Looks like it’s going to be a very long post for October 2011. Here are the low end providers declared “dead” last month.
![ByteBistro]()
Byte Bistro
Byte BistroCurrent Status: IP address not resolvable
Byte Bistro was only featured on LowEndBox in August, offering 512MB Xen VPS in France for under $7/month. Two months later they are dead and Fionn posted this lengthy response on why they have decided to terminate the services, blaming on data center (OVH turning off their sevrers) and blaming on LowEndBox (for sending them too many clients).
Do take notes though, those future low end provider wannabies. Too much initial growth and many clients might not be a good thing, especially when your support staffs are not equally scalable.
![CheapestVPS]()
CheapestVPS
CheapestVPSCurrent Status: Redirect to Cingular Hosting
CheapestVPS.org was first listed on LowEndBox in June. The plan wasn’t really interesting — 128MB memory, 100GB/month data OpenVZ VPS for $5.95/month. Kunal promised some new discounts for their anniversary. However it seems they were trying to sell it off (together with BuddingHost) soon afterwards with just $3,600/year revenue.
![DediSRV]()
DediSRV.eu
DediSRV.euCurrent Status: 403 Forbidden
Jake from DediSRV first emailed me their offer in April this year. £2.50/month gets you 128MB Xen in UK, which is not bad at all. However they seem to fall into the “UK teens” category here and their website reported 403 at the beginning of October. I actually failed to find any complains here, on LowEndTalk and on WHT, which shows not many people actually took their offers.
![FiberFirefly]()
Fiber Firefly/TinyVPS.ca
Fiber Firefly/TinyVPS.caCurrent Status: Domain parking at Sedo
Part of the fallen Kerplunc network of providers, Fiber Firefly, TinyVPS.ca and SuperBytes has been turned off and moved to become parked domains. See related discussion on LowEndTalk.
![Fiberhead]()
Fiberhead
FiberheadCurrent Status: Website timeout
Albert Horyza of Fiberhead contacted me on 20 September to have his VPS business listed. It got listed on LowEndBox 2 days later (with 256MB Xen for 5 EUR), but website no longer works 3 weeks later. I have no idea what caused the quick death — they were still advertising on WHT at the beginning of October.
![Gidux]()
Gidux
GiduxCurrent Status: cPanel default page
Gidux was first featured on LowEndBox in January this year selling some pretty “low end” stuff — 128MB memory and 128GB/month on 16Mbps for $5.95/month. Felt sorry for sleddog for defending their pricing. At the end of the day, expensive and low-spec low end offers do not necessarily mean the provider is doing the responsible thing. They might just rip off people more before doing the runner.
![J-Solutions]()
J-Solutions.org
J-Solutions.orgCurrent Status: IP address not resolvable
J-Solutions was first listed in August, managed by a Finnish student Jonne. It did not start well — lots of issues with their website and nulled WHMCS scripts. The post was taken down for a short period of time (discussed on LowEndTalk), but I put it back after removing his Facebook link. Them disappearing after 2 months is again not surprising. Hopefully not many people are affected.
![Nix Communications]()
Nix Communications
Nix CommunicationsCurrent Status: Business closed
Martin from Nix Communications was probably one of the better Canadian providers out there — cheap servers and good support. However in mid September he suddenly decided to close down his business. Such a shame, but the take home message is still the same — do take your backups, multiple times a day, to at least 2 different remote locations. Anyway, I am assuming what he said is true, and he put his health on priority over his customers — good decision! And all the best.
![UKDirectHost]()
UKDirectHost
UKDirectHostCurrent Status: Website under construction
UKDirectHost was first listed in May 2011 listing 256MB OpenVZ VPS for 4 GBP per month. It featured an all Flash site at first — probably didn’t win him any iPhone/iPad friends. His connection with the black hat stuff didn’t help either. Website went down on 5th of October, but it came back up soon after. However it has been showing “Under Construction.” for the last month or so, which is even worse than an all Flash site. My guess is that they are not coming back…
![Yottabyte Networks]()
Yottabyte Networks
Yottabyte NetworksCurrent Status: Domain parked at GoDaddy
Michael Long of Yottabyte Networks managed to get his site listed back in July, but with FAIL stamped all over the place. He emailed me in September telling me that they are still around, but appears to have kicked the bucket in mid-October.
Zombie Pool
There also exist a few providers that still have their website running, but are as good as dead. Zombies or Vegies pool?
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eNetSouth — A lot of people are still waiting for Brandon to reply their support tickets. Unfortunately the quality of service went downhill since their last deal, to a point of almost non-existence :(
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HostD8 — Website down since 5 November.
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Nixhost — Website down since 1 November.
Yes, a long list I know…
