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iwStack - €21/1 Year 384MB KVM "Cloud" in Milan, Italy

Salvatore, from iwStack, has got a “configure yourself” cloud offer for us. As part of iwStack’s launch, you can get €30 of credit for €21. We’ve configured two instances below, so you have a rough idea on price.

Basic 384M Computing Instance

  • 384MB RAM
  • 1 vCPU Core
  • 10GB Diskspace
  • 1 IPv4 & /64 IPv6
  • KVM/CloudStack
  • Unmetered Incoming Bandwidth
  • 1.5GB/Hour (1TB/Month) Outgoing Bandwidth
  • €0.0035/Hour – € 2.52/Month
Basic 512M Computing Instance

  • 512MB RAM
  • 1 vCPU Core
  • 20GB Diskspace
  • 1 IPv4 & /64 IPv6
  • KVM/CloudStack
  • Unmetered Incoming Bandwidth
  • 1.5GB/Hour (1TB/Month) Outgoing Bandwidth
  • €0.006/Hour – € 4.32/Month

€30 of credit (for €21) with the coupon IWSTACKINTRO | Order Link

iwStack are a subsidiary of Prometeus, who have been providing web services since 1997. Prometeus have appeared on LowEndBox many times before, and own and operate the IperWeb and OverZold brands. Prometeus have won our coveted “Top Providers Poll” many times before, and came second in our most recent one. What you’re buying is iwStack credits (1 iwCredit = 1 Eur). You will buy 30 of these for a discounted rate of €21. If you configure your server like “Basic 384M”, then that €30 will pay for 1 year. The credit never expires and resources are billed per hour (more info here). Reviews for Prometeus are always pretty good; you can read more about iwStack’s features by clicking ‘more’.

iwStack accept payments via Paypal or Bank Transfer (only available for EU clients). 21% VAT is added to all Italian sales and EU clients without a valid VAT ID. They’re using the Fiber Channel Hitachi HUS 150 SAN (manual or scheduled backups are possible). iwStack allows easy virtual machine deployment; network as a service (multiple private isolated vlans, firewall, vpn, load balancing); upload and download of disk images (using the QCOW2 format); the ability to build your own template and much more. For more information, take a look at their Terms of Service.

Network Information:

Prometeus currently have 5 racks colocated in the largest campus/internet exchange in Italy. They operate their own BGP (AS34971) and have double 10Gbps upstream connectivity.

Test IPv4: 194.14.179.254 or 195.88.4.7
Test IPv6: 2a00:dcc0:eda:89::254:1
Test Files: http://mirrors.prometeus.net/test/test10.bin & http://mirrors.prometeus.net/test/test100.bin

71 Comments

  1. Liam, thank you very much! :-)

    September 8, 2013 @ 5:39 pm | Reply
  2. Alex:

    Well, WHMCS + CLOUD = CANCER for the user.

    I wouldn’t recommend a cloud provider company which at least can’t develop their own panel.

    September 8, 2013 @ 5:51 pm | Reply
    • Right!

      I love you too :-)

      September 8, 2013 @ 6:00 pm | Reply
      • Rock:

        so what’s the minimum charge per month?
        Whether you use it or not, is there any min.charge?

        September 8, 2013 @ 6:35 pm | Reply
        • there is no minimum charge. If you don’t use any resource you don’t pay anything.
          Running instances pay the resources they allocate/use, while stopped instances only pay for the disk space and the allocated ip (nothing for CPU and RAM).

          September 8, 2013 @ 6:39 pm | Reply
      • Lucas:

        How about if someone hack your account and pull out all credit in few days? Security is a biggest problem with all cloud PAYG staff, many users burn out with huge bills already after their accounts hacked

        September 8, 2013 @ 7:05 pm | Reply
        • Charges are published daily in the client area and user receive an email when the credit is low. once the credit is gone the account is suspended. Huge bills are with providers that don’t stop charging.

          September 8, 2013 @ 7:24 pm | Reply
  3. Lucas:

    Think give a try a bit will be better before load money in advance to new unknown Prometeus Cloud deal :) And pay in addition for one side traffic not a best thing peoples like so much..

    September 8, 2013 @ 6:18 pm | Reply
    • We never had free trials and this service will not be different :-)

      You can buy the credit and try the service for some days, if you don’t like it then ask for a refund and the unused credit less a processing fee will be refunded.

