Beastnode Hosting Reviews
Review Summary
While Beastnode specializes in Minecraft hosting, this doesn’t stop them from catering to a more general hosting audience. Customers should rest assured that BeastNodes shared web and cloud VPS hosting services, making a viable solution for entry-level and mid-range customers. With transparency regarding hardware as well as a 99.9% uptime guarantee, there is plenty to be optimistic about. However, don’t expect the most feature-rich hosting service with multiple support channels. Instead, Beastnode provides a budget-friendly, straightforward service with a solid foundation that covers the basics.
Pros
Cons
Shared Hosting Review
Best for Portfolio and Basic websites
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- Product
- Multiple Sites
Whether you can host multiple domains on this hosting plan.
- Disk Storage
- Bandwidth
Recommendations:
– Basic sites: Upto 10GB
– eCommerce sites: 15GB+ - CDN?
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) saves copies of your website on servers across various regions. This allows your website to be accessed from the closest possible server to the user trying to view your site.
- Free Migration Transfer
If you’re migrating your website from another company or plan, you might need support migrating your website to the new servers.
- Price
The monthly cost for this plan, including discounts
- View Product
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- Starter (Semi-Managed)
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- 30 GB
- Unlimited
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- $9/mo
- View
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- Deluxe (Semi-Managed)
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- 50 GB
- Unlimited
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- $14/mo
- View
Included Resources
Beastnode’s web hosting catalog is split among three simple plans. The Starter package is ideal for those just building their first website with a single domain, 10 GB of storage, and ten email accounts. Both the Deluxe and Extreme plans are suitable for more ambitious businesses or projects with unlimited domains and upgraded storage.
While the storage limits aren’t extreme (some providers have entry-level plans with as little as 2 GB of storage), it will prevent you from running large, media-heavy websites. However, it should still be possible to host a decent e-commerce or photography site, to an extent.
When it comes to traffic, you can feel free to grow your audience as much as you want with unlimited bandwidth on all plans. Although Beastnode doesn’t explicitly state anything, this might be subject to acceptable use policy, as is usually the case with hosting products. Based on the packages, the best use case for Beastnode’s web hosting would probably be for a blog or small-to-medium online store.
Plans & Pricing
Perhaps understandably, for an unlimited hosting option, Beastnode’s prices are a bit higher than average. Entry-level prices usually cost around $4 to $8, while Beastnode’s pricing starts at $3.60 per month if subscribing on an annual basis. You have the option to go month-to-month, but that could significantly increase the price to $9 per month.
The same goes for the Deluxe and Extreme plans. The former costs $7 per month annually and $14 per month monthly, while the latter costs $14 per month annually and $28 annually.
Unfortunately, Beastnode doesn’t throw in a free domain for the first year like most other hosts – which you would expect at this price point. The 7-day money-back guarantee may also feel riskier than the typical 30-day money-back guarantee that’s considered the industry standard.
However, Beastnode does provide a backup and restore service for free which usually costs a bit extra per month. That being said, considering that it comes with semi instead of fully-managed support, the pricing is a bit steep overall.
Additional Features & Benefits
As mentioned, one of the top features you get for free from Beastnode is the backup and restore service. Backups and restorations are completely unlimited, and you can configure it to your liking. However, the big catch is that it will be stored on your allotted disk space, so you’ll need to manage how you use it carefully.
In other ways, Beastnode is very stock-standard. Hosting is based on cPanel, which means you’ll have access to hundreds of one-click web app installers thanks to Softaculous, a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate and the ability to set up the Cloudflare CDN on your account.
Thanks to their core function being Minecraft hosting, they do take their hardware a bit more seriously than most. Servers run on the latest Intel Xeon processors, RAID 10 hard drives for redundancy, and Juniper/Cisco network connections. Also, most hosts probably have similar infrastructure. It’s reassuring to know exactly what you will be running on.
Another good point is that you can create any number of SQL databases with any plan, while most other hosts usually limit you on entry-level plans. However, Beastnode doesn’t mention any extra security or performance measures. For example, something like SpamAssassin and some kind of server antivirus software like BitNinja are pretty much a given nowadays. This probably comes down to the “semi-managed” side, which means you’ll have to take more responsibility for managing your server.
That being said, at least Beastnode provides a relatively standard 99.9% uptime guarantee, which should at least give you some comfort.
Support
Web hosting customers will have access to the 24/7 ticket-only support that Beastnode provides. There is also a knowledge base, FAQs, and a forum where you can find solutions yourself or look for more information. Unfortunately, Beastnode doesn’t typically do website migrations, so you’re entirely on your own where that’s concerned. The fact that most other hosts do enforces that web hosting is not Beastnode’s main focus.
Cloud VPS Hosting Review
Best for: High Traffic and Fast Growing sites
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- Product
- Managed
Managed servers are generally recommended if you are looking for specialised or advanced server hosting and have little to low technical skills
- CPU (Cores)
- RAM
Minimum Recommendations:
– Basic sites: Upto 4GB
– eCommerce sites: 4GB-6GB of RAM - Disk Storage
- Bandwidth
Recommendations:
– Basic sites: Upto 10GB
– eCommerce sites: 15GB+ - Price
The monthly cost for this plan, including discounts
- View Product
Plans & Pricing
Beastnode provides four pre-configured cloud VPS packages to choose from. Unfortunately, you can’t customize your resources as some other hosts allow, and it’s not as scalable as others either. That said, with the included resources across plans, there is a solid range of entry to mid-range options to choose from.
All plans also come with one free dedicated IP address, which is a must for distinguishing yourself from other environments on the same server. You can also add another IP address for only $2 a month, which is pretty inexpensive.
