Draxhost business operations are located in Senćanski, Serbia and specializes in web hosting, web development and domain services. Founded in 2010, Draxhost offers value-priced services combined with support in the Serbian, Hungarian, and English languages. Draxhost’s value proposition is centered on getting to know the customer’s line of business in order to provide the best possible online environment for them to present their organization to others.
Uptime & Reliability
Only a 99% uptime guarantee
A 99% uptime promise is made on several of the pages, but this may be a result of the translation service as the remaining 1% equals 87.6 hours of downtime annually and is often unacceptable for businesses who rely on web traffic to drive their sales and marketing. Again, confirmation would be the recommended practice to determine SLA’s (service level agreements) prior to migration.
While business operations are in Serbia, Draxhost states that their infrastructure is located in multiple data centers in Germany with the usual security measures such as biometrics, fire protection, motion sensors, etc. in place. Their site also states that their servers are connected by a 100 Mbps link to six different backbone providers. Again, it could very well be in translation that Gigabit networking isn’t connecting servers together or to the backbone.
Features
All the features you’d expect
As with most hosting companies, Draxhost offers multiple levels of web-hosting packages that include authoring tools with different packages to fit just about any customer—from the hobbyist or blogger to medium-sized companies.
For customers moving their existing accounts, Draxhost offers complimentary transfer of files, email, and database scripts to make the onboarding process as easy as possible. Included features and applications include MySQL, Google analytic integration, Softaculous installation scripts, and the popular Cpanel control panel, FTP accounts. R1Soft backups and restoration are included on all except the starter package
Perl, Python and Ruby are supported, as are Microsoft Frontpage extensions. Email accounts are unlimited except for the starter package which allows two email accounts.
All services include 99% uptime and a thirty day money-back guarantee. Web development is also offered, but no specifics, including prices are listed.
Support
Insufficient tech support
Support is offered by email and phone, with a listed response time not guaranteed but listed as “usually under 60 minutes” but hours are 08:00 to 20:00 weekdays and 10:00 to 16:00 on Saturdays; no Sunday coverage is listed.
Pricing
Some oddities regarding the pricing
The base-price web-hosting package, which is geared towards the individual or small storefront-size business, is offered at.1,000RSD (Serbian dinar) which currently equals $9.31USD. I am a little concerned, however, as the page is authored in Serbian and translated by Google into English, so the “annual” price may be actually the monthly price, something potential customers would want to confirm before transitioning to Draxhost.
There were two lists of hosting services listed, one on the front page and one off the “web hosting” tab. The prices match up, but the allotments differ slightly; I used the hosting tab as it contains a full list of specific allowances and features. This service includes 500 MB of disk space, 20 GB of data transfer monthly and includes one MySQL database and one FTP account. As expected, prices increase accordingly with the amount of disk space, data transfer and other needs that may be required, with the “Business” package listed at 5900RSD ($54.93USD) which includes 10 GB of disk space and 400 GB of data transfer.
Domain name services are offered for about 20 different domains, with charges ranging from 800RSD ($7.45USD) for .EU, 1100RSD for the most common domains of .com, .net, and .org. The .tv domain is the most expensive at 3650($33.98USD). The price is the same regardless of which work is performed–registration, transfer or restoration.
The Serbian 20% Value-Added Tax (VAT) is applied to all services from Draxhost. As a note, the VAT across most European countries ranges between 15-25%.
Summary
Not a bad option for most types of sites
Draxhost seems to offer generous allowances of data services for reasonable prices that are combined with current authoring tools to make web sites easy to create and manage.
Pros:
- Reasonable prices (with some inconsistency)
- Lots of management tools included
Cons:
- Only a 99% uptime guarantee
- Limited technical support