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Originally Posted by Mr. Rey
I would like to know of anybody's experiences (good and bad) with any of these web hosts: EuroVPS, Stable Host, MDD Hosting, Hawk Host, Croc Web, Evolucix. Do these web host's customer support team speak, type, and understand ENGLISH? |
EuroVPS - This site has been with EuroVPS since June 2006, which is more than 6 years now. If EuroVPS ever went belly up -- an unlikely event -- I think I'd curl up into the fetal position and cry for a few days. Not because I'd lose anything, but because they'd be almost impossible to replace. The quality of hardware, network, support, and ownership attitude is not just excellent, but what most other web hosts should aspire to do or be. I've spoken to several folks there on the phone, and their English is flawless; most of them are fluent in multiple languages. It's one of the few business I've come to trust without doubts. A lot of staff there is older than average (which is good!), in the 30+ range. Their product line is astounding, and I can't say enough good things about their attention to hardware, including extensive testing before deployment (i.e., which drives are best, which RAM is best, etc).
Stablehost - I've used them for 3 years now, as I wanted a USA-based host for some personal sites: vanity email, professional portfolios, and online resumes (CV). The uptime is nearly 100%, for the entire period of 3 years, and that's on a cheap $5/monthly shared hosting account. That's almost unheard of. They're based in Arizona, and the staff is quite pleasant. A friend of mine uses Stablehost, too (on my suggestion), and they even put up with his silly questions. They're serious about security, and have good two-way communication with customers. As with EuroVPS, staff is older than average. Native English speakers, yes.
MDDHosting and
Hawkhost - I put these two together, because my comments are about the same. The owners are great, quite knowledgeable. These are two more medium-sized hosts that have properly invested in their business, and it shows with the quality of support and uptime. My comments feel sort of generic, but part of that is because they're cPanel-centric hosts, and cPanel is a fairly generic platform. Each of them has been on top of security, which is the most important part of a cPanel/WHMCS setup. I believe
Hawkhost is Canadian owned, but none of the servers are there. Everybody is 25+ in age. Native English speakers, yes.
Crocweb - I have a tiny plan there, and it's been almost 100% for 1.5+ years now. Ownership is 25+, though not sure about support staff. Native English speakers, yes. This is a Canadian owned and operated hosts, with servers also in Canada. It's smaller than the above operations, but it has good pricing as a low-budget cPanel based host. Again, not much to say, because cPanel/WHMCS based hosting is so generic now. The only "problem" with Crocweb is that there are no upgrade paths; if you outgrow their shared servers, you'll have to find a new VPS/dedicated host.
Evolucix - I actually met one of the owners of this host in person, earlier this year. I bought him lunch at Panera Bread, and we chatted for a few hours. It's owned by two college students. And while that's almost always a bad thing, Avish and Shayan would be rare exceptions to that rule. These are the kinds of students that participate in events at MIT, have family in the IT field (and support what they do), etc. Some of the projects they're doing -- both in school, and for long-term professional goals -- are quite impressive. While they offer cPanel shared, they're primarily a VPS host, and they've not skimped on servers and appliances as most low-end budget VPS hosts have done. For them, this is a career choice, not a summer money-making scheme. They have one of the very few OpenVZ setups that I find to be consistently excellent on performance. Also don't let their "foreign-sounding" names fool your -- English is their native language, and they're quite well-spoken (especially for their age group). The reason they're doing hosting is the reason I learned about hosting -- it matters in our work. They need quality hosting for their projects, and have decided to create their own hosting company to offer it.
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I live in Toronto, Canada, and I would like to know if there's a difference between getting hosting from someone in Canada (CrocWeb, HawkHost [I'm not sure if they're Canadian]) or from someone in Europe (EuroVPS), or the US (StableHost)?
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Assuming website (not games, Forex apps, streaming videos), then in real-world terms, no.
Your actual speed is more dependent on the quality of:
- internal networks and traffic patterns,
- network peering/transit,
- server optimization,
- and content optimization.
One of my first tests of EuroVPS was done while sitting in a wireless-enabled cafe in Dallas, which was just a few blocks away from The Planet (datacenter). While TP would ping faster, in approximately 30ms vs. about 130ms for EuroVPS, the sites consistently loaded better from EuroVPS servers. The AMS-IX is the "center of the world" for the Internet, and is very well connected. Dallas, on the other hand, has always had odd traffic routing, and the host I was using out of TP was likely not using very high-quality servers.
The people (companies, really) who most often suggest "location matters" are the ones trying to sell you something.
I like the speeds from Stablehost, too. Everything there is excellent, especially since they swapped to their own network a year or so ago. They have their own IP space, own servers and racks, etc. (EuroVPS has always been that way.)
None of the hosts you've asked about are bad. Each would be a good choice.
