Leaseweb is an skilled supplier of cloud internet hosting to enterprise prospects.
The corporate presents one thing for everybody from small merchants and freelancers to massive multinationals, with merchandise starting from easy web hosting to enterprise-level non-public clouds, CDNs and object storage.
Leaseweb’s fundamental internet hosting plans have some important limits. The starter plan seems to be low-cost at €2.99 a month (£2.64, $three.50), nevertheless it’s simple to see why: there is a tiny 250MB storage, solely 25GB month-to-month site visitors and a single database.
Upgrading to the Medium plan for a month-to-month €four.99 (£four.41, $5.84) will get you 1GB disk area and 5 databases, and even the €11.99 (£10.69, $14.04) Additional Massive plan nonetheless has some limits (10GB disk area, no Cron jobs) and would not provide you with a site or an SSL certificates.
Worryingly, some limits aren’t accurately defined on the web site. On the time of writing, the comparability desk says all plans get 250 electronic mail accounts – the knowledgebase (and our expertise, later) exhibits the 4 plans variously help 25, 100, 500 and 1000 accounts. As this undersells the highest two accounts, it appears to be extra a easy mistake than an try and mislead, however that is no assist for those who’ve bought a plan for a promised useful resource which then is not delivered.
Luckily, different merchandise appear to supply a lot better worth and be extra clearly described. Leaseweb’s digital non-public servers begin at €four.95 (£four.38, $5.80) a month for a single CPU core, 1GB RAM, 40GB storage and a chunky 4TB site visitors, and all plans provide you with extra assets for much less cash than the usually low-cost 1&1.
The devoted server vary is one other main plus, with costs starting from €30.99 a month (£27.40, $36.28) for a fundamental mannequin to greater than €500 (£442, $585) for high-end , information facilities in Europe, USA and Asia, and a few merchandise prepared to be used inside an hour.
Leaseweb in all probability is not an incredible alternative for low-end price range shared internet hosting, then, however there are many interesting merchandise for extra demanding customers, and the corporate is definitely price a better look.
Account setup
Leaseweb’s shared internet hosting could also be restricted, however we opted to attempt it anyway, and positioned an order from the web site. There isn’t any month-to-month cost choice, so we had been signed as much as a 12-month contract by default.
The web site requested us to create an account by registering with all the standard private data: identify, electronic mail, telephone quantity, tackle, and so forth.
Cost strategies supported embrace bank card, PayPal and financial institution switch. We selected PayPal and accomplished the transaction as regular.
After paying, Leaseweb defined that our account might not be activated till it had contacted us by telephone to confirm our identification. That is inconvenient, particularly as the corporate is not particular about instances, saying solely that it’d telephone ‘throughout the subsequent 24 hours.’
Leaseweb did not name us, however as a substitute despatched an electronic mail asking for “a replica of your ID, passport, or one other proof of authorized identification”, and enterprise registration paperwork exhibiting the identify of our firm. Clearly it is smart for a supplier to look out for fraudulent purposes, however anticipating prospects at hand over all this for what could possibly be a easy internet hosting product charged at beneath a fiver per 30 days, is possibly going too far.
We responded to the emails anyway, despatched a replica of a driving license, and after some dialogue our order was accepted.
Slightly later, an electronic mail arrived, completely filled with important particulars on our account: login URL and credentials, FTP login, the IP tackle of our server, electronic mail servers, nameservers for DNS, MX data for webmail, and hyperlinks to documentation. Even for those who do not want all this low-level information proper now, it is good to have it as a fast reference for later.
Making a website
Leaseweb net area is managed from the favored internet hosting panel, Plesk. Now we have a private choice for cPanel, however many disagree, there’s little purposeful distinction between the 2, and Plesk typically makes it simple to create your web site and handle it over the long run.
A clear and simple opening display screen factors you to the important thing options you want. These begin with the Purposes part, which though it would not help practically as many apps as Softaculous, nonetheless consists of some very massive names: WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Prestashop, MediaWiki, Magento and extra. Specialists may also discover an uncommon choice to put in earlier variations of your CMS, maybe useful for testing and troubleshooting.
