Every now and then, we come across a new hosting service that is worth telling our readers about. Just like the internet, web hosting services are around the world as well.
This means that building and putting your website online does not have to be in a server far away. It can be right there on your domestic turf with the best bandwidth and economically feasible.
Today we have a hosting that comes from Spain. We have a feeling that Vigunu isn’t very well-known even there. So if you’re from Spain and looking for a web hosting service, this review is for you.
As for everyone else, why should you be interested in buying hosting from Spain or from any other foreign country?
A few reasons:
- Better pricing
- Relaxed rules, policies and government jurisdiction
- Better quality of visitors
- Fewer bandwidth delays
So now that we know why its good for Spain and why it could be good for you, let’s take a broader look at what Vigunu has to offer.
Pricing and Features
From the website, there are 3 main types of hosting available: Shared, Dedicated & VPS.
For now, we’ll be looking at Shared Hosting due to its popularity among small to medium size business enterprises.
There are 3 plans available and the euro currency converts to more or less the same as dollars with probably a few cents over. A probable turn off here could be that they’re all annual plans.
The essential plan offers what you’d expect from a basic plan. You get an odd 16 GB storage, 50 GB traffic limit, and unlimited databases & emails at the price of €2/month or about $2.26/month which is fine as long as starter plans go.
Next, the professional plan is a step up from essential. It comes with 25 GB storage, 200 GB traffic limit, and everything else is the same. Even though the storage is more, it does not feel like value for €6 or $6.78/month.
Lastly, the business plan gives the most value with 40 GB storage & 400 GB traffic for €14.00 or $15.82/month.
Now, as a lukewarm defense, it can be said that storage is very subjective and entirely depends on what you really want. But again, as your site may grow, you will require more space. So Vigunu might lose some points here.
Ease of Use
What is ease of use? It is a certain amount of comfort a user feels while using a service. It also includes past experience & knowledge that lends intuition.
In the case of Vigunu, the registration process should lend some insight into its ease of use.
Right after selecting a plan, you’ll be directed to the page above. This page displays some service features and space for you to input your domain which will initiate your website.
After inputting a domain name, you can move on to the next page.
Unfortunately, Google Translate won’t work after this. So to confirm everything in the plan you might have to figure everything out Spanish. But it’s not much work, really.
After confirming the quantity, Google Translate started working again and we were onto the final registration page. This is where you input your basic personal info, address, and payment details.
So in summary, other than the slight lingual barrier, the process was simple. There are 3 stages to go through which have you confirming what service you prefer, quantity, and final payment.
Security
If your website is your business, your only source of income & living, you’d obviously want it to have airtight security. Random websites get attacked, hacked and phished every day. Hence, everyone needs security.
According to Wikipedia, the Spanish government for the most part has been lenient in their internet policies with obvious jurisdiction where anything illegal is elicited.
With that said, there are 2 main pillars of Vigunu’s security:
Identity Shield
- If you don’t know, WhoIs can look up if a domain is available for sale and if it isn’t available then it’ll tell you who it belongs to. Plus, it also displays other details like the registrar’s domain, domain status, Registrar IANA ID, etc.
- Vigunu claims that many people have been using WhoIs to gain crucial data like that to breach a site’s security. But this is where Identity Shield comes in.
- Identity Shield completely randomized these details to complete anonymity. Hence ‘shielding’ to you from potential onlookers & identity thefts. It costs €2 for the year.
SSL Certificates
- SSL or Secure Socket Layer is a safe connection between your website & the user who accesses it. You would know a site is safe when you’d see a lock symbol on the URL bar or the https part appearing green.
- When you don’t see these signs, it means that the connection is unsafe and could be used against you with some dark code magic. Vigunu has 4 SSL plans: Positive SSL, Rapid SSL, PositiveSSL Wildcard, and PositiveSSL EV.
Customer Support
No matter how good you can handle things by yourself, everyone at some point requires help. Plus Web Hosting is one of those subjects that usually come with complications.
Hence, Customer Support is where everything is resolved.
There are usually 2 ways you get a query resolved, either through Live Chat support or the Knowledge Base. Vigunu doesn’t have Live Chat support. They only have a ticketing system.
We’ll check out the Knowledge Base first.
From the look of the website, we expected the Knowledge Base to be very simple as well but it was filled with important articles. They were labeled among different categories and even sorted with popular & recent.
Clicking on a random article brought us to the solution. The article was to the point and even had details like date written, views, and rating. Not bad at all as far as small web hosting companies go.
Next, let’s check out the ticketing system.
The ticketing solution isn’t widely popular but it is the way with Vigunu. The page looks as simple as possible but it’s worth a shot to see if it actually works. We’ll post a question about their server integrity and wait a while for a response.
Well, we waited for a whole hour and there came no response. It’s not that big of a surprise, some small hosting companies do falter when it comes to a quick resolution.
Conclusion
So what is our final verdict? Is Vigunu worth the money? Is it worth recommending to anyone looking forward to setting up shop in Spain?
Probably Yes and No.
Is it overpriced? No. Is the setup or usage going to be difficult? No. Is the security tight? Somewhat. Is customer service horrible? We’d like to say sort of.
Cheap pricing, easy setup, and ok security can’t be your only deciding factor. For the price, there are certainly better options. If you don’t know where to look you can check out these.
That’s it for this review.
Let us know your thoughts on the review or if you happened to have used the service yourself and have a different take on Vigunu.
