companies, usually. I have been with BuyVM since like 2015.

It’s not the highest quality provider here, but it’s hosted my personal site that I sell services through and it’s gotten the job done with minimal complaints.

That’s my criteria. Don’t give me things to complain about and work when you need to work at a respectable price.

Also, I do want to clarify that a respectable price isn’t the lowest price but where value meets an exchange of currency.

For example, I would never use a company like HostHatch or VirMach that doesn’t add something like customer service into the pricing equation of a product.

With BuyVM I feel content with the price I pay and the full experience, including the support/team.

OVH and MXroute are the only other two providers I use here (production MXroute/BuyVM, seed box at OVH).

For my needs, BuyVM would never work. HostHatch would have been A LOT better.

But that just goes to show that different needs equals different providers.

For reference the main factor causing BuyVM to basically be a no-go for any one of my current projects (not that it won't always be the case) is the that that they don't seem to have resources to fully scale (or in their defence, they might not want to).

I can't not deploy something because I can't upgrade my VPS, and I can't be afraid of downgrading afterwards if that'd mean I'll never see my specs again..

Zreind

I think at first it should be location. For me, Europe necessity.
Second, price and server specifications.
third, layer 4 protection and support.

(I prefer cheaper anyways )

emgh

@Zreind said:
I think at first it should be location. For me, Europe necessity.
Second, price and server specifications.
third, layer 4 protection and support.

(I prefer cheaper anyways )

So first is price

Zreind

@emgh said:

@Zreind said:
I think at first it should be location. For me, Europe necessity.
Second, price and server specifications.
third, layer 4 protection and support.

(I prefer cheaper anyways )

So first is price

if europe yes

jlet88

@emgh said:
But that just goes to show that different needs equals different providers.
For reference the main factor causing BuyVM to basically be a no-go for any one of my current projects (not that it won't always be the case) is the that that they don't seem to have resources to fully scale (or in their defence, they might not want to).

I can't not deploy something because I can't upgrade my VPS, and I can't be afraid of downgrading afterwards if that'd mean I'll never see my specs again..

Understandable, and it's a factor I have looked at for BuyVM too - but like with anything else in life, it's always a process of balancing out your needs, and as you mentioned, different needs equals different providers.

The upside for me with BuyVM is @Francisco's track record on freedom of speech, and by that I mean First Amendment, not DMCA-ignore. (I couldn't care less about DMCA ignore.) And of course, the downside is immediate availability of resources if you need to scale... so with BuyVM, I think you have to plan a little more in advance as best as possible and give yourself more headroom. But yeah, it's an issue if you need to scale quickly and there are no extra server resources the moment you need them the most.

And you mentioned Hetzner earlier, which is obviously great for instant scalability, they've got tons of extra resources available, and it scales nicely and quickly, you're right. But I wouldn't host a First Amendment site there, for example, no question about it.

Again, it's different needs, different providers.

As for the OP, I think the real answer to his question is another question -- what market or niche does he want to effectively attract? Even the LET market has many segments, biased toward very cost-conscious users with a higher-than-average level of technical skills (compared to the broader hosting market IMO), and a wide international user base. Does he want to attract general LET users, a subgroup of LET users, a broader market, etc., etc.? It's honestly a very tough business to be in, and kudos to every provider that finds success in their areas of expertise.

rcy026

@emgh said:

@rcy026 said:

@Babak said:
Is a back solution essential for VPS services? If yes, what kind of backup solutions do you usually use?

Nice yes, essential no.
I would not trust my backups to the same provider that hosts the server anyway. If they fuck up my server they will probably fuck up the backup too. Or, as seen so many times here on let, they deadpool and both server and backup are gone.

I think backups and/or snapshots with a good API for scheduling is a must.

Clearly you should have offsite backups, but backups allow the provider to restore from latest backup themselves if they fuck my server up while I sleep.

And snapshots at least allow for me to restore it in a few seconds to minutes without pulling up backups.

