Suggest new VPS host, leaving JaguarPC!
 

10 years ago I started with JaguarPC and the support and atmosphere at the time was epic, they catered to the needs of the higher end customers that needed dedicated servers and VPS's. If I recall I even suggested them to LS when he inquired about a VPS those many years ago. 10 or 15 minute response times for tickets, highly competent staff and I could even talk directly with the owner of the company and expect a response in short time. Over the last ten years I will have to give them credit where credit is due, the hardware is phenomenal. Typical average load any time I look at top might be about 0.02 for example, it's the only reason I have stayed with them as I have watched their support deteriorate.

The support there has become abysmal, abysmal is not even a strong enough word to describe it. I have an ongoing DDoS attack on one of my domains that started on Monday. I now have it manageable but what should of taken about 1 day or 2 at the most for me to resolve took 4 days. Requesting a new IP and having a tech first argue with me because he hasn't taken the time to read the clear explanation why I want it and then waiting 18 hours for it is simply not acceptable. 2, 3 and even 4 hour responses to what is clearly an urgent issue is just not acceptable.

I would really love to find a host that is the same as Jag was 10 years ago but I may be seeking Utopia. With that said this is what I need:

• Cheap... LOL, I know you get what you pay for. I'm currently spending about $35 a month. I need a VPS that is responsive. My personal resource needs are very limited, I might use like 2% of the bandwidth allocated to me. My concern is the server is not overloaded by other customers.
• Support - I do not need or want a host that is very responsive to RTFM questions like "how do I set up email " questions.What I want is one that will prioritize urgent issues that are difficult or impossible for me to resolve by myself. I would expect most tickets to be answered in 1/2 hour or up to 1 hour.
• An active forum where the techs and admins are participating would be really nice.
• Good reputation as in the sites they are hosting are not dominated by XXX, responsive to spam abuse tickets sent by ISP's etc.

So, is Utopia out there?

- Cheap? Give me a (reasonable) number to work with. What were you paying JaguarPC?
- RAM? Other specs that matter?
- Any panel?
- Managed or unmanaged?

Believe it or not, near-Utopia for VPS does exist.

It's not just techs that are unresponsive, but ownership as well. Greg hasn't written me back in the past year. What;s ironic is he contacted me to apologize for JaguarPC issues in 2013-2015, and urged me to re-look at them as a quality host. We talked a while ... then he vanished. I never did get that look.

My spec needs are very limited at the moment, I do need at least 50GB of disk space. The disk space ismost pressing need and reasonable prices for adding more is desirable. I think I started with 256MB of RAM which was adequate and very little has changed since then. I haven't done a lot of research on it yet but I may want to do some very limited server side video conversion in the near future, this would not be time sensitive so even if it had to sit in the background converting for a day or two it wouldn't matter.

I'm currently paying $35 including a few extra IP's but the specs are higher than their $30 plan because I have some Grandfathered deal for upgrading.

I can probably go with unmanaged at this point but I'm sticking with managed. My concern with that is the grey area of what support they provide. I don't need someone to install video conversion software because I can take the time to do it myself and prefer to do it that way. I might need support once a year for something that is beyond my knowledge that needs to be resolved now. I went two years no tickets at Jag....

I've been using Plesk for ten years and prefer to stick with that because I know my way around. I would need a very good reason to switch to something else.

As far as Jag goes I didn't have any major issues over the last ten years other than a 3 day downtime in 2007 shortly after I got the VPS. I gave them the benefit of the doubt then because of the confidence of the other customers, that was before it started going downhill. You can see the support getting worse but I didn't have extremely urgent issues to deal with. What I told Les who is their COO is the difference between now and then is I have no confidence.

For example I requested new IP* about two days into this with the hopes they could expedite it...... They bumped the ticket to sales and 18 hours later after the IP was issued they bumped it back to regular support instead of L3 which I didn't notice. I switched the domain to the new IP and the server load immediately goes to like 55.... I didn't even know it went that high...... LOL I had to turn the VPS off so it didn't bring the whole server down.

So now I'm in nowhere land because I can't start the VPS which means tech support. I explain the problem and the response is, "can I switch on the VPS to check your traffic logs". It's then I noticed the "staff" next to techs name and suggested they do not start the VPS unless they want to bring the whole server down and they bump it back to L3.

It's funny know but a the time I'm thinking to myself I should say sure go right ahead and start it. I could imagine the look on their face as the CPU and resource meter instantly go to red.


*I'm going to explain all this in another post and what I did. I don't know what a large attack is like but at it's height 120 million requests per hour.

And I'm assuming that Linux with Plesk, correct? The popularity of Plesk (Linux, not Windows) has really nosedived in the past 5+ years. Not that cPanel is any better, as it lacks some things found in Plesk (especially nginx). But cPanel is easier to work with, and has more plugins/mods.

That will be the limiting issue.

You can install Plesk on an unmanaged VPS, by getting your own Plesk license, but then you'll have no support should the need arise. You'll be on your own.

Most of the holdouts still offering Plesk Linux are in Europe. Do you have any issue with using European hosting?

