HostArmada is quite a new player in the web hosting field. They are a privately owned, US-based company, launched in the last quarter of 2019. The primary driving factor of the company founders was to develop a service with high quality at reasonable prices. Instead of relying on morally outdated technologies, HostArmada’s team always aims to implement the predominant tech innovations in their services.
Thanks to their solid past experience in the hosting field, the team managed to take the good and the bad and channel their efforts into creating a truly exceptional service. That combined with a strong customer-oriented focus covers two of the most important elements – reliable service and satisfactory support. Taking this into account, their rapid growth and constantly increasing popularity are not surprising at all.
HostArmada Services and Pricing
HostArmada offers three types of fully-managed hosting solutions – Cloud SSD Shared Hosting, Cloud SSD VPS Hosting, and Dedicated CPU Cloud Servers. The high variety of their plans can suffice any resource consumption needs and budget range, from small personal blogs to heavily-loaded and resource-hungry projects.
Their servers are built on top of stable and reliable infrastructure, redundant network, the latest AMD CPUs, native SSD storage and configured with stable CentOS, LiteSpeed/NGINX web servers, and the latest cPanel/WHM.
To ensure top-notch security, they utilize Advanced Network Firewall, Web Application Firewall (WAF), DDoS protection service, and OS Patch Management feature. In addition, they imply Malware scanning, Live Security Event monitoring, Proactive Zero-day attack detection, and Connections Level Limits.
Thanks to the technologies they use, HostArmada guarantees 99.9% uptime on all their hosting solutions. They have also put extra effort to optimize their server environment for the most popular open-source applications, such as WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal, PrestaShop, Ghost, and Laravel. Furthermore, you can expect an individual website optimization performed by their tech team based on the particular needs of your website. The final result you could expect is an outstanding performance and loading speed.
Managed Cloud SSD Shared Hosting
HostArmada offers three shared hosting plans. Namely – Start Dock, Web Wrap, and Speed Reaper. For the Star Dock and Web Wrap plans, HostArmada chose the popular NGINX Web Server, while their Speed Reaper plans are empowered by the famous LiteSpeed server. To ensure optimal performance and resource availability they maintain a low number of clients per server.
One of the best advantages of HostArmada is its extremely affordable pricing. In fact, they offer amongst the lowest rates on the market, compared to providers offering the same service quality. Without exaggerating, the price-quality ratio is among the best we have seen. On top of that, their plans come packed with everything a customer might need to run their project hassle-free. This includes a free domain, free SSL, free email service, and free daily backups.
Another great thing is that HostArmada offers an extended 45-day Money Back Period. During this period, customers can safely test their service and if unsatisfied for one reason or another request a full refund of the hosting plan. In our opinion, 45 days are enough to test each aspect of the service and ensure whether it is suitable for your needs or not.
Perks included in HostArmada Cloud SSD Shared Hosting plans:
cPanel Control Panel
Free Daily Backups
Free Domain Name (Registration or Transfer)
Free Email Service (Unlimited Email Accounts)
Free SSL for all domains
Free Website Migration
Softaculous One-Click App Installer
Drag&Drop SiteBuilder
Start Dock
Start Dock is HostArmada’s base plan ideal for beginners. Its price is extremely reasonable and it allows users to host a single website, which makes it perfect for everyone who is looking forward to starting their new project. Even if you have an existing website, HostArmada offers a free website migration and they will be pleased to move it for you.
The plan comes with a fair amount of resources and all essential web hosting perks that will make your experience smooth despite being a newbie in the hosting area. Start Dock is NGINX-powered, which allows visitors to benefit from powerful static caching and enjoy excellent website speed and performance.
Start Dock Capacity and Features:
1 Website
15 GB Cloud SSD Storage
2 Cores CPU
2 GB RAM
Unmetered Bandwidth
FREE Domain Name
~10 000 Unique Visitors
7 Daily Backups
Free Website Transfer
Unlimited FTP Accounts
Unlimited Databases
Unlimited Email Accounts
Unlimited Subdomains
Multiple PHP Versions
24/7 Human Support
Free Drag&Drop SiteBuilder
Free App Install & Upgrade
1-click WordPress Install
Free Loading Speed Optimization
Web Wrap
Web Wrap is HostArmada’s second shared plan. Along with the bigger resource capacity, it also allows users to host multiple websites. If you have several small or mid-sized websites, you can enjoy the convenience to manage everything together for a fair price. Their Web Wrap plan is also NGINX powered, so you can expect nothing less than a great loading speed and overall performance.