As I said, its nice. Especially snapshots with a good API, that's a really big plus.
But for me, it's just nice to have. However good the providers backup solution is I'm going to implement my own anyway since I simply do not trust anyone else to do it. I don't even know how many times me or my customers have been screwed by a providers backups or snapshots. When you need them, they do not exist or do not work.
I understand why people want it and I would never tell anyone to stay away from it, but it's not for me personally.

emgh

@jlet88 said: And you mentioned Hetzner earlier, which is obviously great for instant scalability, they've got tons of extra resources available, and it scales nicely and quickly, you're right. But I wouldn't host a First Amendment site there, for example, no question about it.

I think Cloudflare has quite high limits on what they tolerate.

They stand out to me as a privacy focused company.

They did bend for the media storm in the case of Kiwi, but they're big enough to really value their brand - they want mainstream brands to want to be accociated with them. They'll likely bend of media fuled outrage again.

But if you're not the victim of that, and simply need a privacy focused solution where you can speak your mind without risking anything, I think they're a fairly safe bet.

Also, I highly doubt Hetzner/OVH etc would throw you out if what you did is legal as long as they don't get any heat, and if Cloudflare dosen't give out your info (which they shouldn't do for illigitimate requests), your actual host shouldn't suffer from any heat.

Again, they don't have a perfect track record for protecting any speech, but if they're awesome and free, and really only kick out the most troubling clients, that's a good compromise for most people I'd say.

emgh

Also, their workers, their firewall, their R2 buckets, if your application can benefit from such a mix, they're WONDERFUL to work with. Easily create authentificated links with access to specific files on a bucket etc.

webdev

Reliability and price

Babak

@emgh said:

@Zreind said:
I think at first it should be location. For me, Europe necessity.
Second, price and server specifications.
third, layer 4 protection and support.

(I prefer cheaper anyways )

So first is price

a lot of the comments are mentioning prices
but does a brand or quality of service change your opinion on the price?
and have you ever overpaid for a service for any reason?

emgh

@Babak said:

@emgh said:

@Zreind said:
I think at first it should be location. For me, Europe necessity.
Second, price and server specifications.
third, layer 4 protection and support.

(I prefer cheaper anyways )

So first is price

a lot of the comments are mentioning prices
but does a brand or quality of service change your opinion on the price?
and have you ever overpaid for a service for any reason?

I don’t think I’m the right person to ask because price isn’t important to me (as long as it’s resonable)

Being able to predict the price is, not a fan of billable bandwidth overages

But in all honesty, right now I’m working on a project, I put it on a 8 GB, 2 vCPU Avoro server

I picked it only because dedicated cores, and so I can abuse them without getting suspended

As long as price isn’t like 5x market price, the cost of hosting should be minimal in comparison to the project’s worth

Otherwise, it’s more likely something wrong with the project

I don’t have any server for hobby use

Zreind

@Babak said:

@emgh said:

@Zreind said:
I think at first it should be location. For me, Europe necessity.
Second, price and server specifications.
third, layer 4 protection and support.

(I prefer cheaper anyways )

So first is price

a lot of the comments are mentioning prices
but does a brand or quality of service change your opinion on the price?
and have you ever overpaid for a service for any reason?

It certainly is. If i am working on a serious project, using a more reliable provider must be first condition before the price. But, generally i am buying them for hobby usage like uptime monitoring and simple bots so I don't care if it suddenly shuts down or wipes my data. I'm happy with my 1$/m and 2$/year vps at the moment

PacketsDecreaser

must have a perfekt ddos protection and now we just have some providers who i can count with 2 hands xD

Spotlight

Honour the agreements and keep the prices down.

logaritse

1. reliable (connection, backup, server grade)
2. support
3. price

rcy026

@Babak said:
a lot of the comments are mentioning prices
but does a brand or quality of service change your opinion on the price?
and have you ever overpaid for a service for any reason?

Yes. I do not like "pay as you go" charges. I will most likely pay a bit more for unlimited bandwidth then pay for used bandwidth, even if I am certain that I will never use enough bandwidth to reach the same price as unlimited. I've seen customers being hit with astronomical bills due to being hacked or ddos'ed, so I'd rather pay a few extra bucks and know for certain how big the next bill is. Same with hourly billing crap. I just don't do it. Give me a fixed monthly price and I will tell you if we have a deal, simple as that.

