I've been using Webkeepers since around June 2009, to host 3 or 4 sites on a VPS. While I have a couple other dedicated servers with other hosting providers, I needed a custom setup for these sites and felt that a separate VPS was the way to go.
The Cost
The price is right. In fact, they are the absolute lowest price I could find on the web. I'm paying about $15/month for a 512MB / 250GB VPS.
512MB is a bit on the low side, but they have plans with higher memory which are still very affordable. 512 MB was more than enough for my needs at the time.
Currently though, they're running a crazy promotion. I just picked up another 4GB VPS for $18/month!
The Service
They're not RackSpace. Don't think you're getting superior value on a high-reliability server. Occasionally, their entire network goes down, even their own website and control panel. That being said, it does not happen often (once every couple months) and when it does, it's only for a minute or two.
The Support
Support is there, but it's not available by phone or email. In fact, they even list their phone number as: Phone: +1 (0) 0.
The support model behind Webkeepers is this: you should have experience managing a server. They even mentioned in their documentation that this service is for experienced server administrators. I did have an issue not being able to SSH in to my server at one point. I contacted support and they responded within about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, all websites hosted on the server were down for that 20 minutes.
The Summary
Webkeepers is an excellent value and provides reliability that's strong enough for a non-business-critical website. If your site can afford occasional, very short periods of downtime, then you have found the right provider. The price is just too good to ignore.
If your website requires 100% uptime, don't give it another thought.
Tips
One of the bigger selling points of Webkeepers is their extremely low cost, low memory VPS plans. If you think you can get away with a 512 MB VPS like I did, here are a few tips to really help "stretch" that memory:
- Use Supervisor. The only issue I've had with my 512MB VPS is Apache consuming too much RAM and freezing. However, with Supervisor running in the background, it's able to detect when Apache has halted and restart it.
- Use Pingdom. For some reason, Supervisor doesn't always want to be the hero and restart that Apache server for us. Pingdom will come to the rescue in that situation, by sending us an alert (by SMS or email) that our website is not responding. Pingdom does have a free plan that will allow you to monitor a single website.
- Download an SSH mobile app. Pingdom is meaningless if you can't log into your server when a site goes down. Having an SSH app available on your smartphone is a lifesaver when you get that alert from Pingdom. I personally use SSH Term Pro.
Awesome review ! Thanks a lot. I am getting one tomorrow and wanted to know if i did the right choice. I will be running a VPN Server on it, so i took the 1Gb/50Gb plan for as low as 4.99$/Month.
I would think 1GB would be plenty for a VPN server. Glad you like the review – good luck!
I’ll admit, the price is okay but it’s been a rocky start for me.
The first issue was my fault, not ordering enough RAM to support SQL 2012 and I forgot that part of the RAM is already consumed my Plesk and other applications.
I think the main issue has been working around plesk to connect my ASP.NET configuration file up to my MSSQL server. I signed up about a week ago and have been testing differant connection strings and adding SQL permissions every since.
Other than this, it seems nice and despite the database issues, my pages load pretty fast (from their server).
I don’t have any knowledge of the Microsoft stack, so it’s good to hear your experience. Is it difficult, or impossible to manage the server without Plesk?
I wouldn’t think so. I could always use a barebones server with IIS but plesk has made it easy to manage the settings. Plesk simply pre-configures your server for you and handles IIS settings. Its easy to break a server with IIS.
Besides the ease of use, plesk also configures security settings and so fourth .
I suppose its similar to Cpanel in a way. I’ve used Cpanel on a linux server, running a LAMP stack. Did a little PHP programming and some MySQL. I just favor ASP.NET. Nothing wrong with PHP. Just preferance is suppose.
Visual studio makes it quick and easy to put things in the right order but I would never use the Visual side to design pages. I do mine through CSS and the web browser. Ctr-F5 till I get it right.
I had the same feeling about 12 or 13 years ago, developing my first site on the “original” ASP with IIS. ASP was great, but I had trouble configuring IIS.
Let me know how it goes with the 4GB VPS. I purchased a 4GB because the deal was too good to pass up, but I’m not sure what to do with it yet 😉
Webkeepers.com has a terrible service,also doesnt have phone number,I lost more than 4000usd in 10 days,because of cant login to VPS,also they dont reply/answer my emails,STAY AWAY FROM THEM!!!!!!
I think their service is a “get what you pay for” model. You just can’t expect too much at that price point. It’s great as a development server.