cloudways vs fastcomet

Cloudways vs Fastcomet – Why I Switched + Speed Tests (2022)

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My Amazing Journey With Fastcomet

After using Fastcomet’s Cloud VPS for 1 year, I made the tough decision to migrate to Cloudways. I actually felt terrible about leaving them, I’ll get into why in a moment, but first a little backstory on my 3 year journey with Fastcomet.

On April 30, 2019 I migrated from Siteground to Fastcomet. I realized speed was playing a more important role in SEO and Siteground just wasn’t cutting it anymore. They had an excellent reputation but it seems they’ve been going downhill now for a while.

Some of my comparison review posts are north of 10,000 words and include numerous images and videos. These posts were particularly slow and required more optimized and powerful servers.

Thus, after some extensive research I decided to go with Fastcomet. I’m so happy I did.

Why I Switched From Fastcomet to Cloudways

It all started when I was trying to access my website and kept running into this:

cloudways vs fastcomet

I had recently switched off my Premium DNS at Namecheap out of curiosity to see if it had any impact of my site speed. (it didn’t by the way)

I thought maybe it was just taking longer than normal to re-propagate my DNS. It says it can take up to 48 hours to do so, although it’s only taken 1-2 hours in all my experiences.

Despite that, I waited 36 hours before I lost my patience as I’m losing $150-$200/day when my website is down.

This is when I reached out to Fastcomet support to see if they could give me any insight.

Here’s our dialogue:
(I copy and pasted it to make it easier for you to read)

I switched my nameservers from Namecheaps Premium DNS back to my Fastcomet DNS and now my website robkish.life can’t connect to DNS. I made the switch yesterday and still won’t connect

Error message is “DNS address could not be found”

URL: robkish.life

Rob

Hello Rob.

Thank you for reaching out to the FastComet Tech Support Team.

Upon my investigation I’ve found that your is currently inaccessible. Please allow us some time to review your matter at hand and provide you with a possible solution. We highly appreciate your patience. In the meantime if anything else occurs, you may feel free to reply back to the ticket with any new concerns you have regarding this.

Best Regards,
Dimithur P.

Hello, Thank you for your patience up to now!

I would first like to apologize for the inconveniences that you are experiencing. And would like to reassure you that the issue has been resolved by now.

To provide you with more information on the matter, I would like to mention that there was a connectivity issue with the default nameservers which are configured on your private server. This has caused the server to be unable to resolve with the proper DNS and subsequently, the IP address assigned to the nameservers and in turn led to the issue experienced.

We have confirmed the same with our Registrar that this has already been resolved, however, a connectivity issue with the DNS can cause a short propagation period during which your sites and server might still be inaccessible and unable to resolve.

If you would like to learn more about DNS propagation, please refer to the following link: > https://www.fastcomet.com/tutorials/getting-started/dns-propagation

Considering the above, once the propagation period passes, all of your services and web projects on the server will again be fully accessible and you will be able to access them without any issue.

A tool such as the following can help with checking in which geographic region the propagation has already passed: > https://dnschecker.org/

For example, as seen in the following URL: > https://dnschecker.org/#A/node6024.myfcloud.com

We will be constantly monitoring the propagation on our end as well. And will update you once it has passed. Thank you for your patience and understanding in the meantime.

Best Regards,
Atanas B.

Hello, Thank you for your patience so far.

This is an update to let you know that some of your services may be accessible from your end once again, make sure to also clear your local DNS and browser’s history caches, in case they have saved the old information.

We have great guides on the subject here:

> https://www.fastcomet.com/tutorials/getting-started/clear-browser-cache <– Browser cache

> https://www.fastcomet.com/tutorials/getting-started/clear-dns-cache <– DNS cache

I have checked and some changes appear to be visible on the DNS checker tool now indicating that a lot of locations worldwide should now be able to reach your services as well.

As this is a propagation matter, please allow it more time to conclude. We will update you on this ticket further. Your patience is greatly appreciated during this. We are here to support you 24/7

Kind Regards,

Nick
Technical Support Team

Thank you for your patience.

I would like to start off by saying that we deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused and thank you for your understanding. Having said this, I also want to shed some more light on the situation and what caused this issue in the first place.

