LowEndBoxes Review (LEBRE) side project

2

Comments

  • @poisson said:
    Canvassing some views from the trustworthy LES crowd as I just saw the Hostsailor BF deals. Can anyone vouch for their customer service and product reliability?

    They arent cheap at all, even with 60% discount.

    Thanked by (1)poisson
  • edited November 2019

    This seems like a fun project. Didn't someone have a benchmarking script to collect numbers about hosts?

    @poisson said:

    @hzr said:
    LEB occasionally posts good providers, much like a broken clock is occasionally correct

    You sure you want to rely on this clock to be at church in time for wedding?

    Weddings are about seeing how much alcohol can be consumed, so sure. :)

    We don't eat fast food because it's healthy. Cheap crap is cheap crap, and it gets the job done when the job isn't important. :) I know where to go if I want a nice meal and don't mind paying the ticket, and I know where to go if I don't.

  • Looks like @HostDoc is seriously tempting our wallets (and we are just talking appetizers now; wondering what the main courses will be): https://lowendboxes.review/hostdoc-black-friday-2019-dallas-dual-compute/

    I didn't compute a LEBRE score for this Kansas VPS monster because it is more than $7 but I am glad I already spent my BF budget because I was really tempted to click buy.

    Thanked by (2)HostDoc dahartigan

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  • @poisson said:
    now; wondering what the main courses will be): >

    The main plans for BF are also available on the site if you scroll towards the bottom however they can not yet be purchased and will become available from black Friday.

  • @HostDoc said:

    @poisson said:
    now; wondering what the main courses will be): >

    The main plans for BF are also available on the site if you scroll towards the bottom however they can not yet be purchased and will become available from black Friday.

    Those are some seriously overdose levels of potassium Doc :-)

    I assume the explosions I heard last night followed by a crazed "I did it!" being heard from your lab were the result of testing the purity of the potassium.

    Thanked by (2)poisson HostDoc

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  • @poisson said:
    Looks like @HostDoc is seriously tempting our wallets (and we are just talking appetizers now; wondering what the main courses will be): https://lowendboxes.review/hostdoc-black-friday-2019-dallas-dual-compute/

    I didn't compute a LEBRE score for this Kansas VPS monster because it is more than $7 but I am glad I already spent my BF budget because I was really tempted to click buy.

    I'm also out this BF, I have already blown my budget on crack potassium and a shipping container of @cociu's sisters who have become weak on plow or hair grow on chests.

    Get the best deal on your next VPS or Shared/Reseller hosting from RacknerdTracker.com - The original aff garden.

  • poissonpoisson OG
    edited November 2019

    @HostDoc said:

    @poisson said:
    now; wondering what the main courses will be): >

    The main plans for BF are also available on the site if you scroll towards the bottom however they can not yet be purchased and will become available from black Friday.

    Ah.. but I suppose the pricing will drop a bit if paid annually, right? That's what I have observed with the warmers.

    Also, I think I see some typos in the actual BF offers:

    UK 1Gbps: last plan's pound symbol is missing
    SG 250 mpbs: second plan bandwidth should be 300GB, not 300 MB
    AU 250 mbps: all plans bandwidth should be in GB, not MB

    That's about what I managed to catch.

    Thanked by (1)HostDoc

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  • HostDocHostDoc OG
    edited November 2019

    @poisson said:

    @HostDoc said:

    @poisson said:
    now; wondering what the main courses will be): >

    The main plans for BF are also available on the site if you scroll towards the bottom however they can not yet be purchased and will become available from black Friday.

    Ah.. but I suppose the pricing will drop a bit if paid annually, right? That's what I have observed with the warmers.

    Also, I think I see some typos in the actual BF offers:

    UK 1Gbps: last plan's pound symbol is missing
    SG 250 mpbs: second plan bandwidth should be 300GB, not 300 MB
    AU 250 mbps: all plans bandwidth should be in GB, not MB

    That's about what I managed to catch.

    There may be a host of errors present I believe.
    This is what happens when indulging in too much of your own medication.
    I will have it rectified before the end of the day. Thanks for pointing them out. Thanks @FAT32 also for pointing out previous errors.

    Thanked by (3)FAT32 poisson uptime
  • @HostDoc said:

    @poisson said:

    @HostDoc said:

    @poisson said:
    now; wondering what the main courses will be): >

    The main plans for BF are also available on the site if you scroll towards the bottom however they can not yet be purchased and will become available from black Friday.

    Ah.. but I suppose the pricing will drop a bit if paid annually, right? That's what I have observed with the warmers.