I don't want European host, even if I did doesn't that open a can of worms with privacy issues? Nah.....:D

You do bring up something I had not thought of. I'd prefer a US host employing US citizens. Don;t take that as I don't like foreigners but I prefer to support US companies and their employees even if I have to pay a little more. The industry I come from is almost entirely US based from one end to the other.

I'm not necessarily against Cpanel but I've never used it. Like I said I'm familiar with Plesk and really don't want to go mucking around learning a new panel. Linux server and I prefer sticking with managed.

Any info on this company? they are based near me. Prices seem reasonable, they don't offer any "unlimited" shared hosting packages which is encouraging....

https://www.linode.com/

Linode had a lot of DDoS and downtime issue in recent times. If you're just now leaving that sort of mess, it may not be a wise move to go to a targeted host.

I plan to investigate a few leads and get back to you.

That mess was directed at me.... I'll be taking it with me if it happens again. I'm doubting it was random attack.

In any event the prices seem very reasonable but of course the devil is in the details, you need to set up account for that. I may just do that later to find out.

Well, if you want to move on this ASAP, I'd look first at Knownhost.

Although not advertised anymore, I believe that they still offer Plesk. Ask them. I know they have both cPanel and DirectAdmin, but they often write about other panels online.

Use coupon code KHNEWYEAR to save a few bucks monthly for life.

I have a bill coming up for Jag in a few days, isn't going to happen. No point rushing now, if I had known on Monday what was going to occur I certainly would of done it. I have at least two weeks before I'll pull the trigger. I suggested to the COO they throw me a bone and pay for the month, he is well aware I'm leaving.

I'm small fish in a big pond but I think I made my point to him. He did mention there was some issues over the last month but to be honest I don't think he was trying to use it as excuse.

I was actually looking at them the other day, followed a link from the reviews.

This becomes problematic, I don't need anyone wiping my ass but on the other hand it's nice to know you can reach out to support.

The Linode plans appear to be self managed and does not include a panel, but I may be wrong about that. As best I can tell they offer managed service for $100 per VPS but that has to be a wiping your ass service. I understand the issues the hosts have with defining "managed" but I'm not paying $100 for something I may not use once this gets sailing in the right direction. On the other hand I don't want to be stuck with difficult problem to solve....

Linode simply is not a great host. It's overrated due to size, and a moderate decent reputation (like Amazon AWS). It's sort of like the 'compliment' (not really) of "it's not bad". Not "it's amazing", but in the negative "not bad". That's one peg below "it's okay", and one above "it sucks". Linode is simply one of the oldest VPS (now cloud) hosts out there, always unmanaged. I'm actually still not sure if they have a real cloud, or fake "cloud" like Digital Ocean (another "not bad" hosts, but cheaper still).

I think you're looking in the wrong direction.

I can manage servers myself, with only infrequent issues. I consider management to be my insurance. I may be sick, busy, asleep, on vacation, etc. Sometimes I need a second pair of eyes. And since I'm paying for it, sometimes I just use it because I don't want to mess with it, I'm busy! It sounuds like you're the same way.

LiquidWeb is a better host in every way, but it will cost double what you were paying. Not quite Linode ridiculous pricing (which isn't even hand-holding support BTW), but still higher. The site now uses LiquidWeb, BTW, since January 2015.

I really think Knownhost is your best bet, in that price range.

If you're open to cPanel hosting, I can list out some more options.

Plesk and cPanel have some big differences. I've never been fond of Plesk for Linux, but Plesk for Windows has always been excellent, even back in the Swsoft 7.x days. Plesk 12/12.5 is really good. Depending on what you were using (especially nginx), there may be hardships and learning curves. But if you weren't using any of it, not a big deal. cPanel does have better anti-hacking and security audit features, so it may be worth the migration. You can migrate Plesk > cPanel, and a good managed host will handle that for you.

That's where I'm at, I prefer to do things myself but I know when I'm in over my head. I'm one band so I can;t rely on anyone else to take care of this. I don't mind paying an extra $15 a month even if I use it once a year.

I'm not migrating anything, I only have a few domains and email accounts to setup. Biggest issue here is I have about 18GB of forum attachments but that is not time sensitive. I can even do that with a local backup if I need to.

I'm not for or against Cpanel but you know how that goes learning a new interface. I may go with knowhost but I'll look around some more.

-- merged --

I decided to go with Knowhost after looking a round a little more. Had to put my first ticket in because I decided to change the hostname and they need to configure it. I can do it myself but it reverts on reboot and the rdns is not correct either. 5 minutes flat on a Saturday night yet.... impressive.

Also decided to go with cpanel, if anything there will be less issues with support.

Almost forgot..... Thanks for the suggestion. Looks like I might have found what I wanted.

-- update --

I'm very happy with Knowhost so far. Thanks again for the suggestion.

I am very old customer of LiquidWeb and their service is very fast and good. I will suggest their name for VPS hosting.

Just an update, very happy with Knowhost. Extremely quick and responsive support. A ticket to support gets a response in minutes and the few things I needed resolved were resolved very quickly. So far I can't ask for anything more.

Indeed it is. In fact, LiquidWeb has been our main host for the past 3 years. :congrats:

However, this member wanted something comparable to JaguarPC, and Knownhost fit perfectly.

I'm really glad to hear we got you settled in a new home. :D