# Q3 2014 Lowend Provider Results



## drmike (Oct 27, 2014)

Sure a few people are wondering about the Q3 2014 LE* provider poll results.

Like past few I've tallied the numbers. 

There are some catches.  I threw a few votes where people couldn't count to 5... I think there were maybe 3-4 voters outright with problems.   Further changes will be factored with they throw "invalid votes".

This is the summary of all the votes, with no brand comboing done. (i.e. Oktay's brands are listed as votes cast by name for respective brand or just like a few were in his name).

+--------------------+-------+----------------+--------+

| name               | votes | averagevote    | points |

+--------------------+-------+----------------+--------+

| RamNode            |    71 | 2.323943661972 |    165 |

| VPSDime            |    41 | 2.048780487805 |     84 |

| Prometeus          |    26 | 2.807692307692 |     73 |

| Crissic            |    35 | 1.885714285714 |     66 |

| drServer           |    21 | 2.571428571429 |     54 |

| MyCustomHosting    |    15 | 2.066666666667 |     31 |

| BuyVM              |    18 | 1.611111111111 |     29 |

| Serverian          |     8 |          3.625 |     29 |

| Digital Ocean      |    13 | 2.076923076923 |     27 |

| vultr              |    17 | 1.588235294118 |     27 |

| Inception Hosting  |    11 | 1.909090909091 |     21 |

| online.net         |    10 |              2 |     20 |

| CatalystHost       |     9 | 2.222222222222 |     20 |

| HostUs             |     6 |              3 |     18 |

| Iniz               |     8 |          2.125 |     17 |

| Onepoundwebhosting |     5 |              3 |     15 |

| SecureDragon       |     5 |            2.6 |     13 |

| Hostnun            |     4 |           2.75 |     11 |

| Nodisto IT         |     4 |            2.5 |     10 |

| Wable              |     6 | 1.666666666667 |     10 |

| FTPIt              |     4 |              2 |      8 |

| xvmlabs            |     8 |              1 |      8 |

| BandwagonHost      |     4 |              2 |      8 |

| iwStack            |     3 | 2.333333333333 |      7 |

| Backupsy           |     4 |            1.5 |      6 |

| QuickPacket        |     2 |            2.5 |      5 |

| Quickweb           |     1 |              5 |      5 |

| EDIS               |     3 | 1.666666666667 |      5 |

| BoltVM             |     3 | 1.333333333333 |      4 |

| Linode             |     3 | 1.333333333333 |      4 |

| VMbox.co           |     2 |            1.5 |      3 |

| Leapswitch         |     2 |            1.5 |      3 |

| Hudson Valley Host |     1 |              3 |      3 |

| kihihosting        |     3 |              1 |      3 |

| Corgitech          |     1 |              3 |      3 |

| Hosthatch          |     2 |            1.5 |      3 |

| Vstoike            |     1 |              3 |      3 |

| Yourserver.se      |     2 |            1.5 |      3 |

| FAPVPS             |     2 |            1.5 |      3 |

| GreenHostBox       |     1 |              2 |      2 |

| Daring Host        |     1 |              2 |      2 |

| Byteshack          |     2 |              1 |      2 |

| Virtora            |     1 |              2 |      2 |

| IP Projects        |     1 |              2 |      2 |

| i-83               |     2 |              1 |      2 |

| Mothership1        |     1 |              2 |      2 |

| Colorhost.de       |     2 |              1 |      2 |

| FitVPS             |     2 |              1 |      2 |

| GinerNet           |     1 |              2 |      2 |

| DelimiterVPS       |     1 |              2 |      2 |

| PhoenixNap         |     1 |              2 |      2 |

| Filemedia          |     2 |              1 |      2 |

| Torqhost           |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| Fliphost           |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| ProviderService    |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| Kimsufi            |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| SSDVirt            |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| IntoVPS            |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| OpenITC            |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| AnyNode            |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| HeroicVPS          |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| Verelox            |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| Datashack          |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| MyServerPlanet     |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| OVH                |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| XLVPS              |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| NodeDeploy         |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| MaximumVPS         |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| Lowendspirit       |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| myrsk              |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| HTTPZoom           |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| Waveride           |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| Crowncloud         |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| Hostigation        |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| WeLoveServers      |     1 |              1 |      1 |

| RootNerds          |     1 |              1 |      1 |

+--------------------+-------+----------------+--------+

76 rows in set (0.00 sec)


