It’s pretty hard to find an anonymous offshore hosting company which ticks all the boxes. Today we’re back with yet another company which ticks some of the boxes if not all, and that’s what we will talk about in this RackNation review.
When we say “all the boxes”, we mean every single aspect that a seeker of an anonymous offshore hosting company may hunt for. Primarily-
- Anonymity
- Offshore Servers
- Diverse Payment Methods
- Liberal Content Policy
- Fast Servers
- Support
In a nutshell, we’re looking for an anonymous platform, which has servers in less-conservative areas on the planet, offers less restrictions on the content, and at the same time performs well.
Is RackNation that company? That’s what we’ll weigh throughout this RackNation review.
RackNation Hosting Quick Overview
This list here is an overview of everything that the company brings with itself:
- Primary URL: https://www.RackNation.cr/
- Servers in: Costa Rica.
- Payment methods: BTC/ETH/DASH + Fiats
- Cheapest Plan: $7.50/month.
- Servers: Shared, VPS, Dedicated.
- DMCA Ignored: No.
- Content not allowed: Check AUP Section.
Is RackNation Anonymous?
The first aspect we check with an offshore anonymous hosting company is its Anonymity-level.
Unfortunately, RackNation isn’t big on anonymity. For starters, all the data provided during registration (Name/Address etc). has to be true. If not so, the account may be temporarily or permanently blocked.
This means even though no documents are asked for, and even though the data can be faked (not recommended); users will run a risk of getting their accounts blocked. So officially, no it’s not anonymous.
Although the accepted payment methods include both Cryptocurrency and Fiats, hence Crypto users may be able to opt for anonymous, trail-less payments.
If you need more anonymous options, we can refer you to our CyberBunker Review and Webcare360 Review. Those two are the most anonymous offshore hosting companies we’ve encountered so far.
Where are RackNation Servers Located?
The location clearly matters when it’s offshore anonymous hosting companies we’re talking about.
Well, RackNation is based out of Costa Rica. As far as “governing law” goes, the servers and content are subjected to Costa Rica laws and not global.
This we assume as we were told it allows content that may be illegal in other countries but is legal in Costa Rica. (e.g. Atheism in Saudi Arabia).
Although because servers from no other locations are provided, it may be a downer for some whose target audience may not be close to Costa Rica, in which case the performance may be affected.
What are the Payment Methods on RackNation?
The company’s registration policies may not be anonymous, but its payment policies sure are. As mentioned earlier, it supports both types of payments, i.e. Fiat and Cryptocurrencies.
The fiat methods allow for easier, simpler, more traditional and maybe a bit faster transactions as compared to Cryptocurrencies. However, they’re not the least bit anonymous and are pretty traceable.
The fiat modes accepted are:
- Cards (Visa/Mastercard/American Express)
- and PayPal.
Although if you’d rather not let the payment be traced to your personal identities, it allows payments via the following Cryptocurrencies:
- Bitcoin, Dash, and Ethereum
What Content is Not Allowed on Rack Nation? (AUP)
This is without doubt one of the most important aspects of an offshore hosting company? The one reason you’re searching for one such company is because the content you’re trying to host is probably not legal or allowed in your country, isn’t that right?
Well, we went through the AUP attached to the T&C page on the company, and it doesn’t seem to allow the following content:
- Phishing/Hacking of any Kind.
- Illegal Software.
- Port probing.
- Unauthorized Data monitoring.
- Fraud
- Illegal Porn/Nudity etc.
Although note “Adult Themed” websites are allowed, just not Hardcore pornographic sites (such as Xvideos). The theme in general however (maybe about sexual issues or from a medical perspective) seems to be allowed.
Regarding DMCA, nothing regarding the same or “copyrights” was mentioned in the AUP. However we’ve confirmed they do pay attention to DMCA requests and do not allow copyrighted content.
Do RackNation Servers Perform Well?
By “Perform”, we mean to say their speed, server response time and overall performance “under pressure”.
To test all that we’re testing the servers from three different fronts:
- Page Load-Time Test
- Server Response time Test. (SRT)
- SRT under Pressure (Traffic-Hike)
Page Load-Time Test
To test the average page load-time required by Rack Nation, we’d test https://www.RackNation.cr/ and record its performance. But to ensure the company gets a fair evaluation, we’d test it not just from one but many different locations.
The best results were obtained from North America, where the page loaded within 955ms (verify). Germany required 1.58 seconds, Asia 1.6 seconds and South America 2.40 seconds for the page to be loaded.
Australia was a bit disappointing and needed 7.25 seconds. However, we can conclude from this test that regardless of the locations, the speed is more than acceptable for most locations even though the page is pretty large in size (5.6MB).
Although as is well-known, testing just one page isn’t enough to measure a server’s performance. Primarily because this test relies heavily upon every individual website’s content, hence let’s get a more acceptable record of the server’s performance.
Server Response Time (SRT)
The above test was impressive, primarily because the page we tested wasn’t exactly “lightweight”. Generally, a fast load time is achieved with proper optimization of a webpage, and a fast server response time.
The SRT in many ways governs the overall load-time of a page, and the best part is it’s not “website specific” and rather holds true for all the sites on a server. So if a server has good SRT, it will provide the same performance to the other sites on that server.
Let’s see if the Server Response Time from RackNation is actually good, or the above page was just expertly optimized.
The SRT-test yielded impressive results (verify). This proves that the load times obtained regardless of the page’s size weren’t just some miracle, and the servers indeed are fast.
SRT with Spiked-Traffic
I’m personally happy with the results obtained so far, but will the results be the same when there’s a traffic spike on a website? That’s what we test in this RackNation review section.
Here are the test results from a simulation test we ran on the site (verify):
What we did was, we simply sent 25 Virtual Users on the site. And as the above screenshot shows, the average SRT is just 13ms which is pretty impressive, even though the graph is not exactly stable and is a bit hilly.
This proves that even when there’s a surge of traffic on our sites, the server suddenly won’t start lagging or slowing down.
Download-Speed Test
One final test the server speed can be put through in this RackNation review is the “download speed”. This gives us an average idea of the speed provided by the server for content hosted on it.
I got a maximum download speed of 3.2Mbps while downloading the 200MB test file. Note that this is about the fastest download speed I get for my connection for all my downloads.
Which Servers does RackNation Provide, and What are the Pricing Plans?
The company caters to every need, i.e., Shared hosting, VPS Server as well as Dedicated servers.
Shared servers start at $6.99/month while the highest package costs $30.00/month.
VPS plans are completely and 100% customizable according to user needs The cheapest, however seems to cost $28.25.
Dedicated servers start at $99.00/month, and have the highest package available for $325.00/month.
How is RackNation Support?
This is an aspect from the company I’m impressed with. For starters, the company can be reached via Tickets, Physical Addresses, Phones and Live-Chat.
The Live-chat is what I had a personal experience with. It was fast, pretty detailed, and informative. The chat is available 24X7 and is also available to non-registered users.
Wrap Up:
So that’s a wrap for this RackNation review folks. If we have to sum it all up, it’s safe to say the company isn’t for those seeking “anonymity”.
However, if it’s “performance” and a somewhat liberal content policy you seek, it seems like a plausible option.
The pricing seems a bit steep, especially for the shared servers, although the VPS and Dedicated plans are comparatively more rational.
In my personal opinion, the performance was pretty impressive for all the tests we conducted, and the instant support was a nice little cherry on the top.
All in all, we’re ending this RackNation review on a positive note. Do let us know if you agree (or maybe don’t?) with us in the comments?
