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Thread: Hetzner review

  1. #1

    Hetzner review

    The German hosting company Hetzner has great reviews all over the place. Thatīs why I contracted my first VPS with them, 5 months ago. There are a few things that I thought would be useful to share with others, so hereīs my review on Hetzner.

    Ordering a VPS server with Hetzner was a breeze. The whole process is automated, so after signing up my VPS was ready in about 2 hours.

    I chose the "Debian 6.0 64bit" package. Note that youīll still have to perform the installation yourself. Luckily Hetzner provides an install image, that you can run from Hetznerīs web console.

    Hetzner also offers a image that not only installs the OS, but also Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, Webmin, OpenSSL and FTP among others. However, on Webminīs website I read that it was better to install Webmin from scratch if you want to use Virtualmin as well. So I did this manually.

    Thereīs one very important rhing to keep in mind when ordering a VPS with Hetzner: their packages donīt scale. In other words, if you order their cheapest VPS (VQ7) and after a few months you want to upgrade to a VQ12, youīll have to cancel your current package, order a new one and go through the whole process of installing and configuring the server again.

    With the OS; LAMP stack and Webmin/Virtualmin installed, everything went pretty smoothly. I contacted Hetznerīs support team twice during the first 4 months. During office hours they usually got back to me within 2/3 hours.

    The learning curve was pretty steep for a beginner like myself, but I was determined to take the time and learn how to manage VPS properly.

    On Satuday morning August 27th I noticed that my VPS was down. I couldnīt even access my VPS via SSL2. When I tried to restart my VPS from the the Robot (Hetznerīs web interface), I got an Internal Server Error (500).

    I send an email to Hetzner suport, but unfortunately their support team can only be contacted via email on weekdays during office hours. At 17.00hrs I called Hetznerīs support team in Germany. They do offer support in English. They told me the problem was on their side and that theyīd fix the problem. I should check back in 30mins.

    At Saturday night, 21.00hrs my VPS was still down. I called their support team again, but unfortunately they didnīt pick up the phone within 10mins (I didnīt really want to wait any longer on a Saturday night).

    Itīs now Sunday morning, around noon. My VPS has been down for over 24hrs and I havenīt heard anything from Hetzner. Thatīs why I just cancelled my contract.

    For me the problem was not the downtime itself, itīs the lack of communication. I understand that server issues can occure. I even understand if it takes 24hrs or more in an exceptional case. But at least show that you care and that youīre working on it.
    Last edited by MattV; 08-28-2011 at 05:49 AM. Reason: hetzner, hetzner review, hetzner.de

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Lisbon, Portugal
    Posts
    1,184
    They have a network status website here
    Best Regards / Melhores Cumprimentos,
    Bernardo Andrade
    Need a system Administrator?Contact me at email@bernardoa.pt
    Visit me at www.bernardoa.pt

  3. #3
    Do you have a reference for me?
    Ticket nb or ip adr.

  4. #4
    @Bernardoo: Yes Iīve seen that site, bit itīs only for low priority issues and maintenance notices. High priority issues in theory will be communicated via email.

    @Hetzner_Online: Yes, ticket from Saturday (#2011082702010972) and ticket from this morning after 48hrs downtime (#2011082902004805).

  5. #5
    To complete the story: this morning Hetzner noticed a failure of the RAID system on the physical server. They have been working all day to solve the issue. By Monday night my VPS was back online.

    Iīve received a personal note from Hetzner explaining that "the escalation procedure for server outage did not function well between Support team and Software-Development/Technology in this instance."

    It was an incident - not something that happens regularly - and theyīre investigating what went wrong.

    Murphy's law again.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Posts
    48
    they have one problem only ... no emergency contact on saturday and sunday
    my server shuted down on early morning of saturday and there is no way to contact hetzner and their system (robot) is not reseting the server.
    so my server is off ,, for how long ,, I dont know.??

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    80
    Quote Originally Posted by arabgenius View Post
    they have one problem only ... no emergency contact on saturday and sunday
    my server shuted down on early morning of saturday and there is no way to contact hetzner and their system (robot) is not reseting the server.
    so my server is off ,, for how long ,, I dont know.??
    In the robot panel, request section:

    Server problems
    Phone: DC 15 +49-374-574447130; Monday to Sunday, 24 hours

  8. #8
    Your tickets on hardware related issues in the datacenter should be handled 24/7. If your ticket hasn't solved yet, just give me your ticket nb, and I'll review.

  9. #9
    I hope you find a solution to your issues, after having no previous issues leaving Hetzner may not be needed.

  10. #10
    Hetzner are excellent at swiftly resolving problems from experience and it's nice to see Martin (I think?) is already stepping in to help you out. You're completely right in calling murphy's law here!