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## drserver (Oct 27, 2014)

I have something like this, multiple brands are combined in one:


```
Array
(
    [ramnode] => 128
    [vpsdime] => 101
    [prometeus] => 80
    [crissic] => 62
    [drserver] => 55
    [mcs] => 31
    [buyvm] => 30
    [do] => 25
    [inceptionhosting] => 23
    [catalysthost] => 20
    [hostus] => 19
    [vultr] => 19
    [online] => 16
    [securedragon] => 13
    [iniz] => 12
    [hostnun] => 12
    [wable] => 10
    [xvmlabs] => 10
    [onepoundwebhosting] => 10
    [bandwagonhost] => 8
    [ftpit] => 7
    [kimsufi] => 5
    [edis] => 5
    [quickweb] => 5
    [quickpacket] => 5
    [boltvm] => 4
    [linode] => 4
    [yourserver] => 4
    [vmbox] => 3
    [vstoike] => 3
    [hosthatch] => 3
    [webfaction] => 3
    [leapswitch] => 3
    [kihihosting] => 3
    [hudsonvalleyhost] => 3
    [fapvps] => 3
    [mothership] => 2
    [greenhostbox] => 2
    [filemedia] => 2
    [fitvps] => 2
    [delimitervps] => 2
    [colorhostde] => 2
    [daringhost] => 2
    [ovh] => 2
    [i83] => 2
    [myrsk] => 1
    [fliphost] => 1
    [torqhost] => 1
    [verelox] => 1
    [openitc] => 1
    [maximum_vps] => 1
    [httpzoom] => 1
    [heroicvps] => 1
    [intovps] => 1
    [hostigation] => 1
    [rootnerds] => 1
    [waveride] => 1
    [myserverplanet] => 1
    [anynode] => 1
    [xlvps] => 1
    [ssdvirt] => 1
    [providerservice] => 1
    [crowncloud] => 1
    [weloveserver] => 1
)
```


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## rds100 (Oct 27, 2014)

Some of these obviously need to be merged because they are for the same company under different names.


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## DomainBop (Oct 27, 2014)

The two most interesting things from that poll:

1. the #2 (131 combined) and #11 (22 combined) finishers announced recently they will no longer post offers on LEB/T

2. The combined total of all of the Buffalo (and related suspect Toronto) brands that Kossen pushes on LEB users dropped from 5 to 3 this quarter.


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## SkylarM (Oct 27, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> The two most interesting things from that poll:
> 
> 1. the #2 (131 combined) and #11 (22 combined) finishers announced recently they will no longer post offers on LEB/T
> 
> 2. The combined total of all of the Buffalo (and related suspect Toronto) brands that Kossen pushes on LEB users dropped from 5 to 3 this quarter.



How about that INIZ changes hands and suddenly goes from piles of votes to next to nothing. Pretty easy to tell what was happening in prior votes, and one can guess where those votes went.


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## drmike (Oct 27, 2014)

SkylarM said:


> How about that INIZ changes hands and suddenly goes from piles of votes to next to nothing. Pretty easy to tell what was happening in prior votes, and one can guess where those votes went.


I've long said that averagevote  where it get much above a 2.0 value and where votes cast for said company are >= 10 is good indication of voting irregularities.   Take that how you may


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## DomainBop (Oct 27, 2014)

SkylarM said:


> How about that INIZ changes hands and suddenly goes from piles of votes to next to nothing. Pretty easy to tell what was happening in prior votes, and one can guess where those votes went.


