We are moving our sites and hosting business from our current server to something a bit more flexible. Originally we were going to go for a dedicated server, but VPS seems like a pretty nice deal. Someone on these forums mentioned Servint and I know at least 1 person switched to them as a result, so what do you guys think of their service now that some time has passed? We're specifically interested in:

- Reliability
- Hardware and connection speed
- Support Responsiveness

Also, what sort of configuration do they start you off with? We would be going for http://www.servint.com/vps/ the essential package with the CPanel/WHM option. It's my understanding they set all this up, but allow you to screw around with it as much as you like. What's their default configuration like (in terms of Apache settings, installation of things like mySQL and PHP, etc). How long does it take to go from filling out the order form to running a virtual hosting setup with about 20 sites? Time is a major factor here, and if they configure everything then all the better.

If anyone has has experience with other VPS providers, please post those as well.

I switched to servint on the advice of someone who shall remain nameless (you know who you are ;)) and was not pleased at all with the service. The other two people who joined about the same time as me left almost immediately, but I stuck it out for two months after which I also left. When I went, I was asked by the owner to send some feedback on why I decided to leave. Here is what I wrote:
Reasons why I cancelled my vps:

I had a total of four seperate support issues while I had the vps. Only two were ever answered. The other two were never replied to. Similarly, when I first joined, I was interested in the servint affiliate program that is mentioned in the signup email. My request posted in the forum asking for information was not answered. So I emailed sales. Again, no answer. Unanswered email, particularly support email, is the biggest confidence killer around.

It took repeated requests to get someone to acknowledge that my vps account had a problem. Once a support ticket was finally opened and I was told someone would be looking at the server, it took a whole ten days before the problem was actually resolved, and all it was was an incorrect setting in httpd.conf which should have been caught when the vps's were first being tested.

The amount of communication when a network/technical problem arose was not sufficient. Behind the scenes, you may have been working 24/7 to fix things, but the customer would never know since we were not properly informed, either by email or via the forum.

Obvious, simple support questions posted in the vps forum went unanswered by servint support. Questions such as which version of plesk is installed, what update plan should cpanel be set to, etc. Trivial questions that would take just seconds to answer, yet they aren't.

I guess really the whole thing boils down to one issue: Trust.
The network problems suffered after first getting the vps, combined with the problem specific to my account, combined with the unanswered emails, combined with lack of information forthcoming in the forum, just leaves me in a position where I can not trust the wellbeing of my website - the wellbeing of my business - to this account.

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that you and your team are working hard to make the vps service first class. But I also have absolutely no doubt that it's not there yet. And simple economics dictate that I cannot afford to wait for this to happen.


If for some reason you're still interested, to answer your setup question, you get a pretty standard redhat/cpanel/whm installation. You really won't notice the difference between it and what you'd get on a dedicated server - other than the fact that cpanel has a few "issues" with the virtuoso vps software. The server is pretty much unmanaged, so installing custom software, securing the server, etc. is your responsibility.

Thanks for your reply. What sort of issues were these? How long ago was this? What do you use now?

I was the nameless person, and had similar experiences and also cancelled. I just think the vps software needs some time to mature.

Went with the suggestion of dedicated server with ServerMatrix. Thanks for the info.

From what I have eared, servint have few problems with their new vps solution. But e-mail not answered are pretty strange compare to the reputation of this compagnie.

VPS is not like resseller account, it's exactly like a dedicaced server, and you have to do everything.

Servermatrix with his 60 dollar server, offer a pretty good deal I think. It's not fully managed too.

The ServerMatrix account seems to be working great so far! It took some time to figure out how to work around some bugs in the configuration process, but we now have a server up and running, and will be transferring customers soon. There's still some more work to do tomorrow to fine-tune settings and we'll probably be working out glitches for another couple days after that, but overall things have gone very smoothly! Our customers will be very pleased when they hear the new server specs :D