Update (1/26/2014): QuickPacket offer added.
Ladies and gentlemen: the moment has come! The votes have been counted, the results have been checked, and the winners have sent in the offers. The results for the Top Provider Poll 2013-Q4 are finally here!
First of all, let me all thank you very much for voting! The quarterly provider poll is a fun event in which we can all show some appreciation to the hosts we like the most. It’s been an on-going tradition and it always brings me great joy that so many of you vote. So, thank you again!
This poll was different than the last ones. Previously, you got to pick a number 1, number 2, and number 3 provider. These providers were awarded points accordingly: each number 1 vote earned the provider 3 points, each number 2 vote earned the provider 2 points, and each number 3 vote earned the provider 1 point. Unfair, thought I. You should be able to divide those points yourself! Because of that, each member got 5 votes to distribute amongst providers as they wished. Basically like dot-voting without the stickies and the whiteboard. Some gave a provider 5 points, others distributed them amongst providers. All in all, a nice, flexible, and honest system. I’m going to continue with this in the future!
So, on to the results. By popular demand, I have listed the top 10 right here! Most of the hosts have sent in a special offers to share their love with the LowEndCommunity. Enjoy these offers while you can, because some are limited either by quantity or by duration!
And the winner is…
1. RamNode (243 votes)
RamNode wins another Top Provider Poll. Nick and his team have been running a stable business for a while now and have continued to do so the last quarter. The community loves RamNode, and RamNode loves the community: use the coupon SOMUCHLOVE for 42% off of all their services. For example, this OpenVZ server with SSD disk:
- 512MB RAM
- VSwap: 512MB vSwap
- 2 CPU cores @ 3.3GHz+
- 40GB SSD disk space
- 2TB Bandwidth
- 1Gbps uplink
- 1x IPv4 address
- 16x IPv6 address
- OpenVZ/SolusVM
- Price with coupon: $4.35/mo
- Order in Atlanta
- Order in Seattle
- Order in Amsterdam
2. Prometeus (154 votes)
Prometeus, who doesn’t know them by now? While they already have various brands that complement each other and iwStack (the affordable cloud), Salvatore recently added Xen Power to the mix to broaden their empire of awesomeness. Another Top Provider Poll with Prometeus in the top 3 means that are doing it right (I can personally attest to that!)! To share some love, Salvatore has sent in this special offer (and believe me, this is on a monster of a host node):
- 1GB RAM
- 2 vCPU
- 50GB SSD disk space
- 2TB bandwidth
- 1Gbps uplink
- 1x IPv4 address
- 2x IPv6 address (free /64 on request)
- Xen/SolusVM
- Coupon code: LEB4Q13
- Price with coupon: €4.76 | $6.44 / month
- Order in Milan, Italy
- Valid up to January 31
3. INIZ (63 votes)
Just like last time, INIZ comes in third! Patrick has been running INIZ solidly for a while now and he’s doing a great job at that! Known for both his real LowEndBoxes and his big-bang-for-buck offers, he is quite popular in the community. He shares his appreciation with the community with the following offer:
- 2GB RAM
- 1GB vSwap
- 4 vCPU cores
- 75GB disk Space
- 1500GB bandwidth
- 1Gbps uplink
- 2x IPv4 in NYC/LA
- 1x IPv4 in AMS
- $7/month or $42.63/year
- Order in New York City
- Order in Los Angeles
- Order in Amsterdam
4. Backupsy & Co. (54 votes)
Oktay has also been around a while. He recently launched Winity, where he sells affordable Hyper-V based Windows VPS. But he is best known for Backupsy, his brand that gives you a lot of disk space for very little dollars. Oktay shares this special offer with you, which is with VPSDime:
- 6GB RAM
- 4 CPU Cores
- 60GB disk space
- 2TB bandwidth
- 1Gbps uplink
- 1x IPv4 address
- OpenVZ/Custom
- $7/Month
- Order here
More appreciation offers can be found here: http://nodisto.com/offers.html
5. BuyVM (40 votes)
Another established LowEndProvider, BuyVM, comes in fifth! BuyVM has recently initiated an upgrade of their servers, giving everybody free upgrades to SSD disk space. Also coming to a BuyVM location near you: free nightly backups and snapshot support! No special offer from BuyVM, but their normal offering isn’t bad either. For example, this 512MB OpenVZ server:
- 512MB RAM
- 512MB vSwap
- 50GB disk space
- 2TB bandwidth
- 1Gbps uplink
- 1x IPv4 address
- /64 IPv6
- OpenVZ/Custom
- $5.95/month
- Order in Las Vegas
- Order in New Jersey
6. Crissic Solutions (37 votes)
Skylar has been working hard to make Crissic popular and he has succeeded! He is known for his competitive offers and his hard work. He owns all his hardware and equipment in his rack in Jacksonville, Florida, but also his IP addresses. He shares this special offer with the LowEndBox community:
- 512MB RAM
- 512MB vSwap
- 50GB disk space
- 2TB bandwidth
- 1Gbps uplink
- 2x IPv4 address
- Up to 200 IPv6 addresses
- OpenVZ/SolusVM
- $15/year
- Order here
7. Inception Hosting (32 votes)
Anthony launched LowEndSpirit last year: a real LowEndBox for just €3.00/year is just awesome!! LowEndSpirit recently launched their fourth location in Dallas, Texas. Inception Hosting itself has been running quite solid as well, with Xen-PV servers in 4 locations world-wide! Anthony shares his appreciated with this extremely special and discounted offer in the UK:
- 1.5 GB RAM
- 1.5 GB Swap
- 4 CPU Cores (equal Share)
- 85 GB disk space
- 1600 GB bandwidth
- 100Mbit uplink
- 1 x IPv4 address
- 5 x IPv6 address
- Coupon code: PMCY306Y3S
- Original price € 27.00 ($36.57)/month
- Current price: €5.00 ($6.77)/month
- Order is limited to the first 10 orders, one per person
- Order in Maidenhead
8. Digital Ocean (31 votes)
DigitalOcean is known for their rapid-to-deploy boxes and their pay-as-you-use model. With an SSD KVM VPS for just $5/month in either the USA or The Netherlands, they do indeed have competitive offers! Various templates are available in order for you to rapidly deploy a specific application, all within their custom panel. This is their LowEnd-priced offer:
- 512MB RAM
- 1 CPU core
- 20GB SSD disk space
- 1TB bandwidth
- 1Gbps uplink
- 1x IPv4 address
- KVM/Custom
- Price: $5/month
- Order here
Use coupon SSDBOX10 to get $10 credit on any new account!