    Also, I think I see some typos in the actual BF offers:

    UK 1Gbps: last plan's pound symbol is missing
    SG 250 mpbs: second plan bandwidth should be 300GB, not 300 MB
    AU 250 mbps: all plans bandwidth should be in GB, not MB

    That's about what I managed to catch.

    There may be a host of errors present I believe.
    This is what happens when indulging in too much of your own medication.
    I will have it rectified before the end of the day. Thanks for pointing them out. Thanks @FAT32 also for pointing out previous errors.

    Nothing like LESourcing proofreading.

    Thanked by (2)FAT32 HostDoc

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  • In light of the latest mass LEB deadpooling, I thought of improving the whitelist on LEBRE through the community's collective wisdom. If anyone has hosts worthy of whitelisting that I am not aware of, drop a reply. If you would like to second any suggestions based on your experience, please do. The more honest sharing we have, the more likely we have a dependable whitelist of providers.

    Thanked by (2)uptime dahartigan

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  • uptimeuptime OG
    edited December 2019

    hello @poisson - for the sake of convenience to discuss in this thread, would it make sense to post your current whitelist in a comment here? (I am feeling somewhat lazy today ...)

    Also if I might presume to impose just a bit here with my own info-gathering agenda to mention that there are now well over 100 providers listed with wiki pages open for additions here: https://lowend.wiki/Providers - please feel free to use that as a scratchpad for collaborative notes or whatever to augment discussion here - and I'm happy to tidy up rough drafts or whatever later if/when necessary.

    The LEBRE reviews and whitelist are mentioned briefly on the wiki as well (though might also be good to add as a note where appropriate in individual provider pages there too).

    There are about 20 "lowend" providers I've tried myself over the last couple years - and I think there are plenty more good ones I don't even know about. I'll definitely be circling back around to learn from others here and chime in with a few of my own observations - after I've had my coffee ... :dizzy:

    EDIT: still haven't had coffee yet. But YOLO so here you go, some very rough grist for your mill. (I would be able to personally recommend about a dozen or so based on my own very limited experience - am just hoping this big "kitchen sink" list might jog some memories and maybe will inspire some more dischssion here)

    Thanked by (1)deepak_leb

    HS4LIFE (+ (* 3 4) (* 5 6))

  • Hello @poisson, any reason why you don't consider Contabo reliable enough to be in your whitelist?

    I know they have some weird stuff, like limiting read/write speeds on their SSDs, but people noticed that they usually lift the limits if you ask them.

    Thanks for the great job, I love your website.

  • @Ouji said:
    Hello @poisson, any reason why you don't consider Contabo reliable enough to be in your whitelist?

    I know they have some weird stuff, like limiting read/write speeds on their SSDs, but people noticed that they usually lift the limits if you ask them.

    Thanks for the great job, I love your website.

    I see some mixed reactions about Contabo, but a lot of it was in the past. I haven't seen many recent Contabo experiences. Could you point me to some?

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  • poissonpoisson OG
    edited December 2019

    @uptime thanks for the list! It certainly helped me remember some obvious candidates that I missed whitelisting, namely:

    AnyNode
    Hostens
    Ikoula
    OVH
    Scaleway
    SSDBlaze
    SSDNodes
    SecureDragon
    SoYouStart
    TerraHost
    TNAHosting
    TurnkeyInternet
    Virtono

    If anyone would like to chime in on whether any of them are deadpool or oversold risks, please do. I probably will add Contabo to the list.

    EDIT: Finalhosting was mentioned but nope, not whitelisting for a long time.

    Thanked by (1)uptime

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  • There are linode and digitalocean in that list, so maybe aws lightsail can be in the list too? :p

    Thanked by (1)uptime
  • @abnoeh said:
    There are linode and digitalocean in that list, so maybe aws lightsail can be in the list too? :p

    That's true. :)

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  • tgltgl OG
    edited December 2019

    Error 522 Ray ID: 54203c3c5ee3ee89 • 2019-12-08 16:49:54 UTC

    edit: now its back up, it was very slow for 5-10 minutes and had timeouts, dunno why, could be your hoster

  • @tgl said:
    Error 522 Ray ID: 54203c3c5ee3ee89 • 2019-12-08 16:49:54 UTC

    edit: now its back up, it was very slow for 5-10 minutes and had timeouts, dunno why, could be your hoster

    Not sure what happened there. Will monitor it to see if it recurs. Thanks for providing an additional pair of eyes!

