[deanhills]

CONTABO REVIEW

Background
So in March 2019 while I was still in South Africa I got tempted by Contabo and signed up for the VPS below.  The temptation started at Gigarocket, whose owner went for Contabo in January.  I couldn't believe the fast speed, and the cheap prices, so thought to get the VPS below.

Here are the specs for the order I put in:

VPS S SSD
CPU: four cores
Intel® Xeon® E5-2620v3, E5-2630v4 or 4114 processor
8 GB RAM (guaranteed)
200 SSD GB disk space

Unlimited traffic
200 Mbit/s port
DDoS protection

Panel
VNC access
1 IP address included
/64 IPv6 network included
1 snapshot included

Source: https://contabo.com/?show=vps

OK if one checks the connection speed of 200 Mbit/s port then possibly it is slower than expected, but still, I think OK relative to the price one pays.  I took the VPS for a year, so the price was reduced - i.e. the installation charges were subtracted.  My average monthly cost worked out just under 6$/month.

Only frustration I had in the beginning is that nowhere in the application did they say a picture ID would be needed, and they only asked me for it AFTER I had signed up and paid for the VPS. Everything after that however worked great.  I feel I have a good VPS here.  Not an earth shattering VPS, but a good one for what I want to do with it.  Which is mostly Websites and blogging.  I think if one should want to use it for a game server, then maybe it will be too slow.  BUT, the guys at Contabo are very approachable, pride themselves in being available 24/7, so maybe one could always do a special deal with them to get a bigger connection speed.

Here are some important links for checking Contabo out:

Contabo VPS Plans
Contabo FAQs
Contabo TOS

About Contabo
One of the things that attracted me to Contabo is its interesting history.  Two friends in Germany started Contabo as a web host with shared hosting packages and dedicated servers in 2003. They called the company Giga International then. They then went international adding two huge data centres in Muenich and Nuerenberg through the years.  I'm almost certain they have a very strong network in the US too.  In 2013 they changed the name to Contabo.  Here is more technical information about their Data Centres:
https://contabo.com/?show=data_centers

Speed Test
Here is a speed test that I took today.  Not too fantastic, but also not bad either.  Like latency is above average excellent, showing that they're really great with their networking.  It's just the connection speed that is slower, but then that is probably in line with their stated objective of always providing products at discount prices.



System Information

The System Information below was generated by the Hidden Refuge's Benchmark 2.0 Test.  Thank you to @"Hidden Refuge" for being so generous to continuously update and support it for us:

Processor: Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2630 v4 @ 2.20GHz
CPU Cores: 4
Frequency: 2199.996 MHz
Memory: 7821 MB
Swap: 0 MB
Uptime: 15 days, 1:25,


Speedtest (IPv4 only)

Location                Provider        Speed
CDN                     Cachefly        23.8MB/s

Atlanta, GA, US         Coloat          14.6MB/s
Dallas, TX, US          Softlayer       13.8MB/s
Seattle, WA, US         Softlayer       11.7MB/s
San Jose, CA, US        Softlayer       11.4MB/s
Washington, DC, US      Softlayer       16.6MB/s

Tokyo, Japan            Linode          4.28MB/s
Singapore               Softlayer       7.58MB/s
Taiwan                    Hinet           6.50MB/s

Rotterdam, Netherlands  id3.net         23.5MB/s
Haarlem, Netherlands    Leaseweb        23.8MB/s


Disk Speed
I/O (1st run)   : 121 MB/s
I/O (2nd run)   : 108 MB/s
I/O (3rd run)   : 107 MB/s
Average I/O     : 112 MB/s

Control Panel
The VPS comes with a good Control Panel, not outstanding, but it has everything in it that one needs in one place.  The panel is a Contabo Panel, and fairly user friendly.  It provides all of the controls one needs for the VPS.

Usage
I purchased the VPS mostly because I thought I would get a fast Porche VPS wise.  A VPS 9 but at a Volkswagen price.  Turned out that the connection speed is what makes the VPS that otherwise has such fantastic specs, affordable.  I don't think the speed is slow however, I didn't get what I hoped for though - I thought I was going to get a VPS 9 spec VPS with VPS 9 speed.

I'm using the Contabo VPS mostly for my blogs, and possibly as such this was a little bit of a waste.  However, at least my curiosity about Contabo was satisfied.  I'm almost certain the owner of Gigarocket must have negotiated for a faster connection speed, as Gigarocket speed rocks and Gigarocket is on a Contabo server.  That's how I got interested in Contabo in the first place.

Things to improve
Well obviously the connection speed.  But then the price will probably have to be adjusted and the VPS would be completely unaffordable to me.  The Website is a bit archaic and the fonts maybe too small.  But that's just personal preference.  The Contabo Website is a great Website from an information point of view as it contains every bit of information that is needed to make an informed decision about Contabo before one decides to buy a VPS.  Except of course that a picture ID will be needed at the end of the sale.  

All in all the VPS handled very well.  I found it very responsive and fast.  Worth the price, but probably not really needed.  For those who want to use it as a games server.  I guess their expectation would probably be even bigger than mine was, and they may then be a little more disappointed than I was.  But then again as I suggested earlier on, one can easily negotiate with Contabo for higher connection speed, and it would be interesting if someone from post4vps should try and do that and see what the end result will look like.