    I'm sure you'll be happy with them in the end once they've sorted the problem.

    Best of luck.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    8
    im costumer of hetzner like 10 days and noone want to help me to fix the nameservers.i think thay have firewall that blocks that.a linux guru tryed to my server to fix that but he cant do nothing.if i change the nameservers from hetzner i louse the connection.
    Dont go with tham if you want to use own nameservers.
    anyway the servers are not to fast like someone says.

  12. #12

    Do not repeat my mistake, do not subscribe for hetzner service !

    Do not repeat my mistake, do not subscribe for their service !
    I have 2 dedicated servers, and almost each night they have network problem or something else that cruse my servers to be down. Up time for their server is 76.8%. They have worst support i ever seen. For example when your server is not reachable, you must write to support and wait 2 hrs(best case). If you'll call and ask the support team to be a little faster, because this happens each day and your company can't experience this once more, support team answers you - we have task with more priority - scheduled tasks. So, if you are a small business, that can't offer to build an infrastructure from 5-7 machines for fault tolerance DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE !

  13. #13
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    264
    Quote Originally Posted by brodinko View Post
    Do not repeat my mistake, do not subscribe for their service !
    I have 2 dedicated servers, and almost each night they have network problem or something else that cruse my servers to be down. Up time for their server is 76.8%. They have worst support i ever seen. For example when your server is not reachable, you must write to support and wait 2 hrs(best case). If you'll call and ask the support team to be a little faster, because this happens each day and your company can't experience this once more, support team answers you - we have task with more priority - scheduled tasks. So, if you are a small business, that can't offer to build an infrastructure from 5-7 machines for fault tolerance DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE !
    As I wrote in my other reply to your statement (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...98#post8298098) I'm sorry about the issues you're having with your server. If you send me a ticket number of a request you opened I can see if there is anything else we can do to help you.

  14. #14
    Hetzner_Rep

    Just to be clear, now i don't have any problem with servers, i just very very very not satisfied of hetzner dedicated servers stability and support level.
    You can't help me, you can help to those who still have problems, and improve mentioned above points.
    But until that i'll post this post over and over again to explain to new potential customers what hetzner are.
    Last edited by brodinko; 08-22-2012 at 06:45 AM. Reason: added name

  15. #15
    I've been their client for 1 year.

    Positives:
    - Best prices on the web.
    - They are one of the biggest companies and in terms of server technical issues they reply within 1-3 hours which is overall good.

    Negatives:
    - Their hard drives are a total fail! During 1 year I swapped hard drive twice. Fortunately they didn't charge me for this. When I asked swap for a drive which didn't have bad sectors but had millions of re-allocated sectors they rejected to swap the drive. Obviously they use cheap hardware.
    - CPU performance was by far one of the worst I've ever seen. My server was slow as a turtle while when I removed to Stagnom it takes 2" to start loading and then loads like lightning fast! (and I have Joomla with Jomsocial and phpbb so...)
    - Their abuse team will constantly spam you for sending abuse and within 24 hours they block your server (strict german police rules!) Their department works 07:00-21:00 GMT+1 Monday to Friday so if they block your IP at night or even worse Friday night then you are out for days!


    If you find any company with 15-25 euros difference just go with them. Hetzner is good only for those seeking the smallest budget dedicated server. They "drag" those customers like a 2m Striker drags defenders in soccer, so that all other companies wake up and drop their prices. So considering this it's good that they exist.

    End of story.

  16. #16

    Thumbs down Another Hetzner review (Glad this is not a production server)

    After having Hetzner for a couple of months and having a couple of dedicated servers, we had our first hiccup that has put a red flag in the way we structured our IT. Just thought I would share this in the forum.

    We got hooked up on Hetzner on their low prices and it was amazing until few days ago when one of the servers just went offline. We got an email saying that the server was trying to "spam another server in the datacenter".

    We are an engineering company and not doing anything that in our opinion tries to attack other servers in the datacenter. However, without notice the server was taken offline. We went through Hetzner's checklist and as we expected, there was nothing inside the server that could have caused it.

    Hetzner's response now is to re-install the OS. This solution would be acceptable if we did discover some faults in the OS. But without finding the root cause, we know this will happen again. And server going offline for days is not something that we can afford.

    Anyone else had their server taken offline for "spamming another server"? and not finding anything in analysis?

    This is scary. Glad this is not a production server.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Posts
    111
    hetzner is good but they need to provide ddos protection like ovh do, if they provide protection they will earn huge share of hosting market.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Markham, Canada
    Posts
    458
    Quote Originally Posted by asheetal View Post
    After having Hetzner for a couple of months and having a couple of dedicated servers, we had our first hiccup that has put a red flag in the way we structured our IT. Just thought I would share this in the forum.

