Hello everybody, this time I am reviewing and comparing 3 hosting providers
From different "sizes" all provide good KVM VPS and affordable prices (at least for the special offer in case of DediServe).
I have at least one VPS on each of the providers and I tested each machine with all available
Benchmarking and testing tools, But it's not the only tests I base my review on, the real
Performance of the machine in real life situations, up times and support are things that no
Benchmark can measure. So I did my best putting the machines in different situations and
Also tried to ask the support for advice or assassinate in many different issues
Finally every benchmark was repeated many times and I used the average test score for each
Of the three providers.
I will start with ServerCow because I've already reviewed it and even updated my review:
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/85161/server-cow-2016-version#latest
And this is the last benchmark for ServerCow
As you can see SrverCow maintain it's good network performance and high I/O speeds Overall the performance/price formula is very good. (29Euro/quarter) The only point is the CPUs performance where I think it should score more , so there is a Room for development in this point
What I like:
Good performance and combined with the price its very good deal!
Excelent responsive and "personal" support
Upgradable with flexibility for a nice price
Free DDOS protection
No downtime at all untill this moment
Free 150GB Samba storage
What I miss:
better CPU performance (it's good now but there is always room for improvment)
English interface for the company's site
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Now to DediServe : A well known and trusted provider with locations all over the world and it's Cloud services Are considered among the best. Recently they announced a new LEB/LET special with the Following specs:
2x Intel Xeon E5-2660v2 CPU
2GB RAM
50GB Enterprise RAID 10 SSD Storage
1 IPv4 IP Address
Free IP6
500Mbps Uplink, 2TB Transfer included
50GB Snapshot Storage included
Firewall, API, iOS and Android Apps
24/7 Support as standard
All this really good specs for only 6.99$, Nice! and according to the support you have 100% Of the cores only for you so it's really dedicated CPUs. Just like many of you guys I got my "Cloud" machine and I did choose Vienna as the location For my VPS since it was the closest to me. From the first moment I started asking and Testing ! The installation was fast and flawless, The interface is good and clean. The support is responsive but their answers were not always on the point and if your ticket Gets escalated you must wish that the sales team guys are still on their disks or you will have To wait for the next day to get answers !
Here are the results for the test:
As you can see virtual core with no real info regarding CPU which is not good for me ! Of course we trust DediServe but still we like to have full details of what we paid for also On this point the support gave me what I call "not so accurate answers" when I asked them About the CPU info as they tried to convince me that it's a KVM thing and it not something They choose to hide, but when I confronted them the facts that this is not true and even sent Them some screen caps from my other KVM VPSs they had to give me the final answer on The matter -and I quote- "This is not something we are going to change" , Thanks for the Truth even if its late! Our friend @dediserve was really helpful and sometimes more helpful Than the online support and he promised to raise the issue inside the company, which is Another reason to respect dediserev as very few of the big name may care to hear our vocies
So ... Great I/O numbers! really very good overall performance and keep in mind this Only 2 Core & 2GB RAM machine, imagine what a 4 cores 4GB RAM would do !
The network s good but to be honest I really expected higher numbers in Europe where I was surprised that they came second to ServerCow more than once in places like France& UK And Germany. A provider with such global network should've performed better in Europe.
The upgrade options: NONE! yes for this "special" offer there "officially" no upgrade options! Yes I know it's special offer and I understand it's really discounted but no upgrade options At all ? A cloud that is static and fixed in size !? I tried to scale my cloud only to find that this Option is disabled (not there to be more accurate), So I went to the normal resources pool Trying to get resources with the regular prices (Our friend @dediserve offered a 50% coupon) But again I found that while I can buy resources I can't merge or add them to my Cloud Machine, all I can do is to buy resources and create another separate cloud Machine! Once again it's really a good offer from DediServe and very good performance but Even if I paid a discounted price I still have the right to upgrade my Cloud machine. And it looks that even Dediserve support guys can't believe it too! so I was lucky to get In touch with James a senior customer care who was really patient, professional and very Helpful, we had a long mail exchange (over 50 massages in total) and finally he gave me A real good offer which I could not refuse. So NO does not always mean NO, you just need to Find the right person to talk to! thanks James and another point for dediserve ;)
What I like:
Very good overall performance and great I/O numbers
Many location all over the world to choose from
The price of this offer is really "Special"
Clean and easy to use dashboard
A 50% discount for the current owners of DediSrev owners (at least for now!)