As explained by my colleague, there was an issue with the configuration of the default nameservers used for your private server. This issue occurred at the registrar level and while it only lasted 3 minutes, it triggered a propagation period during which the incorrect configuration could still have been in use for some users, internet service providers, or networks.

Propagation periods can last from a few hours for up to 72 hours because DNS information is cached on many levels like in local cache on a computer, DNS cache stored by an internet service provider, routing services, and others. This means that some users have not been affected by this issue at all, while it lasted for minutes or even hours for others.

Unfortunately, this depends entirely on factors outside of our control, the most important of which is the previously mentioned DNS cached and the way and duration different networks store it.

You can find more information about DNS propagation in the following article: • https://www.fastcomet.com/tutorials/getting-started/dns-propagation

We have been closely monitoring the situation in order to ensure that no new issues will occur and at this point, we can safely consider the issue as completely addressed and no further issues are expected in the future. Meaning that all services should now be fully operational world wide, so we will kindly ask you to check things from your end once again and if you are still experiencing issues, simply update us here.

Please do not hesitate to contact us in case you need any further assistance

Best Regards,

Ivan Penishev
Senior Support Team

HI there

The issue was resolved as of yesterday but my server is down again today.

This is getting a little frustrating as my businesses loses $100 per 12 hours it’s down.

I’ve been with you guys for a few years now and haven’t contemplated once switching hosting…until now.

Can you please make sure once it’s fixed that it’s a permanent one and not temporary?

Thanks in advance

Rob

Hello, I would like to provide you with a short update.

First and foremost I would like to apologize for the inconveniences that you are experiencing and let you know that we fully understand the impact this issue has on you and your projects.

The DNS issue in question affects the default nameservers used for your private hosting solution. This issue has occurred at the registrar level(it did not occur due to actions on your end nor on ours), which is why we have contacted our Registrar and already escalated the case to their Senior Department, so the same can be reviewed and resolved with the highest urgency possible.

While the DNS issue persists, we can suggest a workaround that will make your website/s accessible, for this purpose, you can route your domain/s via Cloudflare.

If you do not have an account at Cloudflare yet, you can register via the page below: > https://dash.cloudflare.com/sign-up

Here is a link to the Cloudflare’s guide on how to add a Site to Cloudflare: > https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/get-started/setup/add-site/

If you need assistance with the task, please do not hesitate to contact us back with the login details to your Cloudflare account and the domain/s you wish to add there.

As soon as there is more information about the DNS issue, we will share them with you over this ticket. Your patience and understanding are highly appreciated.

Best Regards,

Ivan Penishev
Senior Support Team

Thanks for update Ivan

I connected to Cloudlfare, however, Cloudflare won’t pickup my DNS records like it normally would. This is likely because it can’t access my DNS. I can’t get into my Cpanel to manually add the records.

Do you have any way of getting my DNS records for me?

Rob

Hello from me as well!

I will be happy to help you.

Here is a screenshot of a different DNS Zone, which has the necessary A and CNAME records: >> https://www.screencast.com/t/XwXSG2aGNLb

The Name of all A and CNAME records is the name of your domain. And the Value/Content of both CNAME records is the name of your domain.

For example:

Type: A
Name: robkish.life
Value: 66.175.213.171

Or

Type: A
Name: ftp.robkish.life
Value: 66.175.213.171

Or

Type: CNAME
Name: www.robkish.life
Value: robkish.life

The Value/Content of all A records is your server’s IP: 66.175.213.171

I hope this explanation helps. Please keep in mind that any changes made to the Nameservers or the DNS zone will result in DNS propagation. The propagation usually lasts up to a few hours, however, in some cases it can last up to 24-72 hours. This is a process done by your ISP so we have no control over it and can not speed it up.

For more information on DNS propagation please read our tutorial: >> https://www.fastcomet.com/tutorials/getting-started/dns-propagation

Let me know if you need further assistance. We are here to support you 24/7

Kind Regards,

Konstantin K.
Technical Support

Hello,

Thank you for your patience up to now!

I would like to again deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused and thank you for your cooperation.

As we already discussed previously, there was a connectivity issue towards the default nameservers used for your private hosting server on the registrar level. The Senior Department team of our registrar informed us that by now it should be fully resolved.