[Manal]

I went around to look for a dedicated server. Everything was great until IPv4. They cost 2 euro/IP address which is quite costly for me. Their 256 GB RAM for just 109 Euro/month is the competitive price of Hetzner but IP beats up the game in Contabo.

Anyways, great review.

[deanhills]

I went around to look for a dedicated server. Everything was great until IPv4. They cost 2 euro/IP address which is quite costly for me. Their 256 GB RAM for just 109 Euro/month is the competitive price of Hetzner but IP beats up the game in Contabo.

Anyways, great review.

Thanks for the feedback @Manal.  Very interesting about IPv4.  Did you ask for a block quote for IPv4?  Like I'd imagine for personal use they would be expensive as they don't want personal users to have too many IPv4s easily, but for professional use, I'm just wondering whether there could be a bulk price somewhere.  Like a professional package deal?

What I would try, if I were you, is write to Contabo and tell them your fantastic package deal with Hetzner (enclose a copy of it if you can) and whether they could better on the Hetzner deal?  Just see what comes up and whether they are a genuine discount operator as they claim to be.

[chanalku91]

Fantastic, I haven't got the information needed for this one provider! What about the Uptime ?

[Littlemaster]

This provider is old and gold, earlier I saw a website started on 2004 using this as their webhost, it was a big server and they hosted lot of data. It went fine until 2015.

[Manal]

Thanks for the feedback @Manal.  Very interesting about IPv4.  Did you ask for a block quote for IPv4?  Like I'd imagine for personal use they would be expensive as they don't want personal users to have too many IPv4s easily, but for professional use, I'm just wondering whether there could be a bulk price somewhere.  Like a professional package deal?

What I would try, if I were you, is write to Contabo and tell them your fantastic package deal with Hetzner (enclose a copy of it if you can) and whether they could better on the Hetzner deal?  Just see what comes up and whether they are a genuine discount operator as they claim to be.

Thank you for your suggestion. I will look into it and email Contabo about this.

[Melvin]

Contabo one of the most Good and Cheap hosting that provides good services with cheap prices, is that possible that they can sponsor us with their vps's ? so we can try it and review it? it's a really good idea.

[tiwil]

Nice review, Dean! Is it Windows enabled? Their 200 Mbit/s is legit, ah, some VPS provider gives 1 GBit/s on their VPS profile, but not really 1 GBit while doing a speed test. But Contabo different, 200 Mbit/s as they promised in the VPS profile.

And, Europe location only? $6/month for a year, it's so cheap!

[deanhills]

Nice review, Dean! Is it Windows enabled? Their 200 Mbit/s is legit, ah, some VPS provider gives 1 GBit/s on their VPS profile, but not really 1 GBit while doing a speed test. But Contabo different, 200 Mbit/s as they promised in the VPS profile.

And, Europe location only? $6/month for a year, it's so cheap!

Their Windows Policy can be found in their TOS:
§ 13 Licensing terms for Microsoft products

Provided that in the following or preceding section the customer has selected a Microsoft software product (e.g. Windows Server, SQL Server etc.) for installation on his server, he must comply with the current provisions of the "Microsoft Service Provider Use Rights" (SPUR) and the "End User License Terms" (EULT) which apply within the context of the Microsoft "Service Provider License Agreement" to Contabo (hereinafter referred to as provider) if the customer is able to influence the use of the software or could infringe the provisions through use of the software. These provisions may be viewed at the following addresses at any time:

https://contabo.com/spla/SPUR.pdf
https://contabo.com/spla/EULT.pdf

The customer thus agrees to comply with the corresponding provisions and is responsible for observing them correctly.
These provisions may result in only having restricted or even not having the possibility to use otherwise purchased licenses of the customer with the servers of the provider. The provider will supply a license for all customer orders of Microsoft software products considering the Microsoft Service Provider License Agreement. This license allows the monthly use of the Microsoft software product on the server and limits its utilization permission with regard to some aspects. The customer particularly must not use Microsoft products which require additional or other licenses according to SPUR or EULT. The customer is obligated to comply with all these provisions on his own and is liable for violations against this usage policy to the provider and Microsoft.

Fantastic, I haven't got the information needed for this one provider! What about the Uptime ?

Uptime is as expected.  I haven't once experienced down time.  But then you wouldn't find it with places like Contabo or Hetzner.  I'd find it very unusual if it would happen with them.

[Manal]

Uptime is as expected. I haven't once experienced down time. But then you wouldn't find it with places like Contabo or Hetzner. I'd find it very unusual if it would happen with them.

I've been using Hetzner for 7+ months now and I have monitored 0% downtime so far(excluding errors I made and DNS issues mistakes from my end).

---

Well, my luck sucks.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you very much for your message and your interest in our products.

Although we wish we could do some price adjustments for you,we are unfortunately unable to do so. The pricing for our services as advertised cannot be changed in this regard.

As you are aware, sooner or later, IPv4 addresses will become increasingly rare. Therefore, we already include an entire IPv6 Subnet with ur servers.

We regret for being unable to assist you with a different offer.

If you have any questions or need help, please do not hesitate to contact us.

--
Best regards,

This is the reply I got from Contabo. Anyways, I'm glad that I tried.