      September 8, 2013 @ 6:35 pm | Reply
    • renw0rp:

      what language are you speaking now Lucas?

      September 8, 2013 @ 7:27 pm | Reply
      • Lucas:

        Not US, sorry :)

        September 9, 2013 @ 9:05 am | Reply
        • Tom Robbins:

          What language is called “US”? I’m curious. Because if you refer to the country called “US”, last time they spoke the language of their original mother-country. Would be kind of surprised if the colony now had invented it’s own language.

          September 10, 2013 @ 11:22 am | Reply
  4. DalComp:

    I wish there are smaller credit packs, say 5 USD/EUR or something…

    September 8, 2013 @ 7:18 pm | Reply
    • after the first purchase, minimum credit clients can buy is €10 :-)
      €30 (21 with the code) are not much to access to a level of freedom you don’t see very often with the prices we went out.

      September 8, 2013 @ 7:37 pm | Reply
  5. I’m moving from xen to the cloud for using the HA function, and it’s all at a low costs.

    Thanks Uncle Sal :)

    September 8, 2013 @ 7:28 pm | Reply
  6. Maounique:

    The existing customers got a lower entry point at 15 Eur which is 10.5 with the 30% off. The higher entry for new customers is to reduce abuse, with only 5 Eur you can fire a lot of instances for a day and spam at 1.5 GB for an hour or so before being caught and we get a bunch of dirty IPs that will be rotated mostly out of control as people create and destroy instances.

    @Lukas what do you mean pay in addition for one side traffic ? 1.5 GBs an hour are included in the instance and only the outgoing traffic is counted, incoming is unlimited and free (sure, DDoS is not allowed, nor any other kind of abuses).

    September 8, 2013 @ 7:40 pm | Reply
  7. For the existing customers, we get the email that the deposit can as low as 10EUR, and also already given a credit for 30iwcredit, which is enough to run a 384MB cloud for a year.

    I’m moving my blog from Prometeus Xen Biz( uptime is more than 100days), to the cloud for the HA features. And will move another important data there :)

    Thank’s Uncle Sal

    September 8, 2013 @ 9:33 pm | Reply
    • Maounique:

      The 30 credits were given to the existing customers which participated in the beta test for a month or so, not everyone got it :)

      September 8, 2013 @ 9:37 pm | Reply
  8. bnmkl:

    It . Is . A w e s o m e !

    September 8, 2013 @ 10:00 pm | Reply
  9. Maarten Kossen:

    I can really recommend this service! Rock-solid, lots of freedom and very cheap for what you get!

    September 9, 2013 @ 12:05 am | Reply
    • Maounique:

      Thanks :)

      Just think of how many providers allow you to load any ISO you wish… And, no, you do not need to open a ticket, just link a HTTP/HTTPS, wait it to be loaded, and then you can create your dream machine. Just make sure you select one template with PV (virtio drivers if supported). Even for windows, you can select a PV template and change the ISO to load Virtio drivers during install, otherwise storage/network may not perform at best.

      September 9, 2013 @ 12:15 am | Reply
      • Maarten Kossen:

        Exactly, that’s what I really like about iwStack as well. I can upload any ISO I want and use them right away. Same with IP addresses and/or virtual routers, it’s all self-service. This is both an advantage for me, as a customer, and for Prometeus, as a company.

        September 9, 2013 @ 2:18 am | Reply
  10. I love IWSTack, Stable, Stable, Stable and good performance :)

    September 9, 2013 @ 12:08 am | Reply
  11. jcaleb:

    is it still forbidden overuse of cpu and disk io?

    September 9, 2013 @ 12:36 am | Reply
    • Yes it is as soon as the use cause problem to neighbors and/or the server :-)

      September 9, 2013 @ 1:47 am | Reply
  12. marrco:

    I’ve been one of the beta testers, and this is the best offer I’ve seen here in a very long time. Not a low-end-box, but a kvm vps using a large infrastructure with serious hardware (a huge SAN for storage), great network and it costs less then the usual low cost vps. All run by a company with close to 20 yrs experience in this business. This terrific offer rises the bar for all providers. And you can build your own network, with ha, routers, load balancers, multiple vps, different kind of storage, firewall, all for a few dollars a month.

    I guess none on LEB/LET offered so such for so little. This offer is really a game changer.