But of course price matters, if I get the same service and quality elsewhere for a lower price, I'm out. If someone else can do the same thing cheaper, they are probably better at it anyway.

Babak

@emgh said:

@rcy026 said:

@Babak said:
Is a back solution essential for VPS services? If yes, what kind of backup solutions do you usually use?

Nice yes, essential no.
I would not trust my backups to the same provider that hosts the server anyway. If they fuck up my server they will probably fuck up the backup too. Or, as seen so many times here on let, they deadpool and both server and backup are gone.

I think backups and/or snapshots with a good API for scheduling is a must.

Clearly you should have offsite backups, but backups allow the provider to restore from latest backup themselves if they fuck my server up while I sleep.

And snapshots at least allow for me to restore it in a few seconds to minutes without pulling up backups.

What Backup solutions do you use normally?

sayurlodeh

Location
Uptime
Speed

clockbooster

Location
Uptime
Speed/Unlimited Bandwidth
DDOS protection @ Network Level
Customer Support (Will respond at least 12 hours/per ticket)
New Hardware Resources
Very important Low Price

rcy026

@Babak said:

What Backup solutions do you use normally?

Usually Restic for data and Acronis for snapshots, but I know my way around in Veeam, Borg, DPS and most other solutions as well. Used to do backup and recovery consultancy fulltime so I've tried almost all of the solutions out there.

emgh

@Babak said:

@emgh said:

@rcy026 said:

@Babak said:
Is a back solution essential for VPS services? If yes, what kind of backup solutions do you usually use?

Nice yes, essential no.
I would not trust my backups to the same provider that hosts the server anyway. If they fuck up my server they will probably fuck up the backup too. Or, as seen so many times here on let, they deadpool and both server and backup are gone.

I think backups and/or snapshots with a good API for scheduling is a must.

Clearly you should have offsite backups, but backups allow the provider to restore from latest backup themselves if they fuck my server up while I sleep.

And snapshots at least allow for me to restore it in a few seconds to minutes without pulling up backups.

What Backup solutions do you use normally?

I use Docker mainly but I usually setup a layer of CloudPanel on the host node, seperate from Docker

On CloudPanel I do the databases, reverse proxies and backups (since I store the files in the user directory of the CloudPanel sites

When I ”do it right” I’ll use Rsync

wii747

price and trustpilot rating

Babak

@rcy026 said:

@Babak said:

What Backup solutions do you use normally?

Usually Restic for data and Acronis for snapshots, but I know my way around in Veeam, Borg, DPS and most other solutions as well. Used to do backup and recovery consultancy fulltime so I've tried almost all of the solutions out there.

Great solutions for different conditions.

Babak

@emgh said:

@Babak said:

@emgh said:

@rcy026 said:

@Babak said:
Is a back solution essential for VPS services? If yes, what kind of backup solutions do you usually use?

Nice yes, essential no.
I would not trust my backups to the same provider that hosts the server anyway. If they fuck up my server they will probably fuck up the backup too. Or, as seen so many times here on let, they deadpool and both server and backup are gone.

I think backups and/or snapshots with a good API for scheduling is a must.

Clearly you should have offsite backups, but backups allow the provider to restore from latest backup themselves if they fuck my server up while I sleep.

And snapshots at least allow for me to restore it in a few seconds to minutes without pulling up backups.

What Backup solutions do you use normally?

I use Docker mainly but I usually setup a layer of CloudPanel on the host node, seperate from Docker

On CloudPanel I do the databases, reverse proxies and backups (since I store the files in the user directory of the CloudPanel sites

When I ”do it right” I’ll use Rsync

sounds like great solution

rober7

From my point of view:
1. Hardware - a performant server will always make you app/website load faster -> fast website = more sales, rank in Google ... etc
2. Price - a reasonable price is a must. I saw very competitive prices all over the internet, there always will be a provider with same specs and lower price.
3. backups support etc etc ...