With that in mind, you should now be able to access your websites as well as your WHM and cPanel and your mail service should also be fully functional. In case you still experience any difficulties please do let us know what they are exactly so that we can review them further.

However, we are still closely monitoring the situation to ensure that everything is working as expected as well as our team is constantly in touch with the registrar. We will keep the ticket active for the time being and update you once again here.

In the meantime, we remain 24/7 at your disposal!

Best Regards,
Atanas B.

DNS is down again

Since you said it was working again, I decided to change my nameservers back to Fastcomet. I had them connected to Cloudflare prior to that as a workaround.

The only reason it appears my site was working was because it was connect to Cloudflare.

Rob

Hello,

We fully understand how hard and frustrating downtime can be and sincerely apologize for the caused inconveniences by the ongoing DNS connectivity issue.

I would like to clarify that despite the DNS issue, all services – cPanel, WHM, FTP, SSH, etc are working, the impact is only on the server’s hostname/nameservers and affects domains that use the default nameservers of your hosting solution.

While the DNS issue persists, you can access the cPanel/WHM login pages via the server’s IP Address, for your convenience, we apply links to both:

cPanel: > http://66.175.213.171:2082/

WHM: > http://66.175.213.171:2086/

We will keep your ticket active in our system, as soon as there is an update on the DNS issue, you will be notified here. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated! Let me know if you need further assistance.

We are here to support you 24/7

Kind Regards,

Martin R.
Tech Support

Hello,

Thank you for reaching back to us!

First and foremost we would like to express our deep apology for the inconvenience this whole situation caused.

Our management team is in constant touch with the Senior Department of the Registrar and as we speak, they informed us that the connectivity issue towards the default nameservers used for your private solution has been greatly improved.

That being said, you should now be able to access your websites as usually. Along with that, the WHM, cPanel and your mail services should also be functional. However, if you still experience any difficulties, we kindly ask you to reach us back here, so we can review it.

We will keep the ticket active in our system as previously mentioned, as we continue to monitor the situation along with the Senior Department of the Registrar.

In the meantime, we remain 24/7 at your disposal!

Best Regards,
Atanas B.

Thank you for your patience.

First and foremost I would like to apologize for the inconvenience this issue has caused.

I am updating you to share some more details about this issue. We have been monitoring your server I want to inform you that the services along with all of your websites are up and running and accessible world-wide for some time now.

We will continue closely monitoring the service from our end to ensure that it will remain stable and will keep you updated on the matter. We are still in discussion with our registrar about prevention of such issues and we are working ensuring that situations like this one will not occur again.

I will leave this ticket active and we will update you with more details once such are available.

Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

Best Regards,

Ivan Penishev
Senior Support Team

Thanks for the update and your continued work to get this rectified.

My renewal is coming up at the end of July and as of right now I’m looking to move my services elsewhere. I lost $100’s of dollars thus far and want stability moving forward.

If you can somehow provided assurance (with proof) that this has been permanently resolved, it would go a long way in keeping me as a customer. I’d like to stay as I’ve been happy with your hosting and support up until this issue.

Rob

Hello Rob,

Thank you for your reply.

We completely understand your point of view here.

As our colleague mentioned, the issue occurred at the Registrar-level, our team is still in contact with the Registrar support team with the purpose of ensuring that such incidents can be prevented in the future.

We continue to keep this ticket active as to inform you here as soon as more details are available. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,

Nikola G.
Technical Support Team

Who is your registrar?

Rob

Hello,

Thank you for the update.

The domain registrar in question is PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com.

Our technical support team remains 24/7 at your service.

Best Regards,

Nikola G.
Technical Support Team

Hello,

Thank you for your patience.

First, we would like to once again apologize for any inconvenience caused by the DNS issue, as we do value highly all of our customers and their projects.

As we informed you earlier, the issue had been resolved 3 days ago. Since then, we have been closely working with our Upstream provider to ensure that the issue will not repeat, and, after a lengthy discussion between our management and their senior staff and a thorough review of the case, we were assured that the issue has been fixed for good.