Web Wrap Capacity and Features:
Unlimited Websites
30 GB Cloud SSD Storage
4 Cores CPU
4 GB RAM
Unmetered Bandwidth
FREE Domain Name
~60 000 Unique Visitors
14 Daily Backups
3 Free Website Transfers
Unlimited FTP Accounts
Unlimited Databases
Unlimited Email Accounts
Unlimited Subdomains
Multiple PHP Versions
24/7 Human Support
Free Drag&Drop SiteBuilder
Free App Install & Upgrade
1-click WordPress Install
Free Loading Speed Optimization
2x CPU and RAM
Unlimited Addon Domains
1-Click Restore Manager
Free Private DNS
Speed Reaper
Speed Reaper is HostArmada’s third and biggest shared hosting plan. Empowered by the famous LiteSpeed web server, it is where the true magic happens. With several caching systems for static and dynamic caching and the HTTP3 protocol, you can expect blazingly fast loading speed. Considering the plan specifications and the attractive price, we can conclude that the Speed Reaper plan is the right choice for everyone whose top priority is speed.
Speed Reaper Capacity and Features:
Unlimited Websites
40 GB Cloud SSD Storage
6 Cores CPU
6 GB RAM
Unmetered Bandwidth
FREE Domain Name
~120 000 Unique Visitors
21 Daily Backups
5 Free Website Transfers
Unlimited FTP Accounts
Unlimited Databases
Unlimited Email Accounts
Unlimited Subdomains
Multiple PHP Versions
24/7 Human Support
Free Drag&Drop SiteBuilder
Free App Install & Upgrade
1-click WordPress Install
Free Loading Speed Optimization
3x More CPU & RAM
3x Fewer clients per server
LiteSpeed Web Server
HTTP/3 (HTTP over QUICK by Google)
APC & OPcode Cache
Memcached
LS Cache for WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal, Prestashop, Laravel
Managed Cloud SSD VPS Hosting
For users who need more resources, HostArmada also offers fully-managed Cloud SSD Virtual Private Servers. The standard setup of their VPS plans is with Apache and NGINX as a reverse proxy and WHM/cPanel control panels. They also offer LiteSpeed-based setup, which comes as an addon service covering the license fee. Furthermore, they can take the extra mile and perform a custom configuration no matter how compound it could be. Upon a request, they can even provide root access to the server for anyone who needs full control over the server. With a fully managed solution, you can have peace of mind that if you ever mess up something, they will fix it for you. Also, you eliminate the need to maintain the server, therefore, if you do not have system administration knowledge, be sure you will be in good hands.
The prices of their VPS plans are really competitive considering the resources you will get, the 24/7 technical support and all the nice perks included for free. This includes Free Website Migration, Free SSL, Free Domain Name, Free Backups, Free Email Service, and last but not least, a Free cPanel Admin license for up to 5 accounts.
The Money-Back Period for HostArmada’s VPS plans is 7 days. You can test risk-free how everything is working for your project(s) and if you are not satisfied with the service, you can request a full refund for the hosting plan.
HostArmada also offers fully-managed Dedicated CPU Servers for users with extremely large and resource-consuming projects. They do have three default Dedicated CPU plans. However, upon demand, they can configure a custom server with up to 96 GB RAM, 48 CPU Cores, and 1920 GB SSD. Similar to their VPS plans, the server configuration, updates, and maintenance are handled by them, so you can fully focus on your websites. With their experienced Technical Support Crew and Sysadmins, you can be sure you will be in good hands.
The standard Dedicated Server configuration is also with Apache and NGINX as a reverse proxy and WHM/cPanel control panels. LiteSpeed Web Server is again an option as an add-on service. Of course, if you require a custom server setup, do not hesitate to discuss it with their sales specialists. The money-back period for their Dedicated CPU Server is 7 days. If something does not turn out to be as expected, you can request a full refund.