9. We Love Servers (27 votes)
WeLoveServers received quite some love from the voters! They have also been around a while, offering servers in 4 locations across the continental United States. The following special offer, with which WeLoveServers, shares their appreciation with the community, is also available in those four locations:
- 2GB RAM
- 2.4GB vSwap
- 8 vCPU Cores
- 60 GB disk space
- 2 TB bandwith
- 1Gbps uplink
- 1x IPv4 address
- OpenVZ/SolusVM
- $38/year
- Available in Dallas, Los Angeles, Buffalo, and Orlando
- Order here
10. QuickPacket (25 votes)
Last, but not least, in the top 10 comes QuickPacket! While QuickPacket does offer Virtual Private Servers, their are primarily know around here for their dedicated servers. QPS sent in this special offer for LowEndBox readers:
- 1GB RAM
- 2GB Swap
- 80GB disk space
- 3TB Bandwidth
- 1Gbps uplink
- 1x IPv4 address
- Xen/SolusVM
- Coupon: LEBXEN1024
- Price: $7/month
- Order in Atlanta
- Order is Las Vegas
You get this server as Xen-PV by default but you can exchange it for a Xen-HVM (for the same price) if you want to. Just open a ticket after ordering and QuickPacket will set you up!
Final note
This concludes the listing of top provider for this poll! Again, thank you all for voting and enjoy these amazing offers!
Maarten Kossen served as the administrator of LowEndBox from 2013 to 2015, playing a key role in guiding the platform during a critical phase of its growth. During his tenure, Maarten introduced numerous improvements, helped shape editorial direction, and contributed to the evolution of LowEndBox as both a resource and a community hub for budget-conscious hosting users.
With a deep understanding of web hosting, server management, and open-source infrastructure, Maarten brought fresh ideas and steady leadership to the site, bridging the gap between the original vision of LowEndAdmin and the future of the platform.
Today, Maarten remains an active and valued member of the LowEndTalk community (@mpkossen), continuing to share his experience, engage in discussions, and support the broader LowEnd ecosystem.
It’s sad to see DigitalOcean and We Love Servers at the bottom..
they provide great services that are so affordable..
And since I am here, Props to INIZ – they really did a bang-up custom offer for me last year and they are outperforming my KVM instance elsewhere. Very pleased with them and certainly a top performer.
Congratulation! Waiting for the best offer from this Top Provider in 2014. 🙂
Congratulations for the winner and thank you for all of You for providing the best service with cheap price.
Can anyone tell me the INIZ 2GB is OVZ or KVM/Xen?
OpenVZ
How can I vote next time? I miss FileMedia.de in the list: I got a very cheap KVM with them, it’s always on and fully performant. I don’t know about support as I never needed to contact them.
I found the topic on LET, so I answered my question by myself. But usually I read LEB, not LET, so I won’t know about the voting.
Congrats to all! I have 2 Ramnode boxes, iwstack instances & overzold (mao is also a great guy and very supporting at people on leb/let community), backupsy, DO and Inception. I had a box with WLS I just terminated it (didn’t use it last month and not so much bandwidth for use it in another project), but with this offer maybe I will catch one box! I will surely try also crissic: a lot of people here talk to much about his great service. It could be nice if Francisco was not separated from this community and had some offers here, too.
RamNode the best! Again!
Ramnode cupon SOMUCHLOVE seems to have expired already…
Hi, I really do not know who has voted for INIZ. My account, for which I paid for a year in advance, got terminated by the INIZ staff, Mr Patrick Hayward, without any warning, just after few days. He informed me I cannot use any of CPUs for more that few minutes, as it breaks a very unclear INIZ Terms of Service.
