HostDoc closing down
Find below which I received via email, I imagine this is the result of the community completely obliterating him over the handling of the client area bug.
HostDoc will be closing its doors today and will no longer accept orders for any service moving forward.
All payment gateways are now inactive. All clients will be refunded pro-rata and a few refunds have already began being issued. If your refund has not yet been recieved, please open a ticket and be patient, all valid requests will be refunded.
If you have a paypal subscription set up, please cancel it now.
As much as I enjoy providing a hosting service basically for free (there has never been a profit margin which was not reinvested into new hardware), and as much as I can fend away many if not most of the trolls or those that try and bring the brand or reputation down, it is a much harder feat when it is someone that was once trusted.
As such, this is a notice that backs ups should immediately be taken and alternative hosting solutions be sought as a replacement for the services you currently have with us.
Services will not go down immediately, however, acting immediately would see you prepared for when our services do eventually go down which can be up to 30 days from today.
Our cpanel shared hosting may stay available for the next 6 months. If this is the case, no further fee will be charged to current users however, you are urged to use this time to prepare backups and migrate away from HostDoc.
I am sorry to those I will be letting down with this decision.
I am sorry I could not be the host I envisioned being.
Thank you for choosing HostDoc and allowing us to serve you as best as we could.
Kind regards
HostDoc.
Comments
Oh.
Michael from DragonWebHost & OnePoundEmail
Well it was fun while it lasted. At least I got a nice quad 3800x bench!
hostdocrefugee
I bench YABS 24/7/365 unless it's a leap year.
They were useful for cheap OVH VPS, that's about it tho.
Irrespective of the drama, @HostDoc hope everything is ok for you outside of your hosting. If you are proactively refunding folks and actually had that money managed in such a way you able to do that I commend you. We've seen many hosts shut their doors in many ways -- and I cannot think of another that has done it well. Good luck with your next venture.
Edit: well assuming the best aged poorly
Ionswitch.com | High Performance VPS in Seattle and Dallas since 2018
Shit. That is bad and sad. I was kinda expecting doc to pull a 180 degree after the recent incident
On the same note, granted, it will be impossible to match his offerings, as one can guess. However, If anyone interested and needs a new home, please shoot a pm. As I mentioned, won't be able to match but we can try our best to help out.
I wish Chieve all the best. Kudos for not closing operations overnight and giving users proper notice.
Nexus Bytes Ryzen Powered NVMe VPS | NYC|Miami|LA|London|Netherlands| Singapore|Tokyo
Storage VPS | LiteSpeed Powered Web Hosting + SSH access | Switcher Special |
Not that I am surprised by this, but I trusted you. I hope some of you guys are happy now. I doubt any other providers can match any of my deals as a refugee offer. It was great while it lasted.
(cross-posted)
食之无味 弃之可惜 - Too arduous to relish, too wasteful to discard.
What have you got out of interest?
Michael from DragonWebHost & OnePoundEmail
Omega-32 fat
♻ Amitz day is October 21.
♻ Join Nigh sect by adopting my avatar. Let us spread the joys of the end.
Wow, just wow. Now, I’m guessing no one is able to match my £6/year offer with them
that was the only thing I got last BF ?
That's sad
All the best to your future endeavours Doc
2 of the most recent ones (not the extremely limited ones, still in stock after hours)
4 CPU (Ryzen 3900X)
2GB RAM
15GB NVMe SSD
1TB Bandwidth @ 1Gbps
KVM
Los Angeles
£2.49/m
3 CPU (i7-7700K)
4GB RAM
20GB NVMe SSD
100GB HDD
3TB Bandwidth @ 250Mbps
KVM
Singapore
£4.99/m
食之无味 弃之可惜 - Too arduous to relish, too wasteful to discard.
Mine was OVH France 4x 3800x same config but ECC ram, £25/yr
Was gonna move production over but alas..
I bench YABS 24/7/365 unless it's a leap year.
Same, was about to move production there but seems like not possible anymore.
食之无味 弃之可惜 - Too arduous to relish, too wasteful to discard.
Was eyeing the Singapore one with interest. Leaning towards Linode now since most providers shy away from SEA/ SA.
Edit: Did not mean it to criticise providers. Reasons for shying away are quite well known.
blog archives
Linode is great imo.
ExtraVM - KVM NVMe VPS in USA, EU, APAC -|- RackColo - Find Colo
Wow!
You have something for me in SG?
食之无味 弃之可惜 - Too arduous to relish, too wasteful to discard.
You know which code to use!
blog archives
But I don't think Mike know about that code
食之无味 弃之可惜 - Too arduous to relish, too wasteful to discard.
Regardless of the 4W1H, it's a sad day for lowenders indeed. A minute of silence for the fallen brand.
I bench YABS 24/7/365 unless it's a leap year.
is there something I should know about here
ExtraVM - KVM NVMe VPS in USA, EU, APAC -|- RackColo - Find Colo
Wow!
The recent HostDoc saga is really an example of why feedback should be listened to and how not to handle security issues, along with communication in general.