To conclude, their pricing is quite fair, considering you will get a fully-managed server, including free cPanel licenses for up to 5 accounts, website migration, email service, and a domain name.
HostArmada is one of the hosting providers with the highest data center availability. They offer 9 available data center locations strategically situated all around the world, so their clients can enjoy the best possible speed and connectivity.
Fremont, CA, USA
Dallas, TX, USA
Newark, NJ, USA
Toronto, ON, Canada
London, UK
Frankfurt, Germany
Bangalore, India
Singapore, Singapore
Sydney, Australia
Client Area and Control Panel
The management of services and web data is an integral part of the user experience. HostArmada offers the industry-leading cPanel Control Panel and custom internally developed Client Area.
For users who are already familiar with cPanel, there is not much to say. If, however, you are not accustomed to it. It is one of the most popular and widely used control panels. cPanel is favored by many users due to its rich toolset, simple interface, and efficiency.
With all HostArmada plans, you will get your personal cPanel, which contains all necessary features to maintain your web files and databases, restore backups with one click; manage your email accounts, DNS records; track your metrics, and install the most popular open-source applications with one click.
The Client Area, on the other hand, is where you get to manage your services, domain names, invoices, billing information, and support tickets. It is simple and easy to navigate through, therefore, you will be able to manage everything in an effective way.
HostArmada Support
HostArmada offers 24/7/365 available support over Phone, Chat, and Tickets. While this is something standard for most companies, there are several factors that distinguish them from their competitors. First, their response time is uncommonly fast. Chat support inquiries are addressed literally immediately and support ticket requests are initially answered within 10-15 minutes. Second, their staff is experienced and they know what they are doing, so you can expect a satisfactory resolution of anything hosting-related inquiry. Third, the support is utterly free and compared to many other providers you will not be charged for requests like backup restorations, theme installations, website optimizations, application upgrades, etc. Last but not least, the representatives are really friendly and you can always expect a professional and respectful attitude.
Users Feedback
The user reviews of HostArmada are, mildly put, excellent. With a 5.0 out of 5.0 rating on Facebook and 4.8 out of 5.0 on Trustpilot, there is nothing much left to say. To summarize, most of the users point out the following advantages:
Great Customer and Technical Support
Improvement of the website loading speed
Flawless website migration
Reliable Uptime
Pros and Cons
Pros
Free cPanel/WHM control panel
Free Daily Backups
Free Domain Name Registration/Transfer
Free Email Service
Free SSL Certificates
Free Website Migration
Free Website Optimizations
Affordable Prices
Cons
No monthly subscription for their shared hosting plans
Increased renewal rates for their shared hosting plans
LiteSpeed web server available only on Speed Reaper plan
Final Verdict
In conclusion, we could say that HostArmada manages to cover the most important aspects of a high-standard hosting service. Combined with their competitive prices, we would recommend them to anyone who is after quality hosting for a reasonable price.
With their versatile plans, they can suffice the requirements of any personal or business project. Even with the few downsides of their solutions, such as the lack of a monthly billing cycle for shared hosting and higher renewal rates, we still think they are a reliable choice. In our opinion, even though they are quite new, they have the true potential to be seen along with the leading hosting companies on the market.
VeeroTech Systems is a US-based independent and privately owned web hosting provider founded in 2010. Its web hosting solutions which include shared hosting, semi-dedicated hosting, reseller hosting, managed WordPress hosting, and managed virtual private server hosting caters to both businesses and individuals.
The provider works with a team of highly competent professionals drawn from various fields in the IT industry. The entire team is based at its headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Despite being a young company in the industry, VeeroTech is already muscling its way to the top against established providers. In this review, we will look at the features it offers, pricing and support, and what customers are saying about the provider.
An Overview of VeeroTech
As a provider, VeeroTech packs a lot of features that go a long way toward making its web hosting services truly outstanding. More than 50% of its customers and site traffic comes from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, and Taiwan.
