Future Hosting VPS mixed reviews?
 

I'm Quite interested in Futurehosting VPS. I've heard mixed reviews about them in the research I've done through google but I figured I'd post a thread and see if you all had any feedback for me.

1. Are there any customers here who use their servers in Miami, Chicago or Florida?

2. IS there Pro Management plan really worth it? I read somewhere that it wasn't worth the extra charge as it wasn't truly proactive and i may as well just get the Future Engineering standard plan.

My only other option(I've narrowed it down) is Hostdime.

Futurehosting was one of our primary hosts from around 2007-2009 (second only to EuroVPS and Stablehost), and was discontinued solely due to lack of need. It was an excellent host, and Vik and Jim were wonderful people to work with. From around 2009 to 2012, we also admin'd a server there for one of our larger clients at the time, before the client downsized and moved the few remaining sites to a multi-domain plan (like reseller) with us. (We often host our dev clients.)

The only time we ever had trouble was back in 2008. There was a 4-day downtime, but it was completely the fault of Parallels. Virtuozzo ate the VPS AND ruined the backup server at the same time, so it had to be restored manually from both ends. Parallels actually requested our container image for debugging (which we did), and I believe they issued an update because of a fatal flaw. Not fun at all.

As recently as 2013, I'd been in contact with Vik. Still a nice guy.

1. Our server was in Seattle (a location they no longer have, I believe), and our client was in Chicago.

2. I've never come across truly proactive management from any host. It's always reactive, meaning you have to ask them for whatever you want -- updates, installing new software (caches, etc), security tweaks, etc. They were better than average, and usually update the basic OS. When it came to suggested security tweaks, non-OS patches and updates, you have to ask. It's why even "managed" VPS users must at least know about some management tasks.

The client VPS has several issues -- again, all related to Virtuozzo. It's one of main reasons we no longer use any Virtuozzo (VZ) or OpenVZ systems -- only Xen, KVM, VMware, and Hyper-V based virtualization. We never run into the various kooky issues we'd experience on the VZ platforms. (At worst, SolusVM sometimes does not deploy Xen/KVM templates correctly, but this is not common. I've only seen it twice to date.)

Our main VPS are currently with EuroVPS, Site5, Namecheap, Veerotech and Stablehost -- all of which use Xen or KVM. Also worth mentioning is WebhostingBuzz, but we mostly use them for dedicateds; we have dedicateds at Namecheap and EuroVPS as well.

Futurehosting is a good host. It's right there alongside Knownhost and WiredTree for Virtuozzo VPS hosts.

Enough info for you? :)

Future Hosting
 

I've worked with Future Hosting and found them to be a great managed VPS provider. The only reason I can really think that they would have mixed reviews is because of the lack of phone support, but I found that didn't matter, because they are just as communicative via email and dealt with support issues effectively.