This is especially true, considering the price. Starting at a budget-friendly $5 a month, it’s some of the cheapest cloud VPS hosting you’re likely to come across. However, considering the resource limits, it’s not significantly more value-for-money than the industry average. Even the top configuration is just about entry-to-mid-range priced at $40.
Like their web hosting, the server hardware is based on Intel Xeon processors, RAID 10 high-speed SSD storage, and gigabit connections meaning you know you’ll be getting reliable infrastructure for the price. Also, like web hosting, you don’t get a lot of extras like a domain or other proprietary features. However, it’s not as common with cloud hosting in general.
Unlike web hosting, you don’t get the massive discounts on longer-term hosting with the same monthly price. Still, it’s convenient to be able to choose a billing period of your choice, whether that’s monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or annually.
If you’re looking for cloud VPS hosting for your growing blog or medium-to-large-sized business or e-commerce website, it should do the trick. However, considering Beastnode’s expertise in the field, it’s meant for those who want to host Minecraft servers with a bit more control over their environments.
Additional Features & Benefits
You might not get that much control over your resources, but you do have a say when it comes to your server’s software. Beastnode provides a vast range of Linux-based OS distros, although there aren’t any Windows options.
Although most of these are standard bare environments with root access, Beastnode does offer some convenience in the form of turnkey Linux installations with either WordPress or Joomla. This saves you from taking the time to set up these popular CMSs yourself, and shorten the time it takes you to take your website live. Despite how convenient this is, not many other hosts provide this arrangement.
Cloud VPS servers also come with the SolusVM control panel, which is one of the most popular and feature-rich control panels for virtualized environments. However, you don’t have the option to buy another panel through Beastnode, which is slightly restrictive. SolusVM does provide you with all the basics like the ability to stop, start, reboot, reformat, or reinstall your environment plus some extras.
Even better and more unique is that you get to choose from which data center to host your server. Bestnode offers server locations in both Phoenix, Chicago, and Amsterdam, which also brings you closer to a European audience and gives some global reach. While three global locations aren’t groundbreaking, it’s still better than what most other hosts can offer.
Support
Cloud VPS packages are considered to be self-managed, which means you’ll have full control and responsibility for setting up and managing your server, including security. Although not so common among cloud VPS hosting providers anyway, Beastnode doesn’t do migrations, so you’ll need to consider this before switching over.
With cloud VPS hosting, you can enjoy the same standard 24/7 support via Beastnode’s efficient ticketing system. As cloud customers may encounter more serious issues, it’s unfortunate that you don’t get phone and chat support like most other cloud hosting services. However, if your intent is to host Minecraft servers, you’ll have the benefit of working with experts in this field. The forum may come in handy, especially to get insights from other Minecraft hosting customers.
Final Thoughts
Except for the fact that Beastnode specializes in Minecraft hosting, there’s not much to distinguish their web or VPS hosting from the rest of the industry. They offer decent entry-to-mid-range packages. However, low overall storage limits prevent them from catering to enterprise-level or high-end customers. The lack of security features and the fact that only ticket support is available may be concerning for some.
Some of Beastnode’s best aspects is that they provide free backup and restore services for web hosting customers and that their cloud VPS hosting starts at a low price point. Full SSD storage and three global locations are also premium features, although not reason enough by itself to choose Beastnode.
Top Features
Minecraft Hosting
Even if you want to manage your own cloud VPS, you can count on Beastnode’s expertise in the field to provide support if you want to host a Minecraft server.
Free Backup and Restore
With Beastnode, you can configure your own backup and restoration frequency for free with the only caveat that backups will be stored on your server.
Customize your Environment
Choose from a huge number of Linux-based distros or opt for a pre-configured CMS environment to kickstart your project.
Global Data Centers
Cloud VPS customers can choose from data centers in Phoenix, Chicago, or Amsterdam to bring their website closer to their target market.
Security
Beastnode isn’t very forthcoming on which security measures they have in place on their servers. All clients are hosted on RAID 10 storage devices, which is the highest level of redundancy possible.
Web hosting customers can further configure their own backup and restore service in terms of frequency for free. The only catch is that backups will use the available storage allocation, which means it will need to be carefully managed.
It’s not clear whether this is provided to all customers. Still, Minecraft servers do come with built-in DDoS protection for hardware, which should keep servers running uninterrupted and prevent loss of data further. All things considered, it’s still a little disappointing that there isn’t more built-in security in the form of firewalls, email filtering, etc.
Customer Support Review
Unfortunately, Beastnode only provides support via a ticketing system. Even though it’s available 24/7, this does mean that interaction won’t be immediate. Despite this obvious shortcoming, Beastnode is one of the few Minecraft hosting specialist services, which means their support team will be able to help you with Minecraft-related issues other hosts probably can’t.
24/7 Ticket Support
Beastnode’s only direct support channel, you would hope for speedy service. Beastnode does slightly prioritize Minecraft and Cloud hosting customers with shorter response times. Although you shouldn’t expect an instant response, you will usually get a reply within the same day – typically within an hour or two, although follow-ups are quicker.
Knowledgebase and FAQ
Beastnode’s KB is arranged under categories that are based on FAQ-like questions and answers according to the topic. It’s a pretty decent source of information with step-by-step guides and informational pieces. As you might expect, there are quite a few Minecraft-related resources you obviously won’t find with your everyday host.
Forum
Beastnode also runs a user forum, which seems to be very active. As Minecrafting-hosting is a niche pursuit, this is an excellent source of information, advice, and insights from other Minecraft hosting customers. However, you can use it to find help on any other hosting-related topic as well.
Support Tickets
Beastnode offer ticketed support, which can be accessed via the Main site.
Live Chat
Beastnode offer sales support via live chat on the main site.
Tutorials & Guides
Beastnode support via technical hosting articles and setup guides.