Founded and owned by Brent Hartzell, VeeroTech has gone through transformations in both its product portfolio and identity. The provider started as VopaHost, then changed its name to LiquiLayer in 2012, and finally VeeroTech in 2013.
Over time, VeeroTech has developed solid partnerships with top brands such as HP, SuperMicro, Areca, Western Digital, Intel, LSI Technologies, among others. Its extensive knowledge base, informative and updated blog, and 24/7 live support are invaluable to its customers.
Product Features and Pricing
The web hosting provider has put together impressive infrastructure, proprietary storage systems, and an assembly of network equipment. Here is a breakdown of its product offering.
VeeroTech Shared Hosting
With unmetered bandwidth, daily backups, free migration, and DDoS Protection, the SSD Shared Hosting packages give customers a perfect start. Below is a summary of the different types of shared hosting options available.
SSD ONE
SSD pricing starts at $3.95 per month. Apart from the common features, SSD ONE packs the following specifications.
5GB SSD storage
512MB DDR4 RAM
150,000 iNodes to accommodate all your folders and other web objects
Can handle up to 15 entry processes meaning support for lots of users on the site
SSD ONE hosting only handles a single website
SSD Micro
Startup websites looking for more storage and inodes should consider this package. It is priced at $5.95 per month. Here is what it offers.
15 GB SSD storage
Can accommodate up to 6 websites
1GB DDR4 RAM
300,000 iNodes to handle bulkier web resources
20 entry processes for busier traffic
SSD Starter
This is the second most powerful shared hosting option. Its price begins at $5.95 per month and offers the following features.
25GB SSD storage
2GB DDR4 RAM
Can accommodate unlimited domains
20 entry processes to handle busy visitor traffic
300,000 iNodes to handle larger files and folders
SSD Business
This option is tailormade for businesses especially those at the startup stage. Beginning at $15.95 per month, you get to enjoy the following features.
50GB SSD storage
Accommodates unlimited domains
4GB DDR4 RAM
20 entry processes to run concurrent sessions for website visitors
350,000 iNodes to process larger files and other web resources
Apart from the 99.9% uptime, you also get a 30-day money-back guarantee. The shared hosting packages also come with a free SSL certificate and Cloudflare CDN integration for improved website performance.
Web designers and developers offering extended web hosting services to their clients can leverage VeeroTech’s multi-cPanel SSD reseller hosting resources. This hosting solution has 4 sub plans as summarized below.
RS 0
This beginner reseller package starts at $7.95 per month and comes with the following features.
10 GB SSD Storage
10 cPanel accounts
RS 1
In this $15.95 per month package, expect to find the following specifications
40 GB SSD storage
40 cPanel accounts
RS 2
This is the most popular package among VeeroTech’s customers. It starts from $22.95 per month and is packed with the following features.
60 GB SSD disk space
100 cPanel accounts
RS 3
This is the ultimate reseller package costing $41.95 per month. It has the following outstanding features:
120 GB SSD storage
Supports up to 200 cPanel accounts
WHMCS license to handle an array of hosting related services including client billing
Other features packed into the reseller hosting include flash SSD Storage, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for increased cPanel security and account-wide backups, 99.9% uptime guarantee among other specifications.
WordPress is the most prominent content management system (CMS) and website builder in the industry. VeeroTech managed WordPress hosting solutions are uniquely configured and backed by professional technical support. Here are the options to expect.
Startup
This package is for beginner WordPress customers and starts at $29.95 per month. It has the following specifications.
15GB SSD storage
Can host a single website
2GB DDR4 RAM
25 entry processes to support busy websites
Pro
This package befits a growing business. At a monthly budget of $49.95 per month, it packs more storage and RAM. Here is a summary of its features.
35GB SSD storage
Hosts up to 5 websites
4GB DDR4 RAM and CPU boost
35 entry processes to sustain increased web traffic
ScaleUP
The ScaleUP managed WordPress solution is designed for busy websites. At a much fairer pricing of $89.95 per month, customers get to enjoy the following.