    September 9, 2013 @ 4:51 am | Reply
  13. Tom:

    I don’t like the cloud billing terms and most likely would even overpay just for a static plan, in upcoming month any chance we will see some offers on the same infrastructure with just always powered on VPS and metered HDD/BW?

    September 9, 2013 @ 5:18 am | Reply
    • Maarten Kossen:

      If your server is always on you can calculate the price. A calculator is on the way so you can get an easy overview of what you would need to pay hourly or monthly. It’s really not that different from a static VPS. The only thing that is “unmetered” is the bandwidth, I believe.

      September 9, 2013 @ 5:39 am | Reply
  14. The Ninja:

    As an existing customer, I was fortunate enough to be able to by €15 starter pack to try this out; potentially this could replace my OverZold 5G, as I only use that for an hour at a time 3-4 times a week. If only there were more locations, I could potential replace a lot of my plans with IWStack!

    September 9, 2013 @ 7:39 am | Reply
    • Victor:

      Yes, more locations would be great!

      September 9, 2013 @ 1:57 pm | Reply
  15. bunga bunga:

    Cool setup, beats the hell out of other one man show’s with their stuck in the mud bootom feeder mentaility offering basic OpenVZ to scrape some coins together. This shows prometeus is really forward thinking and progressive provider and just what can be achieved by a small committed team! Will have to see what BuyVM come out with in comparison, as Francisco has been banging his drum for a long time about their service coming with new features to rival digital ocean.

    Any chance of smaller plans such as 256MB or 128MB?

    September 9, 2013 @ 12:03 pm | Reply
    • Thank you, it required some time and work (other than money) to get live iwstack :-)
      We wanted to offer something that wasn’t a simple vps with the cloud in the name or logo but a real virtual infrastructure ;-)

      As for smaller plans, I’m not sure if we can go lower than €0.002 per running hour, maybe later with some specialized cluster…

      September 9, 2013 @ 4:21 pm | Reply
  16. Tribe:

    Very impressed, just moved my site over with very little hassle and the performance seems to be top notch. Had to contact support to help solve a problem I had caused and they were top notch and went out of there way to help.

    September 9, 2013 @ 5:50 pm | Reply
    • Harbinger:

      Can you post some benchmarks? TIA

      September 9, 2013 @ 6:22 pm | Reply
      • Maounique:

        The benchmarks are conspicuously missing, there were other requests for such tests but nobody offered them on LET either. If this continues here I will post some.

        September 10, 2013 @ 11:00 am | Reply
  17. Krish:

    I have couple of questions on virtual router: load balancer part.

    Load Balancer is provided by you at additional cost, where your load balancer shall be public facing ip, able to manage the nodes with in the private network with internal IP.

    1. Suppose I have taken 3 vps instances + load balancer, if 1 of my vps die due to some issues, will the load balancer automatically switch over to use remaining 2 instances? or any manual setup required.

    2. You have mentioned that 1.5 GB out per hour, if I use load balancer, will I able to stream 1.5 GB * 3 (ie number of VPS I have) so 4.5 GB per hour?

    September 10, 2013 @ 4:11 am | Reply
    • Maounique:

      Hello !

      1. No automatic setup required. But there are a few points worth mention. We have HA, which means there is a daemon running that checks your instance and if it dies, will restart it. The second point would be that the load balancer distributes the load over the available instances, if one dies, the remaining ones will get all the load, the load balancer will know pretty fast if one server is down.

      2. In theory, the load balancer will distribute load evenly, but in practice is not possible 100% split exactly in the middle or exactly in 3 parts, there will be a few percent violations so, if your traffic outgoing in an hour is exactly 4.5 GB, one or two out of 3 instances could go a bit over the maximum, but very little. Keep it at 4.3 or so to be sure it will not incur overages of any kind. At any rate, our rates for extra traffic are very low, 1.5 Eur for TB, it is not like we are watching like hawks so you get 1 MB over and charge you through the nose.

      September 10, 2013 @ 4:37 am | Reply
    • Let me add a few words about outbound traffic. As for most iwStack stuff, we wanted to give users the max flexibility so we decided that traffic is calculated for account and not for single instance.

      This mean that if you have an hidden and quiet database instance and a popular website running for a month then you can use 2 x 1.5GB * 720 Hours = 2160GB of traffic before being charged for overage.