The ownership change uncertainties probably contributed to the drop but I think the main reason for the lower rank is Iniz shifted their marketing focus to higher priced plans early in the quarter.  Tthe only sub $7 openvz plans on their site are a 4 GBP quarterly 256MB and a 4 GBP monthly 512MB plan).  Very few of the current crop of gimme' RAM LET'ers will pay $7 for 512MB (they seem to want $1-$2 max).  The only low end KVM is a 256MB 4GBP monthly plan.


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## MannDude (Oct 27, 2014)

rds100 said:


> Some of these obviously need to be merged because they are for the same company under different names.


I don't like that. Not all brands are the same, regardless if they are ran by a single parent company or individual. I don't think brands should be tallied together as it doesn't seem fair or give an accurate depiction of how people actually voted. If I vote for 'xyzhost' I don't want my votes tallied in with 'abchost' and 'hijkhost' just because they're all owned by 'lmnophost' and ranked as such.


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## drmike (Oct 27, 2014)

MannDude said:


> I don't like that. Not all brands are the same, regardless if they are ran by a single parent company or individual. I don't think brands should be tallied together as it doesn't seem fair or give an accurate depiction of how people actually voted. If I vote for 'xyzhost' I don't want my votes tallied in with 'abchost' and 'hijkhost' just because they're all owned by 'lmnophost' and ranked as such.


My sentiments exactly.

It's like a popularity survey for soft drinks...

You vote Pepsi Cola, I vote Moutain Dew.  They say Pepsi has 2 votes... ehhh say what?


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## DomainBop (Oct 27, 2014)

MannDude said:


> I don't think brands should be tallied together as it doesn't seem fair or give an accurate depiction of how people actually voted.


On the other hand, if you don't tally the votes by company you run the risk of a forum userID (see #8) not a brand winning the poll. 

edited to add: the majority of the top brands that get tallied together (Oktay, DrServer, Prometeus, Inception) are more strongly identified with the owner/company than they are with the brand (i.e. the customers think owner/company name first then brand name) so it kind of makes sense to group them together (especially in cases like Prometeus where the different brands use the same customer portal).


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## Steven F (Oct 27, 2014)

Wait, what? We're in there?


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## MannDude (Oct 27, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> On the other hand, if you don't tally the votes by company you run the risk of a forum userID (see #8) not a brand winning the poll.
> 
> edited to add: the majority of the top brands that get tallied together (Oktay, DrServer, Prometeus, Inception) are more strongly identified with the owner/company than they are with the brand (i.e. the customers think owner/company name first then brand name) so it kind of makes sense to group them together (especially in cases like Prometeus where the different brands use the same customer portal).


Those three have brands that all did individual well. For example, Oktay's VPSDime brand is quite popular and ranked 2nd according to Dr. Mike with 41 votes/84 points. His other brand, Backupsy, only received 4 votes/6 points. Why should Backupsy be listed as a being voted as one of the top 3 brands in the quarterly poll results when it wasn't?

That's no knock on Oktay or his brands, from what I can tell he runs a good shop and I've not seen any complaints. He's a good dude so I hope he doesn't take offense in me using him in this example. He appears to have a brand that is more popular than some of his others, VPSDime being the popular one. I don't think sub brands should piggy back on the success of another is all. The difference in _actual_ votes between one brand of his and another differs greatly, why should the one that ranked well below other brands get featured in the same spotlight as his more popular brand?

Same for Prometeus. Solid company, good reputation, hard press to find anyone say anything negative about it. But, Prometeus is quite more popular than iwStack, according to the voting. Prometeus is the brand people voted for to get it in it's 3rd place slot, not iwStack. Combining them isn't representative to how people voted or felt about the brands.

They should all be proud that their individual brands rank so well. I see two Oktay brands in the top ten, one being in the top 3. That's impressive enough as is. No need to combine them all into one tally though.