Customers who want to have complete web hosting control and exclusivity should think about a managed Virtual Private Server (VPS) solution. VeeroTech managed VPS comes with 6 sub plans varying in SSD storage, RAM, vCPU, bandwidth, and of course price. Here is a summary of the various packages.
2G-SSD-VPS
This package begins at $39.99 per month and has the following specifications
40GB RAID10 SSD storage
2GB DDR4 RAM
One virtual CPU
1 TB bandwidth
4G-SSD-VPS
This is a more advanced package and is loaded with the following features at a beginning price of just $69.99 per month.
80GB RAID10 SSD storage
4GB DDR4 RAM
Two virtual CPU
2 TB bandwidth
6G-SSD-VPS
This managed VPS solution is targeted at busier websites with more bandwidth and storage space. Pricing starts from $169.99 per month. Here is a summary of its features.
120GB RAID10 SSD storage
6GB DDR4 RAM
Two virtual CPU
2 TB bandwidth
8G-SSD-VPS
This $269.99 per month package is loaded with more powerful storage and bandwidth space. Below is a breakdown of its specifications.
250 GB RAID10 SSD storage
8GB DDR4 RAM
Four virtual CPU
4 TB bandwidth
10G-SSD-VPS
This is the second most powerful managed solution under the VeeroTech managed VPS family. Starting from $369.99 per month, it packs the following features.
375 GB RAID10 SSD storage
10GB DDR4 RAM
Six virtual CPU
4 TB bandwidth
12G-SSD-VPS
Very few solutions in the industry match this package. It is designed to handle the most powerful website demands from a multitude of websites all at once. Starting from $469.99 per month, you get to experience the following.
Irrespective of the time of day, you can always reach out to VeeroTech’s 24/7/365 customer support team by phone, email, and live chat. The help desk is manned by a knowledgeable team that is ready to help. There is also a regularly updated blog and an extensive knowledge base that customers can use.
Pros and Cons of VeeroTech
Whether you are a techie or a non-techie user, you will always find a plan that suits your budget and level of sophistication. Here are some VeeroTech pros and cons to help you make the right decision.
Pros of VeeroTech
It is packed with solutions such as Cloudflare CDN integration for superior web performance
A simplified drag and drop website builder for beginners
Advanced developer tools such as PHP, Python, SSH, WP-cli, FTP, and Drush to help you create a high level of web infrastructure.
A 30-day money-back guarantee if VeeroTech does not meet your expectations
Cons of VeeroTech
Some plans are costly for beginners
Domain registration comes at an additional cost to the customer
What Customers are Saying
The provider is rated highly by users online. Here is a breakdown of what customers are highlighting.
Excellent 24/7 customers support
Guaranteed uptime, always above 99%
Excellent pricing for the value they offer
Bottom line
VeeroTech is an outstanding web hosting partner for both individuals and corporates. Its offerings are inexpensive but feature-rich. Their 99.9% uptime and a host of advanced technologies make them attractive to businesses and individuals that are scaling up their operations.
It’s worth mentioning that VeeroTech is highly recommended on Reddit web hosting communities, which are very well informed and critical about hosting services. It’s an additional, great sign, for the quality of the provided hosting services.
With an offering as diverse as VeeroTech’s shared hosting, semi-dedicated hosting, reseller hosting, WordPress hosting, and VPS hosting, customers are spoilt for choice. Based on online reviews, the product offering, and our independent assessment, VeeroTech is worth considering your web hosting needs.
VeeroTech is a reliable hosting choice for pretty much everyone. However, in case you want to host your site on a VeeroTech alternative, there are other hosting options you can check out.
Of the available alternatives, our favorites are SiteGround which is an experienced hosting provider with more than 2,000,000 customers and DreamHost which offers reliable and SSD based hosting that’s pretty affordable for everyone.
So, you are ready to publish your first website on the Internet and the first task you need to solve is to find a reliable hosting service for your project, be it a blog, or online shop. In the process, it is difficult not to notice that most of the hosting services on their web servers are using Unix or Linux operating systems. But why exactly is the Linux OS? Let’s discuss the features of Linux hosting and when should you go with one.
