amuck-landowner

Q3 2014 Lowend Provider Results

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
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)

 
 

drserver

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

Code:
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
)
 
Last edited by a moderator:

rds100

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

DomainBop

Dormant VPSB Pathogen
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.
 

SkylarM

Well-Known Member
Verified Provider
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.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
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 ;)
 

DomainBop

Dormant VPSB Pathogen
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.
 

MannDude

Just a dude
vpsBoard Founder
Moderator
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. 
 

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
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?
 

DomainBop

Dormant VPSB Pathogen
 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. :p

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).
 
Last edited by a moderator:

MannDude

Just a dude
vpsBoard Founder
Moderator
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. :p

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

New Member
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).
 

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
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.
 

Dylan

Active Member
[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

New Member
Verified Provider
+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.
 

DomainBop

Dormant VPSB Pathogen
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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