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## lbft (Oct 27, 2014)

They don't get offer posts for each brand though, and the ultimate way to get people on LET to like you is to sell them something cheap (e.g. for how many top provider polls did Prometeus succeed by putting out their best offers immediately before or at the same time as the voting thread).


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## Neo (Oct 27, 2014)

INIZ down to 12 votes, oh man. What a drop.


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## drmike (Oct 27, 2014)

lbft said:


> They don't get offer posts for each brand though, and the ultimate way to get people on LET to like you is to sell them something cheap (e.g. for how many top provider polls did Prometeus succeed by putting out their best offers immediately before or at the same time as the voting thread).


Well, this clearly happened in prior quarters with Prometeus I'd say.  Some interesting timing from Ramnode too. (Yep, I like both companies and their services, so no axe grinding, just observing fairly).

Such is good marketing big picture.  Some folks might have more limited view of such as underhanded though and I understand the sentiments.  Long gone around asking myself and some folks about the practice of mining customers, Twitters, etc. to drum up votes.

Me if I were a company in the low price market, last thing I'd be doing is pushing my customers to LE* so they can see my competitors and insane offers for resources vs. lack of price.   Doing so is giving a subset of your customers an exit hatch to escape out of.


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## Dylan (Oct 27, 2014)

MannDude said:


> [SIZE=11.8181819915771px]Prometeus is the brand people voted for to get it in it's 3rd place slot, not iwStack. [/SIZE]Combining them isn't representative to how people voted or felt about the brands.


As someone who voted for Prometeus (which makes me about 3.5% of their total voters; not an insignificant sample), I beg to differ.

iwStack has its own informational minisite, but it's a Prometeus service (it even says that on the top and bottom of the minisite) that you order and maintain through the Prometeus website, with support from Prometeus staff, hosted on Prometeus infrastructure. At most it'd be considered a sub-brand, if not just a product line.


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## perennate (Oct 27, 2014)

+1 to Dylan, RamNode has CVZ vs SVZ plans but people don't consider separating that into two categories. If it's the same people responding to support tickets (e.g. serverian) then it's like product line.


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## DomainBop (Oct 28, 2014)

Dylan said:


> As someone who voted for Prometeus (which makes me about 3.5% of their total voters; not an insignificant sample), I beg to differ.
> 
> iwStack has its own informational minisite, but it's a Prometeus service (it even says that on the top and bottom of the minisite) that you order and maintain through the Prometeus website, with support from Prometeus staff, hosted on Prometeus infrastructure. At most it'd be considered a sub-brand, if not just a product line.


I'd agree.  IWStack, XenPower, OverZold have mini marketing sites but that's about as far as it goes.  When you buy one of those products you're a Prometeus customer and if you asked the average customer they'd say _"I'm a Prometeus customer"_ not _"I'm a XenPower customer"_.

UltraVPS.eu is another similar example.  It has its own mini-site and separate ads on WHT but once you hit the order button the last time you'll see the word "UltraVPS" is 60 seconds later when the VPS info email arrives in your inbox.  After that everything (invoices, support tickets, billing center, SolusVM) says ProviderService and the only time you'll ever visit the UltraVPS website is if you want to order another VPS.  Should UltraVPS be counted separately in the poll when a customer's only contact with the name (brand) was a few minutes on the day they placed their order? I don't think so...


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## serverian (Oct 28, 2014)

Who is this Oktay fellow that's getting mentioned here?


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## drmike (Oct 28, 2014)

serverian said:


> Who is this Oktay fellow that's getting mentioned here?


He's an urban hosting myth 

Congrats on the strong showing in LET/LEB's last quarterly voting - as we know it.


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## DomainBop (Oct 28, 2014)

> This is, however, the last poll as we know it now. because none of you bastards voted for Team Daycare It has commercialized into another ad spot for providers and that’s not what the poll is for.