One of the main reasons for choosing this operating system is free distribution. The content of such a server is cheaper than the content of a similar server on a Windows Server. This is a repeatedly confirmed fact. Also worth noting is the fact that Linux is an open-source OS that has a huge community and tons of documentation. Based on this, by choosing Linux hosting you do not overpay for software, the costs are only hardware.
If you use scripting languages for your sites, such as PHP, Perl, or Java, Linux hosting will be the most reliable and correct solution. You will also receive support for the most common and used types of databases, such as mSQL, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. They will improve the optimization of interaction with content and data processing on your Linux server hosting
We must not forget the fact that Linux hosting offers more reliability and security than Windows hosting. And therefore, it is more popular among Web designers and programmers that value security and uptime.
But not everything is as good as it seems. The main disadvantage is incompatibility with projects that use different Microsoft technologies. If you need to connect an Access database or MS SQL, you will have to choose hosting with Windows Server OS. Linux server hosting is not able to work with these databases. You will also have to forget about Linux if your site uses Microsoft.NET technologies. Given this, many services provide the ability to easily convert your site into a Windows project.
Linux hosting is suitable for most users who want to have an online presence with a site of any type and complexity. It supports various popular CMS: Joomla, Drupal, WordPress. If you are not sure that your site will work on the selected hosting, you can always consult with the technical support of the host before buying.
So, we can say that most of the recommended hosting providers such as DreamHost hosting service or the hosting offering by SiteGround, are Linux server hosts that will provide you with high reliability, security, and uptime.
It’s also worth mentioning that Linux server hosting can come in different configurations such as a Linux VPS hosting offering or a Linux dedicated server hosting machine. In general, the difference between them is that in a dedicated Linux hosting, all the server resources would be provided for your site, while in a VPS Linux hosting, they will be shared between a number of sites in an isolated manner.
Another flavor is the economy Linux hosting with cPanel. Usually, it’s just another name for a shared hosting service that is most famously offered by GoDaddy. It’s pretty much suitable to host one website and it comes with 100 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth, and a free domain name with a yearly subscription. While Linux hosting with cPanel GoDaddy may sound like an interesting option, we would suggest you stick with the two webhosting providers above, and in general, a non EIG hosting service.
Hosting refers to the place on the server where your site files are stored – databases, content, engine, etc. The functioning of the resource, its stability, and profitability of the business, when it comes to commercial projects, depend on the reliability of the storage and the speed of the servers.
Today we will tell you how to choose a hosting that meets your needs and not to lose money on the way.
What type of hosting providers are out there?
There are three types of them, the difference lies in the degree of service by the hosting company and technical capabilities required from you as the maintainer of your site or business online.
Shared Hosting
In this scenario, sites of different owners are hosted and run on the same server. Technical capacities are distributed among all users and you do not need to configure everything manually. The provider is responsible for ensuring operability.
The pros of shared hosting are as follows:
Low prices (the hoster makes a profit from a large number of customers).
The ability to contact technical support if problems arise. It’s pretty important and the response speed is always high (at least, for the quality hosting providers like SiteGround or DreamHost) because the hoster is responsible for the operation of the resources of many users. If conditionally 1000 sites become unavailable at the same time, this is fraught with loss of the reputation of the provider.
Additional functions – checking files for viruses, installing SSL-certificate, CMS, backup, one-click WordPress install (if you don’t know what WordPress is, read our article. Most of the hosting providers today are WordPress hosting out-of-the-box), etc. Many of them are available in one click.
Accelerated operation of the resource in some cases. Suppose a server is designed for the uninterrupted functioning of 1000 resources, but only 500 owners use the services of a particular provider. Accordingly, existing sites take extra power from underused resources.
Server setup and software updates are the sole concern of the hoster.
Shared hosting solutions got two main disadvantages:
The desire of the provider to increase his profits and places on the server more sites than the server can hold, resources wise. For each of the users, this is fraught with performance problems, low page loading speed. The solution is to work with honest hosters for whom reputation is important.
“Bad neighbors.” On the same server, along with your, let’s say, online store, you can find online cinemas, casinos, adult-themed resources that somehow violate applicable law. If they are blocked, “law-abiding” projects will suffer. Solution: check in advance what resources are hosted on the same IP, work with hosters who value reputation who do not work with problem clients.