We have been monitoring the service ever since the last outage and we have not detected any DNS configuration issues. This is why at this point we consider the issue to be permanently resolved. The DNS propagation caused by this issue is complete and all of your websites and service should be accessible and fully functional.

In case you notice any ongoing issues with your websites, please submit a new ticket, so we can investigate them.

Once again you have our sincerest apologies in regard to this matter and we thank you for your cooperation and understanding. If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best Regards,

Nickola Anastassov
Senior Support Team

I have to give kudos to Fastcomet‘s support team. They were prompt, professional and outright amazing.

I looked up their registrar

This is what broken the camels back for me.

I decided to do some digging on the registrar they told me they use. My confidence wasn’t renewed with what I found.

This is the moment I decided I will no longer stay with Fastcomet.

The little feedback on them I could find wasn’t appealing.

Their website lacked a professional touch and appeared a little cookie cutter in my opinion. It didn’t scream professionalism by any means.

They didn’t appear to put maximum effort into their web presence and therefore I couldn’t help but question the effort that goes into their business.

It was a sad moment as I loved my experience with them and their support team.

Why I Chose Cloudways Over Other Web Hosts

Cloudways vs Fastcomet – Speed Comparison

Google Pagespeed – Test 1

Fastcomet

fastcomet google

Cloudways

cloudways google 1

Google Pagespeed – Test 2

Fastcomet

fastcomet google 2

Cloudways

cloudways google 2

Gtmetrix – Test 1

Fastcomet

fastcomet gtmetrix 1

Cloudways

cloudways gtmetrix 1

Gtmetrix – Test 2

Fastcomet

fastcomet gtmetrix 2 1

Cloudways

cloudways gtmetrix 2

Pingdom – Test 1

Fastcomet

fastcomet pingdom

Cloudways

cloudways pingdom

Pingdom – Test 2

Fastcomet

fastcomet pingdom 2

Cloudways

cloudways pingdom 2
Test WebsiteFastcometCloudways
Google Pagespeed LCP – Test 11.7s2.3s
Google Pagespeed LCP – Test 22.1s2.3s
Gtmetrix – Test 1655ms490ms
Gtmetrix – Test 2482ms483ms
Pingdom – Test 1740ms655ms
Pingdom – Test 2640ms537ms

Winner – Fastcomet? Not So Fast

One major issue I kept getting with Fastcomet that I’ve yet to encounter with Cloudways is a slow server response time.

fastcomet vs cloudways 1

I kept getting flagged with errors in my Google console for poor page experience and poor core web vitals.

fastcomet vs cloudways 1 1
fastcomet vs cloudways 2

Why? Because this inconsistency in server response time was affecting my LCP (largest contentful paint) time and this affected the user experience.

My search rankings would then take a dive and then take me 1-2 months to recover, ultimately decreasing my revenue.

The question you’re probably now wondering is: Would I trade server response time consistency for a slightly slower load time? YES! So long as the load time is still within Google’s parameters

Winner = Cloudways

Cloudways vs Fastcomet – Security

Fastcomet Security Features

fastcomet vs cloudways 3

Cloudways Security Features

cloudways security

What Are The Differences?

Bot and DoS Protection

While they both offer brute force protection, Cloudways also offers DoS protection and blocks malicious bots.

cloudways bot protection

The first thing I noticed once switching to Cloudways is that I have yet to received any spam comments! Yay!

Thus, proving their Bot Protection is effective at also blocking spam comments with the use of bots.

Cloudways vs Fastcomet – Ease of Use

If you’re already using, or looking to use a Cloud VPS to host your website, chances are this isn’t your first rodeo.

It’s almost guaranteed you’re familiar with Cpanel. And Cpanel is the major difference between the two.

Fastcomet uses Cpanel whereas Cloudways does not.

I find Cpanel quite outdated and in serious need of TLC.

I’d been using Cpanel for over 10 years prior to switching to Cloudways so it was a bit of a learning curve to familiarize myself with Cloudways backend.

Which backend do I prefer?

My long-term bias wants to say Cpanel, but after fiddling around with Cloudways backend more and more I find it much more modern and user friendly.

You’ve seen the Application backend on Cloudways up above so here’s what their server backend looks like:

cloudways server

Cloudways vs Fastcomet – Support

Coming soon