I need refuge
--I always need help..pff
Well that’s unexpected and seems a bit rash, but I’m sure there are reasons. I hope Chike is doing okay. Sounds like a difficult time for him.
If we’re sharing favorite past deals, I had the following for $6/m:
5 Core 3900X
6GB RAM
30GB NVMe
4TB BW
LA
Not a bad deal! That said, I’ve found a new home with @seriesn and I have no regrets. I’d highly recommend his service for any refugees looking for a new box.
It don’t be like it is until it do.
hmmmm ...
if I might suggest some discount codes:
FAT32ISANICEGUY
THEKINGOFDEALS
NOTTOTALLYEVIL
HS4LIFE (+ (* 3 4) (* 5 6))
Try not to take this as a put down, but how can you do the math on such a plan and go "this sounds like a completely sustainable product that I'll possibly put my livelihood on"?
I'd shake my head when I would see their offers. They decided to chase after SMARTHOST's $5/m plan as well as other crazy offers placed on whatever equipment they feel they got a deal on (E7's??). They had a nervous breakdown with one of their providers that was completely ridiculous.
Even if you completely own your platform (IP's, hardware, can afford to order from something besides the value menu, etc), these plans are all loss leaders, or worse, "floaters", plans to make the bills this month.
Support the young and growing providers. Give them positive feedback to help them better themselves. That said, people need to stop looking the other way at obviously bad business planning and sustainable pricing all in the face of bitchin' deal.
All it does is hurt the industry for the new hosts that are trying to take thing seriously. The bigger providers can scoff this bullshit off, we'll even pull in a good chunk of the clientbase since people are done being burnt for the 9th time. The smaller providers that did everything right (owning their gear when possible, sustainable pricing, funds in the bank to support the slow months or when they aren't profitable yet, etc) suffer greatly.
EDIT - fixing some franisim's
Francisco
Ionswitch.com | High Performance VPS in Seattle and Dallas since 2018
Agreed 100%! I have long term contracts with my colocation vendor, and I own pretty much every single piece of infrastructure used in the HostMaxim network. I'm not able to offer services as cheap as some of my competition, but I try to go above and beyond with support and network quality.
Agree (apart from my wallet as a customer)
I guess towards the end hostdoc went over...he did have some good points that wasnt leveraged on. PR is indeed important in every business unless it is unique tech.
I bench YABS 24/7/365 unless it's a leap year.
Agreed! Business, be it brick and mortar or online, businesses must follow the same policy.
Respect your competitions. Don't bad mouth them, in public or privately. Specially those, who are legends such as this guy above. Respect the new guys, who shows good intentions.
Respect your customer.
Be prepared for the shitty months.
Be prepared for shit to hit the fan.
Price things appropriately. Trying to compete with providers, who are industry leaders and owns huge infrastructure, purely based on pricing is a suicide attempt.
Nexus Bytes Ryzen Powered NVMe VPS | NYC|Miami|LA|London|Netherlands| Singapore|Tokyo
Storage VPS | LiteSpeed Powered Web Hosting + SSH access | Switcher Special |
How much for just a sloppy kiss?
"It's a hard life- to be a stick insect." - Karl Pilkington
Price changes depending on where
Nexus Bytes Ryzen Powered NVMe VPS | NYC|Miami|LA|London|Netherlands| Singapore|Tokyo
Storage VPS | LiteSpeed Powered Web Hosting + SSH access | Switcher Special |
Hope doc gets a long overdue deep sleep, rethink the whole journey and make steps to ensure mistakes do not recur, margins remain motivating, with better PR.
At one point he was on his way to becoming the best OVH reseller never seen before.
Every doc needs a nurse; every cociu needs a mikept.
I bench YABS 24/7/365 unless it's a leap year.
@Francisco
You are one of the few providers I have a huge amount of respect for so will try my best to not get into debate with you, however, despite what you may see on the surface or may estimate as probable for your offerings.
I ensured from day1 my plans were always sustainable. If they turned out to be slow sellers, I got rid of them.
Had I closed my doors after 6 months, sure, throw your stones.
I have been here nearly 3 years. Always used some of the best hardware, upgraded hardware when needed. Floaters or non sustainable outfits cannot do this. I did it month in month out without an issue.
Christmas Specials | KVM Doctor | HostDoc Hosting
There's at least one person showing a 9 vCPU on an 8 thread box.
You also just proved my point. You were at this for 3 years, but made no motions to be more sustainable. Move to colocation, things like that.
Maybe you were profitable, but not so profitable that it made the headache and loss of sleep worth it. BuyVM, well, mostly BuyShared, are huge drains on me mentally and personally. If it wasn't making me a good living I would've sold it long ago. I'm sure you're likely in the same boat.
Francisco
If you saw what was going on in the background, your comments may be a little different.
But as mentioned above, it is easy to make judgement on what you see on the surface.
My vCores were 25% of a thread. 9vCores = 2.25 threads
Regards
Christmas Specials | KVM Doctor | HostDoc Hosting
Having more vCPUs/vCores on a VM than logical CPUs on the host is a big no no, some hypervisors actively try to stop you from doing that, as it brings the performance down.