      September 10, 2013 @ 4:51 am | Reply
      • Krish:

        Thanks Maounique & premeteus,

        This is the best price, I will signup today. Looking for cloud file solutions soon so I can dump all my data at one place.

        September 10, 2013 @ 8:16 am | Reply
  18. Damn it, so cheap!

    September 10, 2013 @ 6:17 am | Reply
  19. Krish:

    I signed up, really struggling to understand what is there in developers mind :-)

    1. copy & paste the unfriendly username, domain from the email and change the language to English, the page reloads and information, I filled on the login page is not anymore.

    2. Reentered the information again, but it says invalid user name and password.

    3. Refresh the login page (now it is set to English), login again, I could login into master.

    Master control panel must have some basic help information.

    September 10, 2013 @ 1:07 pm | Reply
  20. Hybs:

    I like the idea of this but you’re price point is too high for me to test it out, otherwise I would have ordered.

    September 10, 2013 @ 6:22 pm | Reply
    • resistance is futile, you know… your wallet will be assimilated :P

      September 11, 2013 @ 1:22 am | Reply
  21. Hybs:

    If 30 euro is enough for 1 year of the 384MB model then thats almost twice the price of the old 384MB you used to offer…

    September 10, 2013 @ 6:24 pm | Reply
    • Maounique:

      Leaving aside the fact this is cloud with real cloud features, the other one was OVZ and this one is KVM…

      September 10, 2013 @ 8:18 pm | Reply
  22. recycleddomain:

    In the website, the price for 384 only € 0.002. Is there any mistake there?

    September 11, 2013 @ 8:15 am | Reply
    • Maounique:

      Hello !

      No, the price is correct, but it is only for the instance without the storage. It is also per hour.
      Charging happens hourly. If your instance is shut down, will only cost the storage and IP(s) if any.

      September 11, 2013 @ 7:23 pm | Reply
      • Hybs:

        Hi,

        What’s the minimum configuration for an instance? If I do buy can I setup more than 1 kvm/instance?

        September 12, 2013 @ 5:42 am | Reply
        • Maounique:

          Minimum is shared network (directly on the net, no internal network, no external firewall, no VPN in the UI) 384 MB ram, 10 GB hdd, 1 vCPU, no HA. You can put as many instances as you wish, as long as you have money in the account :)
          I recommend the 512 MB version as it has HA.
          If they do not have external firewall or VPN, does not mean you cannot do that inside the VM, just that you do not get the virtual router that would do the isolated network with all the goodies and also that you will not have internal network between your VMs.
          Also, on shared network you cannot add more IPs, it only works with the virtual router.

          September 12, 2013 @ 6:17 am | Reply
  23. Travis:

    This is AMAZING, so excited to be finally using iwstack! Will save a ton of money off of this service. Will work on moving all of my VPSs to the great iwstack! The best part about this: No more idle VPSs! :D

    Generally when I do use my VPSs they are only for a few hours at a time, or so. Now I can use them for a few hours and it’ll only cost me about 10 cents, depending! Then I can shut them down when not in use, and not have them idling all of the time and only pay a certain amount a month for storage space (still cheap) or move the storage when needed.

    So far it’s rock solid service and am loving it. Thanks, Uncle! I am a customer for life. :)

    September 16, 2013 @ 3:28 pm | Reply
  24. Smbat:

    benchmarks is still top secret? :)

    September 18, 2013 @ 11:51 am | Reply
  25. Smbat:

    many thanks for the benchmarks, today I am a happy owner of KVMSSD5(Prometeus) (512/15GB/2 core/2TB ~ 48USD/year)
    iwStack Instances similar type (but slightly worse performance) will cost me ~
    (2.16 + 0.108*15 + 1000*0.002)*12 = 69.36 (30% off) ~ 48.55 Euro/year – 65.69USD/year
    I made ​​a mistake somewhere in the calculations?
    realizing the benefits of iwStack, but I think my current offer (KVMSSD5) more favorable?