    We got hooked up on Hetzner on their low prices and it was amazing until few days ago when one of the servers just went offline. We got an email saying that the server was trying to "spam another server in the datacenter".

    We are an engineering company and not doing anything that in our opinion tries to attack other servers in the datacenter. However, without notice the server was taken offline. We went through Hetzner's checklist and as we expected, there was nothing inside the server that could have caused it.

    Hetzner's response now is to re-install the OS. This solution would be acceptable if we did discover some faults in the OS. But without finding the root cause, we know this will happen again. And server going offline for days is not something that we can afford.

    Anyone else had their server taken offline for "spamming another server"? and not finding anything in analysis?

    This is scary. Glad this is not a production server.

    Sounds like your server was hacked. This happens rather often... Usual causes: weak SSH root password, old/vulnerable software installed, compromized e-mail account, etc. The only reliable way to "unhack" the server is to reinstall the OS, so they are right.
    Dan
    Check out our premium self-managed SSD VPS

  19. #19

    * More interaction with Hetzner (more problems)

    Thanks to the forum. I decided to reinstall the OS to secure the server. Now the Hetzner customer service wants me to send them a signed fax stating what I have done. Without a signed affidavit, they won't release the server.

    In the world of cloud computing and paperless interactions, I think I am going back in time. We do not use printers/fax/paper in our office. How on earth can I take a printout of their form and send them a signed affidavit?

    Drive to Kinkos with a USB drive? or time to just move out of Hetzner?

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Location
    Internet
    Posts
    2,985
    Quote Originally Posted by asheetal View Post
    Thanks to the forum. I decided to reinstall the OS to secure the server. Now the Hetzner customer service wants me to send them a signed fax stating what I have done. Without a signed affidavit, they won't release the server.

    In the world of cloud computing and paperless interactions, I think I am going back in time. We do not use printers/fax/paper in our office. How on earth can I take a printout of their form and send them a signed affidavit?
    Print it out somewhere that has a printer, sign it, take a photo of it and attach it to an email?

  21. #21

    printouts

    Instead of finding a printer or buying a printer, I just closed the account. I guess it was just me who had a bad experience with Hetzner. As a startup company we have zero patience for bureaucracy and paperwork.

    Thanks for all your help and advice.

  22. #22
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Markham, Canada
    Posts
    458
    I too do not get their paper thing, it was one of the reasons we moved away from them...
    Dan
    Check out our premium self-managed SSD VPS

  23. #23

    A very bad review of Hetzner

    I was using Hetzner Web hosting for about 2 years. During that time i didn't notice any troubles with software or automated server controls. As for their support, they usually responded to my question on the following day, regardless at what time of the day the question was asked, and their support doesnt work on weekdays. After 2 years i decided to move to VPS. Bought it and installed all required software without a glitch. Then came time to move domains. To my surprise they denied me to cancel my Web Hosting account and transfer domains until i pay for the third year of web hosting, its important to note that a few month have passed since my last payment wear off, and my web hosting was blocked, and then canceled. Even tru i was ready to pay for a few month of unused hosting, they still insisted on full payment for a year that was to come. In the end i decided to move on from them. As for the VPS, once this problem arose i decided not to pay for it, hoping that it will autocancel. It did stop working around a week after missed payment, but invoices kept comming, so i entered their website and canceled from there my account. And guess what, now they are sending me letters with following context and demand money for 2 month even thru services were stoped after around a week of missed payment:


    "We hereby inform you that for reasons of non-payment our complete contractual relation-
    ship with you has been terminated. As announced we are transferring all outstanding debit

    to our debt collection agency.

    You have one last opportunity to settle all outstanding debt using the bank details in the

    footnote below."

    The question is how can i get into debts with prepaid service???

  24. #24

    Hetzner: like communicating with a ROBOT

    Hetzner: like communicating with a ROBOT

    After a few days with the cheapest VPS with Plesk (CX10), I wanted to upgrade. In the robot I clicked vServer, Shutdown. Message: Success. I clicked vServer, update to CX20. Message: Success. I clicked vServer, Start. Message: Success.

    FTP and Plesk: I had access, but no Webserver was running. I emailed several times with someone, maybe a robot, because the mails told me several times: We do NOT support your kind of account. The problem is on YOUR side, YOUR responsibility. I wrote, that I just clicked 3 times on THEIR software, but still the reply was: YOUR responsibility.

    I have cancelled my account with Hetzner and look for another VPS hosting.

  25. #25
    Join Date
    Jan 2016
    Location
    Chicago, IL
    Posts
    226
    Quote Originally Posted by *********_com View Post
    Dont go with tham if you want to use own nameservers.
    There is no issue with using your own nameservers when hosting with Hetzner. You can choose whichever nameservers you like at any time.

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