Not a popular opinion with some quarters..
Deals and Reviews: LowEndBoxes Review | Avoid dodgy providers with The LEBRE Whitelist | Free hosting (with conditions): Evolution-Host, NanoKVM, FreeMach, ServedEZ | Get expert copyediting and copywriting help at The Write Flow
Too bad, I was genuinely rooting for @HostDoc. He had the best deals for the Singapore locations; I daresay even if he raised his prices a bit, I would have jumped in nevertheless.
It's not an opinion, it's a fact :P. Then again, I did that mistake in my first host, a few years back.
It was shocking ... I was considering jump into HostDoc last week since their price is 1/3 with my original provider. Luckyly, The original provider's excellent service during last three years attracted me stay.
"Good deals usually hurts providers and those serious customers." This idea kept me thinking in the last few months.
Action and Reaction in history
Sad news. I'd only just recently got a VM with HostDoc to use as part of a Jenkins build cluster so was shocked on receiving this message this morning.
But to echo other sentiments I wish @HostDoc the very best for the future and that I valued the, albeit short, service I received from him.
Very unexpected, very sad, from my perspective it seems like a huge over reaction but if your not making the money you want and it started to impact you negatively to the point you feel this is the best option then I respect the decision.
I have worked many days/nights without sleep on issues, raid array failures, customer data loss/recovery, one of the DC’s I use getting the servers repo’d, 2 week long DDOS attacks, migrations and conversions of thousands of containers and everything in between.
When it is just you at times of serious fatigue and high emotion every inconsiderate ticket cuts deep, every comment online feels like a personal attack.
To be honest there have been a few “is it worth it moments” for me over the years to the point I listed Inception Hosting for sale after little under 2 years, after having a big issue with a lot of public vitriol, I was done, but when the dust settled I came to my senses.
Now I just ride it like a road bump instead, it’s not going to be comfortable and you just have to remember the dust will settle at some stage, but I suppose everyone has their line and that line is made by the shit you have been through before the next shit.
This was an alkward one for me, I always thought of the doc as a well put together whole package that did a great job of exciting the community from day 1, as a forum admin I had to wear a separate hat, when things like this happen I can’t just shut the conversation down, I hope he understands that.
I think it is important to many customers to remember something that Tim from hostigation used to say to bring things right back in perspective when people got above their station publicly about a 20 minute outage “Stop acting like you are paying for enterprise services” usually with a little bit harsher language
but that one when I first saw him hush an angry crowd was a big one for me that helped align my brain to the market early on.
This really is not an enterprise market segment even the big boys here have little or no redundancy and the biggest use desktop kit, this market segment was always about being able to put the effort in to doing more with less by building in your own redundancy at a fraction of the cost, to many people literally expect 24x7 365 to be standard now and seem genuinely shocked when you don’t back their data up for them for $8 p/year.
Anyway I am rambling now, I wish hostdoc all the best and suggest at this stage he just stops engaging and focuses on the closure and new life.
https://inceptionhosting.com
Please do not use the PM system here for Inception Hosting support issues.
I'm not his. He is mine.
@cociu
Not massively surprised. Was pretty clear that he wasn't having fun anymore.
Anyway - was fun while it lasted. Thanks doc
Gonna suck to replace...can't see anything comparable at that pricepoint (6 usd for a 4 core ryzen). Guess he was right about the no profit part
Personally I’ve never experienced any trouble with HostDoc. Had a small UK VM at theirs at a reasonable price. Performed well over the last months and since it got migrated to an EPYC it performed great. Used it for some testing, so I’m going to have it replaced.
Looking at his public record over here and at the old place the last months, I regret that I bought it. Not that I dislike Chike or anything. But a professional webhoster should not be working on the principle of ‘act first, think later’. And this is basically what we’ve seen happening the last months. Engaging in a fight with RS, ignoring a serious security issue (even actively denying it at first). Which almost made me cancel my VPS there, because I don’t want a provider that ignores these kind of issues.
I’m certainly hoping that this isn’t one of those ‘act first’ moments.
This is very sad news because other than BuyVM IH RamNode -------- HostDoc has been the most stable & reliable vps provider for me. Having said that I believe & understand that no homo sapiens is perfect. Doc is really good at sysadmin skills but he should have never been the PR guy of his company but I can understand that operating at such thin margins hiring someone for that role was not possible.
Doc you are a really good guy & I wish you all the best for whatever you do rest of your life!
Recommend: SmallWeb|BuyVM|Linode|RamNode
Not very surprised to be honest, but still sad when a business has to close like this.
Props to then for doing refunds and exiting the market in good standing.
OpenVPN installer | WireGuard installer
@AnthonySmith comments like that continue to raise my respect for you. A far cry from my very first impressions, way back.
In stasis until the shitposting stops/abates.
Than=compare;then=sequence:brought=bring;bought=buy:staffs=pile of sticks:informations/infos=no plural.
It wisnae me! A big boy done it and ran away. || NVMe2G for life! until death (the end is nigh).