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## Francisco (Oct 28, 2014)

serverian said:


> Who is this Oktay fellow that's getting mentioned here?


It's a anagram for DDOS.

Francisco


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## Francisco (Oct 28, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> > This is, however, the last poll as we know it now. because none of you bastards voted for Team Daycare It has commercialized into another ad spot for providers and that’s not what the poll is for.


It makes sense.

The reason it suddenly became commercialized is because people found out that pleading/begging for votes on twitter didn't break rules and is why many people placed as high as they did. Suddenly mpkossen is having to spend a lot of time doing checks on all signups to remove votes that he felt were possibly shills.

There was *many* votes where twitter begging/plugging was going on but it was seen as taboo/done only by a few. Suddenly it hit public light, LE admins had to cast their yay/nay to it, and now you have where the vote is today.

Francisco


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## drmike (Oct 28, 2014)

Well yeah to all that @Francisco. Certainly more to learn in the underlying or under-LYING data as always.

Figure they were tired of the pre-release results and general mockumentation of the whole thing.

Then of course you have stuff like this for the literates, databugs, auditors, etc:

*Top 3 LET winner point scores combined for each voting period:*

2013Q4 = 460 points

2014Q1 = 496 points

2014Q2 = 355 points

2014Q3 = 314 points

^---- See the decline in the Top 3 combined points total?

Someone might say that's better for more diverse voting audience, other companies - more of them receiving votes ...meh...

Without bickering about my counting vs. Kossen's let's look at distinct companies where vote was cast each voting period I've been tracking:

2013Q4 = 88 providers had vote cast for

2014Q1 = 83 providers "

2014Q2 = 77 providers "

2014Q3 = 76 providers "

^--- four voting cycles and down each and every time.  So much for the diversity of voting, false.

And the total vote points given as I calculated them for each voting period:

2013Q4 = 1090

2014Q1 = 1207

2014Q2 = 852

2014Q3 = 877

Seeing a pattern?????

*Top 3 as ESTIMATED point recipient percentage:*

(these are estimated as using published result total for top 3 points combined divided by my running total of total points for each contest)

2013Q4 = 57.8%

2014Q1 = 58.9%

2014Q2 = 58.3%

2014Q3 = 64.2%

 

So what did we learn?  

1. 4 periods of voting and diversity in providers voted for slumped every period from high of 88 to 76.

2. Three out of four voting cycles the votes received by the top 3 point wise grew in percentage of the total votes.  Meaning more of the vote points went to the top three each cycle.  

3. Fairly steady 58%+ of the points each voting period went to the Top 3. Latest Q32014 period is a deviation and we'll leave it at that until I audit my inputted vote data.


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## souen (Oct 28, 2014)

I haven't been around long and can't comment on what it was like before 2014Q2, but seeing the results the first time, my impression was that the poll isn't about diversity but more a zeitgeist of whichever providers happen to be the most active on the forum and with the most competitive pricing/services. With 1-2 exceptions, the top 10 are mostly providers with US locations (even though there are members/providers from around the world?), plans in US locations are relatively lower cost and thereby popular with the crowd. For EU location, it's often NL.

Currently, of the latest 10 offers on LEB (excluding the poll result announcement offers), 8 are for US locations, 1 in UK and 1 in CA. Recurring offers from the providers over time on LET (combined with the concerns over some hosts being DDoSed whenever they post an offer leading to some re-considering advertising there) probably reinforce the cycle.

That's not to discredit the top 10 of course, they're solid choices for most people's needs. However, there are other good providers that offer value-added features or less common locations (these may be higher-priced plans due to b/w costs, etc.) but don't necessarily run monthly/bi-monthly specials on the forum, who may receive fewer votes as a result.

So, practically speaking, the poll isn't very helpful for me but I vote anyway as a fun thing to do and to leave a good word for the providers whose services I enjoyed that quarter.

Edit: fixed the math. I can't count properly without more caffeine, it seems.


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