LEA (LowEndAdmin) is the original founder of LowEndBox and the visionary who gave rise to an entire movement around minimalist, efficient hosting. In 2008, LEA launched LowEndBox with a simple but powerful idea: that it was possible to run meaningful applications, web servers, VPNs, mail servers, and more – on small, low-cost virtual machines with minimal resources.
At a time when most infrastructure discussions were dominated by high-end servers and enterprise platforms, LEA championed the opposite approach: lightweight Linux distros, self-managed servers, open source software, and thoughtful optimization. This philosophy gave birth to the term “Low End Box”, which would come to define a new genre of hosting tailored to developers, tinkerers, and budget-conscious users around the world.
Through LowEndBox and its companion forum, LowEndTalk, LEA built the foundation for what would become one of the most active and enduring communities in the hosting world, prioritizing knowledge-sharing, transparency, and accessibility.
After several years of nurturing the site and community, LEA stepped away from active involvement, passing the torch to a new generation of admins, contributors, and moderators. Today, LEA remains a respected figure in the LowEnd ecosystem, credited with launching a platform and philosophy that continues to influence thousands of infrastructure providers and users globally.
LowEndBox’s legacy, and its thriving community, is a direct result of LEA’s original vision.
As with so many other VPS providers, they do not allow ~+20% cpu/memory and only 350 emails per hour I believe. Additionally, no shell access by default, must be requested. No irc, no daemons, no nada.
This makes me sad.
Hey LEB: You should do a nice write-up with some FreeBSD providers that do allow irc…
I think we’ve only had a single FreeBSD mentioned here in the entire time I’ve been visiting this site.
Where on their site does it mention that you have to request shell access? I see “full root access” (along with a couple typos) mentioned every where I look. Would assume that that included shell by default.
Please feel free to edit my previous.
“…a single FreeBDS host mentioned here…”
We advertise full shell access on our site and it is provided in your welcome email with root details. We do not allow irc since our servers are located in Chicago and IRC is not allowed in most of USA dc’s. Also, we do offer equal cpu shares and havent noticed any problem with out old clients so far that they are facing I/O problem. Thanks LEB to put this offer.