RapidSwitch review | TechRadar

With greater than twenty years of invaluable business expertise, RapidSwitch is among the main dedicated server hosting firms within the UK, working greater than ten information facilities and over 20,000 servers inside and out of doors the borders of its homeland. Since 1999, RapidSwitch has been offering enterprise-level, cost-efficient and dependable internet hosting options backed by competent buyer help and professional technical workforce.

Data Centers

RapidSwitch offers loads of data on its UK information facilities on its web site (Image credit score: iomart Hosting Ltd)

Formed within the UK, RapidSwitch exists as a buying and selling title of iomart Hosting Limited, one in every of UK’s high suppliers of managed internet hosting and cloud computing providers. With its foremost workplace in Maidenhead (the UK), RapidSwitch operates 10 N+1 information facilities within the UK and 17 facilities world wide. Some of their extra distinguished prospects embody Joomla Wired, Last.fm, Livestation, TrueAchievements and PageTiger.

Putting modesty apart, RapidSwitch claims to have the most important community within the UK and (what’s extra) function as “the primary server and infrastructure specialist on the planet” that’s “sufficiently big to supply each attainable infrastructure service obtainable”.

RapidSwitch’s foremost website provides off an impression of novelty, simplicity and clear understanding of intuitive design. More importantly, it additionally offers an honest quantity of knowledge in regards to the firm itself and its providers. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a official weblog featured on the web site, nor have they got an energetic presence on social media websites.

Pricing

You can select from RapidSwitch’s pre-built devoted server plans or design your individual (Image credit score: iomart Hosting Ltd)

Plans and pricing

As a supplier of premium website hosting providers, RapidSwitch not solely offers nice worth for the cash, however really matches within the cost-effective class. One of the explanations they’re able to offering this pricing is the truth that RapidSwitch utterly owns, manages and maintains its personal bodily infrastructure.

At the second they provide about 30 different-sized plans for pre-built devoted servers starting from £34.99 ($49.40) to £799 ($1,128.50) per thirty days. Although the positioning guarantees pre-built servers beginning at as low cost as £25 ($35.30), we did not see any at that value on the record, concluding they have to be at present out of inventory. Fully customized devoted servers begin at £99.99 ($141.30) per thirty days, however their value can stand up fairly shortly, which is comprehensible. Colocation hosting is offered as effectively and all customers are welcome to construct their distinctive options. 

Although RapidSwitch offers no money-back assure, their uptime assure is at 100%, which signifies that each buyer that experiences any downtime is eligible for partial refund.

When it involves fee strategies, RapidSwitch accepts most main credit score/debit playing cards (the place American Express is excluded), financial institution transfers (even if you’re not within the UK) and PayPal (in latest occasions).

Ease of use

If you’re looking out for high-availability devoted machines, RapidSwitch’s internet hosting plans are positive to supply one thing responding to that want. Even if not one of the pre-built packages attraction to you, there’s a option to construct your server from the scratch (so to say) by deciding on a customized server possibility. However, when choosing a pre-built server you’ll doubtless discover that a few of them, though listed, aren’t obtainable in the mean time.

As a part of customizing your server you’ll have the ability to choose a base system (bronze or gold vary), laborious disk, a RAID configuration (or to go with out it), working system (there are totally different variations of Linux, Windows, FreeNAS and an possibility so that you can set up you personal OS), management panel (totally different editions of cPanel, Plesk or none), MS RDS licenses (1, 5, 10 CALs or none), and MS SQL licenses (the obtainable selections are 2012, 2014 and 2016). Here, if nothing occurs to be specified, RapidSwitch’s technicians will proceed to put in the newest model obtainable.

You might need seen that some features of your internet hosting package deal haven’t been talked about and that’s as a result of these aren’t customizable: processor (it’s Xeon 4 Core), reminiscence (it’s 64GB of RAM), port pace (1Gbps/300Mbps is assured) and bandwidth (which is, for sure, unmetered).

SLAs

RapidSwitch gives three totally different service-level agreements to select from (Image credit score: iomart Hosting Ltd)

While you’re right here, you may take into consideration together with a couple of extras and for an additional value, as anticipated. These embody devoted OOB port for distant administration, three ranges of server SLAs (unmanaged, proactive M&A and premium) and extra IP addresses.

After you resolve upon each little element, you’ll must create an account with RapidSwitch (offered you don’t have already got it) and this process is all the pieces one would anticipate (including private information and verifying your identification) from any such interplay.