When you have your web site already, a succesful file supervisor allows importing the recordsdata and folders and managing your content material afterwards, together with creating and dealing with databases.
Skilled customers may arrange an account to permit entry by way of FTP, SSH, or RDP on Home windows, and there are bonus instruments so as to add subdomains, create extra consumer accounts and examine particulars stats on bandwidth utilization and who’s viewing which pages in your website.
The one small complication is electronic mail, as new accounts are arrange from Leaseweb’s buyer account portal, somewhat than from inside Plesk, and even whenever you determine that out, it is a bit of tough to seek out. However as soon as you have tracked it down, creating your accounts is as simple as regular, and you’ll equip your electronic mail with spam filters and antivirus safety with a click on.
Efficiency
Each hosting buyer wants help often, and so it is vital to take a look at the assets a supplier has to supply. Even for those who assume you will hardly ever need assistance, searching a help website can inform you numerous a few internet hosting supplier and the way devoted it’s to serving to its prospects.
The Leaseweb knowledgebase creates an incredible first impression with its extremely skilled interface. A left-hand tree organizes its topic areas into wise classes (Merchandise, Companies, Customers and Accounts, Buyer Portal), shortcut hyperlinks level you to essentially the most commonly-accessed areas, a Not too long ago Up to date listing highlights new data and a tag cloud allows filtering articles with a click on. It is nearly as good a frontend to a internet hosting knowledgebase as we have seen.
The Search system is equally simple. Begin typing a key phrase and matches seem instantly. You solely see the highest 5 outcomes at first, however clever sorting means these normally comprise essentially the most related data.
Leaseweb articles aren’t essentially the most detailed we have seen, however they’re typically properly offered, usually overlaying a number of areas associated to your chosen subject. For instance, the Managing Email page explains how one can add, view, edit and handle your mailboxes, electronic mail aliases and auto-responders. This does not make any concessions to novices, so as an example there is no try to elucidate what an auto-responder is, however everybody else will get a transparent and easy description of the place to seek out the options they want.
For those who want extra assist, help is out there by way of dwell chat throughout enterprise hours on weekdays, in addition to by way of electronic mail and tickets. This failed instantly once we discovered clicking the Tickets hyperlink gave us a Server Error 500 warning, nevertheless it did give us a possibility to see how help would reply to the issue.
We despatched an electronic mail, and inside minutes had an preliminary response suggesting we attempt one other browser or clear our historical past. We did this, confirmed the issue and despatched help a screenshot of Chrome’s Developer Instruments view of our connections, exhibiting the place the error 500 was occurring. One other reply arrived inside 10 minutes saying they had been wanting into it, and solely 5 minutes after that, there was a type of rationalization:
“We inform you that the issue you’re experiencing is due to the dearth of ERP, it is going to take 2 or three days to be added to your accounts. It needs to be added by Monday.”
So, it appears our account wasn’t arrange with the options needed to boost tickets; help did not notice this and so gave a deceptive preliminary response. And possibly this might have dragged on for a while if we hadn’t despatched the technical particulars of our connection subject.
None of that displays properly on Leaseweb, however what saves the corporate is its very fast response instances. We could have needed to ship extra messages than we anticipated, however Leaseweb nonetheless supplied a solution and a repair time in beneath an hour, and that is what actually issues.
As regular, we rounded off the overview with some efficiency checks, and our Leaseweb server delivered glowing outcomes, with above-average speeds from most places. That is excellent news, particularly as we solely signed up for essentially the most fundamental shared internet hosting plan, and we anticipate Leaseweb’s digital and devoted server plans will ship much more.
Remaining verdict
Leaseweb has a variety of pretty priced, highly effective plans, and usually presents a really skilled system, however points like a deceptive product description and damaged ticket system recommend there’s nonetheless work to do.