It was absolutely stupid to pay for a year in advance, and I am writing this comment to inform LowEndBox community about unacceptable INIZ “fair use” policies, which they use to milk the customers.
Please do not use INIZ, do not be stupid as me. If you do want to try, at least do not pay for a year in advance!
In no way do we advertise dedicated cores just for you.
We gave you chance to resolve your VPS consuming full core, you insisted that you didn’t want to resolve the issue and effectively abused our services then threatened legal action. We closed your account.
Simple as, there is a clear reason why we’ve been in the top 3 for the 2nd consecutive time and rarely see any negative reviews except from those in the wrong and wanting to abuse our services and/or refusing to resolve the issue but instead either chargeback or threatened legal action which i’d love to see one day actually happen.
No, I have not abused your services. I was using one of three CPUs for few minutes. I want to share my experience with LowEndBox users, that INIZ prefers customers not to use the server at all, please be aware of it.
In INIZ’s ToS is written: “CPUs sit idle in most cases.” http://iniz.com/terms.html
In reality it means that you pay for super-hyper-virtual CPUs, which you cannot ever use. INIZ could sell you even 256 CPUs, to make their scam attempt even more attractive.
Because selling a service which is not usable nor consentient with the actual offer is not fair, I asked for a refund, which was rejected. The legal action is the last possible step, because INIZ has not left me any other options.
I repeat: please be aware of INIZ, their annual offer is very attractive (50% discount) and now I know why, unfortunately I have learnt it on my own mistake. I wish I have tried them for a month, to discover their real face.
You said yourself that you had been running the same stuff since the start and suspended you few days after, in the hope you were running benchmarks and such which would cause high CPU for long duration however we still let it ran for 100% for few days and then decided to suspend you.
So not true at all, it was not for a few minutes it was for several days in fact.
We complied with our own TOS, you failed to do so. The TOS for that part has remained unchanged for over a year with no complaints except yourself regarding CPU usage 🙂
Yes, I was running the same stuff from the beginning, sometimes CPU usage was higher, sometimes lower. But in first five days, when, accordingly to your ToS, I had a chance to have my money back and close my account, you did not complain about the usage. You have entrapped me to have the money.
I would like to warn the LowBoxEnd users that during first five days you will be treated differently, it is all about your money.
BTW, I have started investigating Mr Patrick Hayward. INIZ is not his first business. His company, Web Phase Limited, with a capital 1 British pound ( http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/web-phase ), had a different brand before, StormVM. As you can browse the web, StormVM brand collapsed in unclear circumstances last year – you can check customer complaints, using a simple google search.
More, the invoice I have received from INIZ, is not clear. It does have a different address from
145-157 ST JOHN STREET
LONDON
ENGLAND
EC1V 4PW
where Web Phase Limited is registered. I am not sure if this invoice was correctly issued, and I’ve just sent a question to HMRC (our British tax office) if I can legally include INIZ invoice into my tax books.
Please think twice before subscribing INIZ, do not put yourself into troubles, as I did.
Well, almost old LEB/LET user already know that Iniz were StormVZ, but they have a good reputation in here.
So, maybe we should discuss this at LowEndTalk.com?
Need to go back to researching and less blackmailing us.
http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/stormvz-rebrands-to-iniz-to-differentiate-vps-hosting-services
http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/9639/stormvz-rebrand-to-iniz
https://twitter.com/StormVZ/status/323813441133486080
You tried to blackmail us stating if we don’t give a refund you will post negative reviews everywhere and take us to court.
So please write to us as stated in ticket and we look forward to seeing you. If ofcourse that wasn’t just a poor attempt at blackmailing us which didn’t work.
I look forward to talking to HMRC if of course they take you seriously.
I really do not know how INIZ can have a good reputation here. The problem is, that I have trusted LowEndBox and the fact there was not so many complaints about Mr Patrick Haywards current business.
I’m writing here my opinions, which is not blackmailing, I do present facts related to my experience with INIZ. And my experience was simply awful, INIZ claims that I have abused the service when I was simply _using_ it.
Please read this thread carefully and make your own decisions about INIZ and Mr Patrick Haywards attitude to his customers.
its like this ive been suspended by iniz too “OH NO YOU SAY GOSH” guess what i bought another 9 services after this due to the facts are simple mr patrick suspended my account i opened a ticket he explained im abusing cpu ok fair enough i checked i BACKED UP like any normal person would having access again, then i check and remove the issue it was cron running multi times on zpanel issue solved from the help of mr patrick and i will continue to purchase 99% working good vps’s as you all know 1% shit happens in life
Yes exactly, I appreciate clients like yourself understanding, checking and then resolving the issue.
We do not run automated VPS monitoring that automatically turns off / reboots your VM, our nodes are monitored manually through various methods and as a result our suspensions are correct and we log any details which may help you resolve the issue.
Glad to have you as a client 🙂
Hi,
Congratulations!
How long will the RamNode offer be on for?
Thanks,
Anthony
I love how wide the margin between 2nd and 3rd is.
NewsFlash 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 !
Thanks for offering good real results.
These poll results are awesome.