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  • uptimeuptime OG
    edited December 2019

    @poisson - glad to hear you found the long list helpful. I should be clear that it covers a wide range of (mostly lowend) providers - and is neither complete nor the basis for any specific recommendation. That said, I'd expect that at least 90 out of 100+ currently on that big list will still be in business as such 3 years from now, based on their track records and general reputation. And yes I have definitely included a few wildcards as well, either inadvertently or ... for the lulz :smiley:

    Seriously though - the intent for the wiki is to cover a range of providers including the good, the bad, and the heretofore relatively unknown. But I'd rather start with the ones I know about, and I try to pay attention to the better ones. And I would tend to agree that trying to keep track of all the fly-by-night summerhosts could be a Sisyphean and possibly pointless chore. (Still - much respect to @teamacc for their work in that department!)

    On the other hand - I will confess that I am also sometimes a bit leary of the implied responsibility when recommending a provider (though I frequently will do so anyway). And maintaining a whitelist seems even that much more fraught with peril ... but here we are. I'll be glad to see you make it work!

    I can suggest quite a few additions to your list, using just the basic "not a summerhost" criterion.

    I'm inclined to start with providers who are registered on this forum:

    And - as luck would have it - I'm happy to say that I have had good experience with all of these providers. (Some more than others, but I think they are all legit. And a few are definitely on my short list of superior potassium.)

    Will be interesting to compare notes to flesh out the YMMV part of the collective wisdom project, to be sure!. But suffice to say I'd be really surprised to see any of these providers doing a vanishing act - they are all relatively known quantities and qualities as far as I am concerned.

    To be continued ... maybe let's just first digest these 7 suggestions. (And perhaps also see if additional information might influence your process for identifying and evaluating candidates for inclusion in your whitelist)

    HS4LIFE (+ (* 3 4) (* 5 6))

  • mfsmfs OG
    edited December 2019

    I do appreciate the effort in helping out others and giving them a somewhat sensible guideline in their purchases. Anyway, as willie noted, some people on LE* are very likely to flock on an unsustainable deal and, when deadpool comes, they will be self-indulging with their past bad choices (it happened even in the current deadpool, I spotted at least a couple of posts like this). The circle is doomed to be repeated. Other people, more experienced, like to play with tiny boxes and aren't worried about abstract references. Also,

    poisson said: evaluate paper specs

    I have a few issues with "paper specs". Two vCPUs can perform very differently depending on node density and allowed burst; the same disk space may perform very differently depending on architectural choices; the same price tag won't compare support, professionalism or location. Even formal passmark scores may be totally different depending on how many patches have been applied against spectre/meltdown... same goes for bw (multihoming and upstream providers come into play)... and so on

    In my view there's no way out but offering some sort of critical guidance to people who are willing to learn from someone's experience and/or expertise. Like: be wary of companies with hidden whois no history no contacts suddenly proposing incredible deals, for starters. Or: if you're looking for storage, the fact that you'll have only 1/4 thread with minimal burst may be irrelevant for your case. Or: if you're trying to build your own VPN/wireguard, who cares about storage. And it's still really the tip of the iceberg.
    It's way more difficult but it should be done, it's the only way out.
    Critical Thinking is difficult sometimes and people tend to jump to a pre-defined solution. Also because a reasoned solution seems exhausting. There's also sometimes the desire to gamble a little bit
    Sure a whitelist is better than a blacklist. Yet a reasoned collection of critical tools about how to properly evaluate a box for desired usage cases may turn out useful, along the illustration of specs and abstract ratios.
    It's difficult to give a review after three or six months already, even with all sorts of benchmarks and recorded performance...
    It's a difficult project to carry out to begin with, even more in someone' spare time.

    All the best

    TL;DR teach a man to fish...

    Thanked by (1)uptime
  • @mfs said:
    I do appreciate the effort in helping out other and giving them a somewhat sensible guideline in their purchases. Anyway, as willie noted, some people on LE* are very likely to flock on an unsustainable deal and, when deadpool comes, they will be self-indulging with their past bad choices (it happened even in the current deadpool, I spotted at least a couple of posts like this). The circle is doomed to be repeated. Other people, more experienced, like to play with tiny boxes and aren't worried about abstract references. Also,

    poisson said: evaluate paper specs

    I have a few issues with "paper specs". Two vCPUs can perform very differently depending on node density and allowed burst; the same disk space may perform very differently depending on architectural choices; the same price tag won't compare support, professionalism or location. Even formal passmark scores may be totally different depending on how many patches have been applied against spectre/meltdown... same goes for bw (multihoming and upstream providers come into play)... and so on

    In my view there's no way out but offering some sort of critical guidance to people who are willing to learn from someone's experience and/or expertise. Like: be wary of companies with hidden whois no history no contacts suddenly proposing incredible deals, for starters. Or: if you're looking for storage, the fact that you'll have only 1/4 thread with minimal burst may be irrelevant for your case. Or: if you're trying to build your own VPN/wireguard, who cares about storage. And it's still really the tip of the iceberg.
    It's way more difficult but it should be done, it's the only way out.
    Critical Thinking is difficult sometimes and people tend to jump to a pre-defined solution. Also because a reasoned solution seems exhausting. There's also sometimes the desire to gamble a little bit
    Sure a whitelist is better than a blacklist. Yet a reasoned collection of critical tools about how to properly evaluate a box for desired usage cases may turn out useful, along an illustration of specs and abstract ratios.
    It's difficult to give a review after three or six months already, even with all sorts of benchmarks and recorded performance...
    It's a difficult project to carry out to begin with, even more in someone' spare time.