In general, this is a reliable and good hosting, it will suit a beginner who just starting his site and who does not want to understand the intricacies of the settings, and an experienced site owner, for whom saving time is important.
VPS hosting
Implies a virtual dedicated server. You rent part of it and you are not so dependent on your neighbors, because there are also fewer of them.
The benefits of VPS web hosting are as follows:
Fully manage the facilities you paid for. Resources not you currently not utilize are not distributed among other clients.
You control the operating system and software on the server. Technical support staff can configure hosting for the most comfortable work.
Adequate price when it comes to medium or large projects. We recommend choosing this kind of hosting for an online store hosting, corporate portal, forum – resources containing a large number of files and using a lot of disk space. For a Landing Page or single-page, this solution is not rational (just go with shared hosting).
There are no restrictions on the number of sites for one account. All limits apply only to capacities. You can place a single large project or many small ones.
There is only one drawback: you will have to delve deeper into the settings or separately pay for technical support services if something goes wrong or additional functionality is required that is not provided for in the selected tariff plan.
Dedicated server
All capacities and equipment are completely yours, there are no neighbors, any settings are possible. The only limiting factor is the high price. However, it makes sense to rent a dedicated physical server only for very large projects, for example, online games.
Practical tips on picking a website hosting
Let’s start by mentioning the top tips you should follow on the way of picking your web hosting solution.
Tips 1 – Project requirements
Think about how much disk space you need. This value is directly dependent on the type of project. For a business card style site, the requirements are minimal while large projects need more resources. This is one of the points that affect the choice. Also, decide if you plan to expand in the future to order the optimal package right away.
Tips 2 – CMS for your site
Look at the technical requirements for hosting on the official site used by the CMS (for example, WordPress websites). For many of the CMS out there, the hosting solutions already provide a one-click installation and maintenance support.
Tips 3 – Dedicated IP
Find out if dedicated IP is provided by the potential website webhosting. This is much more convenient than sharing it with multiple users, moreover, it will protect against unwanted proximity.
Tips 4 – SSL certificate
These days, SSL is pretty much a must-have. Take an interest in the possibility of setting up an SSL certificate – the service is provided on a paid and free basis. Respectable hosting providers are adding the SSL certificate for free, as part of the hosting solution. Try to go with those.
Tips 5 – Separate domain registration
Separate your domain registration from your hosting solution. There are many reasons for that. As for recommended domain registrars, check out our review.
Tips 6 – Site backup
It should be possible to back up your site data so in case of technical issues, you will not lose the site and all the money invested in it.
Tips 7 – Hosting SSD hard drives
Find out what type of drives your provider uses – regular hard drives or SSDs. The latter option is better since it works several times faster. Accordingly, site pages also load at increased speed.
Tips 8 – Web hosting uptime
Pay attention to the uptime of the web hosting provider – it shows the time of smooth operation of the site with technical downtimes. The minimum value is 99.5%. It’s important because, in the case of low uptime, the number of dissatisfied visitors is growing, which negatively affects your business.
Tips 9 – Control panel
Consider the convenience of a control panel installed on the server. The way it’s implemented will affect how much time you spend on administration.
Tips 10 – Geolocation
Ask your provider where the equipment is geographically located. Many companies use server capacities located abroad, explaining this by reliability and stability. However, keep in mind that as the distance between the server and the user increases, the download speed decreases and it doesn’t matter if you need to choose a hosting for your landing page, online store or news publication: the farther the server and the more “heavy” elements on the pages, the longer they load.
Tips 11 – Technical support
Take an interest in the technical support work schedule and questions that you can contact for a quick solution for your website webhosting. Look for 24/7 support.
Shared Hosting VS VPS Hosting VS Dedicated Server
Where to find a good website hosting provider?
You can search for a hosting company on thematic platforms, forums, and groups. There are also compiled ratings, but there is no guarantee that the information presented in them is objectives or not sponsored by EIG. There are a number of hosting providers we recommend:
DreamHost website hosting
Check out DreamHost, a non-EIG, with free SSL, and SSD based web hosting solution. Already using them for a couple of years on numerous websites and absolutely satisfied with them. Great uptime and support when I need it. It’s one of the best non-EIG hosting services available.