    September 21, 2013 @ 2:52 pm | Reply
    • tux:

      Your calculation seems correct. Iwstack means price upgrade

      September 21, 2013 @ 6:22 pm | Reply
    • TBH you’re comparing different stuff:
      a pay per hour HA model vs a fixed price 24/7 for 365 days on a single node.
      with the fixed price we can fill every server to 90-100% capacity so when we offered an heavy discount on KVMSSD VPS we did it knowing that the servers were paid in full for an year.
      This is not possible with iwstack where we must keep some spare resources to allow scaling, migrations and failover and you are free to create or destroy how many vps you need for the time you need.

      If you consider this (and compare similar offers on the market) you’ll see that our prices are very aggressive. ;-)

      September 21, 2013 @ 7:04 pm | Reply
      • Sonic:

        Coupon expired :(

        September 21, 2013 @ 8:47 pm | Reply
    • Maounique:

      One thing you do not consider is that you do not use 2 TB each month. If you manage with a bit over 1 tb, it will cost 24 Eur less. So it is an economy even without 30% off. If you need tons of traffic, sure, the old ways are good. This is why there is choice.
      Not to mention that you can turn it off one month when business is slow, make it a template and pay nothing but a few pennies for secondary storage. You cannot do that with the other VPSes unless you pay montly and you will have to reinstall. You cannot use custom ISO, any OS which will run on x86 hardware. The advantages of iwstack are enormous and, yes, price is one of them in 99% of cases.

      September 21, 2013 @ 11:34 pm | Reply
  26. Terance T:

    Hello,

    I just got a Maxmind error. I live in NY, but I am currently traveling in NC can this issue be fixed?

    Thank you
    Terance

    September 22, 2013 @ 1:50 am | Reply
    • Maounique:

      Hello !

      Italian law forbids anonymous service. You need to sign in with real data and pay with own money in order to receive service.

      September 22, 2013 @ 5:35 am | Reply
  27. Smbat:

    thanks for your opinion, I am well aware the benefits iwStack, and if I was a new customer I would choose this solution. But as the current user does not see a compelling reason to change anything

    September 22, 2013 @ 3:29 am | Reply
    • Smbat:

      I’m sorry my message did not appear so where I expected, sometimes lack the ability to correct messages

      September 22, 2013 @ 3:34 am | Reply
    • Maounique:

      We dont plan to make people switch :) Many did, though, so we now have stock on plans we didnt for months.

      September 22, 2013 @ 5:36 am | Reply
      • Sonic:

        Please extend coupon, it’s expired :(

        September 22, 2013 @ 9:35 am | Reply
        • Maounique:

          If you are an existing customer, please pm me in LET with your email. I will make sure we find some solution.

          September 22, 2013 @ 9:38 am | Reply
  28. I do VPS shopping therapy frequently and lowend is my best friend … this service is awesome I am thinking to switch some production stuff on it

    September 24, 2013 @ 11:47 am | Reply
  29. Krish:

    Here is the benchmark result using their 512 MB Instance.

    root@ubuntu-1386-server:~# ./bench.sh
    CPU model : QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6)
    Number of cores : 1
    CPU frequency : 1999.999 MHz
    Total amount of ram : 495 MB
    Total amount of swap : 509 MB
    System uptime : 2:31,
    Download speed from CacheFly: 10.1MB/s
    Download speed from Coloat, Atlanta GA: 2.00MB/s
    Download speed from Softlayer, Dallas, TX: 1.58MB/s
    Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 765KB/s
    Download speed from i3d.net, NL: 10.5MB/s
    Download speed from Leaseweb, Haarlem, NL: 10.9MB/s
    Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 643KB/s
    Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 1.21MB/s
    Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 1.24MB/s
    Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 1.84MB/s
    I/O speed : 260 MB/s

    September 26, 2013 @ 10:41 am | Reply
  30. Roger:

    Any chance we could get this offer if we missed it?

    October 15, 2013 @ 8:51 pm | Reply
    • I doubt it. Prometeus aren’t desperate for customers, but don’t worry. I missed out too, we can feel the pain together.

      January 8, 2014 @ 11:05 pm | Reply
  31. CWms:

    NewsFlash:

    Would not recommend, Prometeus.net / IperWeb.com / OverZold.com

    Closed my account and would not even allow me
    to BackUp my account after more than 2-Years of
    paying them with punctuality on time ever time !

    When I mention that I would post to LowEndBox.com
    about it is when they terminated my account from suspended
    to terminated, very NAZI-Like / GOD-Like attitude, STAY AWAY !

    February 14, 2015 @ 5:12 pm | Reply

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