Good customer support specially if you manged to get to someone on a senior level
Trustful and respectful provider so you get what you pay for, no worries there
What I miss:
Easier Upgrade options for the special deal ! no cloud should be static ...
The network is really good but in some of the locations in Europe it could be better
Escalated tickets should not wait for next day
Passing through the CPU info is much much better than virtual cores
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Virtono: It is -as you probably know- Romanian based provider that offer a wide range of hosting Services and has four locations in Europe Romania, Netherlands,Germany and UK They offer many VPS plans but I will talk only about the LEB Speed plan which is one Of three LEB specials still available from Virtono. It has the following specs
* KVM
* 4 Cores (at 2.26Ghz)
* Ram 2GB
* Swap 4GB
* Disk space 20GB SSD
* Network Speed 1Gbps Bandwidth (shared port)
* 5TB Traffic
Looking at the this configuration any one will notice the small size HDD which is going To be a real problem if you plan to use the VPS for a live site as it's only 16GB in reality After deducting the space reserved for the swap. They have really good up times and I did not have any downtime until now Real performance is in general acceptable (network sometimes is slow), and you don't get the SSD performance anyone would expect. They have nicely configured dashboard with all the option you need to run your VPS and also Monitor it.
here are the test results
So not the latest of processors but uncapped clock speed which is enough to do The trick for UnixBench but do not get fooled by the numbers here those are older And less powerful CPUs than what Dediserve & Server Cow offer
The I/O is slower than the other two except the cached test
IOPS numbers are horrible !! actually I do not dare to compare to the other 2 providers
Again bad numbers indeed ... slow network everywhere the highest is 12Mb/s !
The numbers are clear, very good numbers in the CPU department (the clock speed is the secret) but very bad SSD performance and slow network and both are enough to seriously Lower the real performance of the VPS and any site on it.
The Upgrade options : NONE ! again just like DediServe this special offer is fixed size And when I tried to contact them for any upgrade options the refused and I was told that I can exchange my LEB speed with another plan of their "normal" plans and pay difference Actually I was ready to get any upgrade with the normal none discounted prices but this Was not an option Unlike Dediserve even the higher support team did not offer any real deals.
What I like:
Good CPU performance
Nice price (6euro/mo)
Good and full featured dashboard
What I miss:
Where is the SSD !?
The network is slow to say the least
Upgrade options
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Conclusion:
When I picked this trio of providers I knew they are completely different and maybe In different categories but I wanted to give the average VPS user a chance to compare Three providers who offer LEB special offers or good normal prices for KVM VPSs
Server Cow is becoming my benchmark for performance (not saying it's flawless) but For a smaller size provider our friend André is doing really good proving that in hosting Size is not always that important! yes their is a room for improvment but good job Andre!
DediServe is an excellent big size provider with very good hardware and network and Good support but the prices for the normal pool are not cheapest, still with the offers The current owners of the Cloud machines can get (50% Thanks @dediserve ) it gets better. Only if they reconsider the upgraded options for the special offers and the CPU info issue.. But if you want an excellent cloud service provider you'll more than happy with dediserve The are a good example for how a cloud provider should be
Virtono I am sorry but I was really disappointed with the results. The network is not good, The I/O is even worse and the good CPU numbers are not enough to compensate.
So here you are guys I hope this will be useful for anyone and soon I will review 3 other Providers ....
Final note: Very soon I will write a special review for dediserve using the normal pool and I expect some exciting results ..