Also, with 90 days money-back guarantee period, it can feel safe with your money.
SiteGround is a non-EIG hosting solution which positions itself as a company offering high-quality, “well-crafted” hosting solutions. It got more unique developer-oriented features. For example, on “GoGeek” plan they do free PCI compliance and free Git & staging areas.
IOPS – the name of the group of performance indicators of the disk subsystem, which stands for Input/output Operations Per Second, and its meaning is exactly as the definition – the number of input/output operations per second.
It’s important to note that it’s a predefined value by the web hosting you use, which enforces the number of input and output operations that are allowed on your hosting server at once. If the allowed threshold is reached, throttling of your server requests will start which in turn, will cause a general slowness t your site performance.
One operation refers to reading or writing a file system block (a file system consists of blocks of a fixed length, for example, 4 kilobytes, and large files consist of many blocks).
Another important indicator is latency (delay, the time it takes to complete one operation, measured in milli-or even microseconds).
On VPS and dedicated servers, there is an opportunity to evaluate these indicators. Sometimes similar configurations (for example, 1 core 2 GHz, 2 GB of RAM) give IOPS values that differ by an order of magnitude.
This is what stable IOPS look like:
And a not stable IOPS performance:
Also, take a note of a limited IOPS benchmark:
How essential is it for sites and web applications? The answer is not entirely obvious.
Modern sites are systems with a multilayer cache (OS, DBMS, programming language interpreter caches, application-level caches). If you look superficially at disk activity while running some popular CMS, then reading may not be there at all. All that is needed to generate the page is already in RAM. This is normal, and IOPS and latency seem to be less important.
But here are some cases where disk activity can be observed:
Separate service or the entire server after a reboot when the cache is not “warmed up”.
Large database when not everything fits in buffers and cache.
Lots of statics, do not fit in RAM.
Sites with user authorization and personalized pages when the cache efficiency is low.
Pages with heavy SQL queries spanning large data sets.
Creating backups.
Lack of RAM, fast cache flushing.
If you don’t want to encounter this slowness from time to time on different pages, which are therefore difficult to catch, it is better to control IOPS indicators.
To see how intensively your site is working with the disk, you can use the iotop program. Installation on Debian will look as follows:
apt-get update
apt-get install iotop
You can call it like this which will show only processes using the disk and update data every two seconds:
iotop -o -d 2
Here is an example site where everything is in the cache:
Particular attention should be paid to the IO column – this is the fraction of the process execution time spent on disk operations. In the case shown, nothing is read from the disk, but only slightly written to the CMS database (perhaps the session information is updated, and something is logged).
And here is a heavy page:
The script was executed for several seconds, while almost 40% of the time was read from the disk. And this is an SSD. There could well be a 504 error on a slow disk or with a serious limit on reading speed.
We believe that every hosting should be benchmarked and tested before usage. If you want to test the performance of your VPS server solution as well, you can do it with nench VPS benchmaking script.
Let’s see how to do it exactly. First of all, you can learn more about how to use nench benchmarking here. Now, add the next command to the cron of your VPS webhosting:
A warning no crontab for root may appear, but it’s normal, the task is installed. You can verify the command by running crontab -l.
Leave the server for a week or at least a day, and then return for the results, they will be in the nench.log file.
Under Windows, a long file can be copied directly from Putty. In the settings Change settings … -> Window -> Lines of scrollback, you can put 20,000. This is enough for a test for 10 days. You can display the entire file with the command cat nench.log
You can copy the entire contents of the screen by right-clicking on the title of the Putty window and selecting Copy all to the clipboard.
Of course, you can simply download the log file via SFTP.
When you are done testing, be sure to remove the task from cron using the crontab -e command
We strongly recommend you test the performance of your VPS service and if needed, migrate to a better alternative. A key decision here can be to avoid EIG-owned hosts which are known for their degraded performance and support issues. If you got any open questions about nench script, be sure to check out nench benchmarking tool FAQ.
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