MyServers

You can handle your entire servers with RapidSwitch from the corporate’s MyServer administration portal (Image credit score: iomart Hosting Ltd)

Following a profitable fee, your new server needs to be up and operating in a matter of hours. MyServers, which is a administration portal for purchasers to observe and handle devoted or colocated servers, is intuitive in design and it shouldn’t take a lot effort to navigate round.

Performance

We used GTmetrix to check the uptime and response time of RapidSwitch’s foremost website (Image credit score: GTmetrix)

Speed and expertise

Having come head to head with the query of “Why RapidSwitch?”, we acquired an outline of the standard (and amount) of their providers in addition to a quick exploration of their key options. One amongst them is a promise of “a quick, interconnected UK community” which is attributable to the usage of highly effective machines with 10 Gbps connectivity and 100% community uptime assure.

To take a look at the pace of RapidSwitch’s foremost web site we relied on the help of GTmetrix (our instrument of selection), which wasn’t too impressed with the entire efficiency. The web page absolutely loaded fairly shortly (in 2.3 seconds) and required 47 requests on the identical time (which is as half as a lot as it’s wanted on common). However, each preliminary server response time and whole blocking time had been significantly greater than really helpful, which consequently lowered the grade for general pace efficiency to C (67%).

As we hoped it will, the instrument that monitored the uptime of RapidSwitch’s foremost website (UptimeRobot, that’s) did not file any downtime in any respect. At the identical time there have been no main oscillations in response time and though it wasn’t as quick as lightning, it actually leaves the impression of general stability.

Contact

You can attain RapidSwitch by telephone or e mail from 9am to 5pm UK time (Image credit score: iomart Hosting Ltd)

Support

Instead of outsourcing their help within the title of better earnings, RapidSwitch has determined to maintain it in-house. This ought to suggest they’ve an entire management over their help employees, in addition to that their employees (being native) has extra in-depth data about their infrastructure and that it ought to take care of any points a lot faster primarily based on its extra intimate insights into the interior workings of this supplier.

In any case, RapidSwitch’s help is offered by a number of channels together with a phone line, dwell chat and e mail (in case you don’t require a speedy response). Someone from the help employees needs to be obtainable night time and day that will help you with all the pieces from easy questions and considerations to offering help whereas fixing account or server points.

FAQ

You can discover some solutions to widespread questions by trying out RapidSwitch’s MyServers FAQ (Image credit score: iomart Hosting Ltd)

If you aspire to be extra self-sufficient, RapidSwitch’s knowledgebase (titled as “MyServers FAQ”) contains about 280 pretty quick articles written in a straight-to-the-point method you could flick thru the 9 built-in classes or by utilizing the search field.   

The competitors

One of the most well-liked selections for devoted server internet hosting (and website hosting basically) is (not surprisingly) Bluehost, which is at present managing over 20 million web sites, and that’s nothing wanting spectacular. Unlike RapidSwitch, Bluehost is a US-based firm (with all its servers within the USA), so it is perhaps much less handy for purchasers from Europe, though its partnership with Cloudflare would possibly even the chances.

HostGator is one other fan-favorite selection fairly just like Bluehost by way of internet hosting varieties, options and pricing. Like RapidSwitch, each hosts present moderately priced devoted servers. Unlike RapidSwitch, additionally they present shared, VPS and WordPress (managed and unmanaged) internet hosting options.

Webhosting UK and RapidSwitch are each UK-based suppliers identified for his or her speedy, highly effective efficiency and pretty priced plans. That being mentioned, if you’re on the lookout for one thing easier, Webhosting UK has extra choices to supply, together with shared, cloud, WordPress, VPS and e-mail internet hosting.

InMotion Hosting is one more well-rounded host, providing a myriad of choices for every kind of companies. While it gives extra internet hosting choices general, in terms of devoted servers, RapidSwitch is a clear-cut winner.

Final verdict

At the tip, to reply the query of how effectively RapidSwitch holds to our requirements, we’ve to ask one more one. How would you discover a 20-year outdated website hosting supplier providing cost-effective, extremely scalable, secure and swiftly deployable devoted options, backed with round the clock buyer help and 100% uptime SLA? If you’re in the hunt for a devoted server for a demanding enterprise set on a path of long-term progress and success, RapidSwitch is perhaps the most effective selections for you.

However, in case you want one thing a lot easier for a private weblog, uncomplicated web site or somewhat on-line store of wonders, RapidSwitch might be an excessive amount of of a great factor and overly desperate to lighten your pockets. This is why you need to check out different hosts resembling HostGator, Hostinger or Bluehost who supply extra internet hosting choices general.

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