    All the best

    TL;DR teach a man to fish...

    I absolutely agree, but these will take time. Paper specification evaluation is helpful for making quick decisions on a limited time deal. Besides, I only feature whitelisted hosts, and these hosts are almost guaranteed to be managing the node density well enough such that actual performance based on paper specs should not be too far off most of the time. That I think is sufficient for now.

    I am developing a standardised performance benchmarking indicator list called LEBRE-X (LEBRE Extended) where I will measure the following:

    • CPU and Memory (Geekbench 5)
    • Disk (fio random read-write)
    • Network performance (iperf3 using my own private servers: Utah, Chicago, Warsaw, Germany, India (uncomfirmed but likely), Singapore, Perth, Sydney)

    These will be much more indicative of actual performance because the tests will be run daily at random times for minimum of 2-3 weeks or more (ideally should be 4-6 weeks but I prefer to underpromise). Location wise I think I pretty much have covered most of the key geographical locations LES users come from with my private iperf servers.

    Also, this is limited to servers I can get my hands on (either owned or if people on LES who have idling servers are willing to contribute them for testing purposes). LEBRE-X is in the pipeline but I currently have other things to see to, so once I clear them, there will be a bunch of longitudinal LEBRE-X review data to digest.

    Give me some time and I will do my due contributions for the community!

    Thanked by (2)uptime FHR

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  • @uptime Thanks for the input! I value your opinions :)

    The list has been massively updated and any refugee from the recent mass shutdown have more choices to choose from.

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  • Surprised to see that Ramnode are not in the whitelist either?

    Thanked by (2)uptime Nick_A
  • @ialexpw said:
    Surprised to see that Ramnode are not in the whitelist either?

    Thanks for another pair of eyes. Will put them up :)

    Thanked by (2)ialexpw Nick_A

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  • I am developing a standardised performance benchmarking indicator list called LEBRE-X (LEBRE Extended) where I will measure the following:

    • CPU and Memory (Geekbench 5)
    • Disk (fio random read-write)
    • Network performance (iperf3 using my own private servers: Utah, Chicago, Warsaw, Germany, India (uncomfirmed but likely), Singapore, Perth, Sydney)

    +1 for these additional data points. While Geekbench isn’t always indicative of actual performance due to the inherent instability of shared hosts, I’ve still found it to be quite helpful for measuring average performance that more often than not ends up being relatively accurate.

    Thank you for your valuable website! I’ve enjoyed reading your reviews.

    It don’t be like it is until it do.

  • @ouvoun said:

    I am developing a standardised performance benchmarking indicator list called LEBRE-X (LEBRE Extended) where I will measure the following:

    • CPU and Memory (Geekbench 5)
    • Disk (fio random read-write)
    • Network performance (iperf3 using my own private servers: Utah, Chicago, Warsaw, Germany, India (uncomfirmed but likely), Singapore, Perth, Sydney)

    +1 for these additional data points. While Geekbench isn’t always indicative of actual performance due to the inherent instability of shared hosts, I’ve still found it to be quite helpful for measuring average performance that more often than not ends up being relatively accurate.

    Thank you for your valuable website! I’ve enjoyed reading your reviews.

    My day job is a researcher and we fight about methods all the time. I think all things considered, Geekbench is probably the best composite measure representing CPU and RAM capability. The rest are relatively deficient in one way or another. When a better method shows up, I will be happy to adjust!

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  • @poisson said: Thanks for another pair of eyes. Will put them up

    :)

    RamNode: High Performance Cloud VPS
    NYC - LA - ATL - SEA - NL - DDoS Protection

  • MikePTMikePT Hosting ProviderOGServices Provider

    Excellent work. Well done and thank you for this list. Its being spread around!

    Thanked by (1)poisson
  • Quick question on Avoro. Looks like a solid German host worthy of whitelisting. Do share your experience if any.

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  • Update

    Too many flash deals, no time to review them all. Therefore, I am doing a Twitter and a Weibo account to quickly post latest deals from whitelisted providers so that that the LES community can be updated on latest offers even if they don't log in 20 times a day.

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/lowendboxesR
    Weibo: https://weibo.com/u/7361143065

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