VODIEN web hosting review from a real customer

Yes the photo above is dramatic, but that's exactly how I felt.

I've been a Vodien customer since 2012. This is not a review I want to write because my time can be spent doing other things, but this is a review I must write for current and potential Vodien customers.

This is the story of how my experience with Vodien went from positive to negative.

Let's start from the beginning...

2012

I switched from Bluehost's shared web hosting to Vodien VPS in 2012 as my blog was slowing down due to increase in readership.

As I did my research on Vodien online, I found out that I had actually wrote them a review on Google Maps, which I shall repeat below because I'll have to update that obviously.

I've been with Vodien for a few years now and have been very satisfied with their service. They are very responsive with their 24/7 email and helpline. Their staff are very knowledgeable, and with all the problems I had, they managed to get my website back up each time!

As for their pricing, I feel that they are quite competitive even when compared to international companies, and for the level of service they provide it's definitely value for money. I can easily recommend them to my friends.

In the early years, my blog had several DDoS attacks and Vodien was able to fix that in a day or two. I also remembered their help in upgrading my CMS (content management system). There was once I messed up my database and they were able to restore it from a backup.

So yeah, my experience with them in the early years was good.

2017

Founder Alvin Poh sold Vodien to Dreamscape Networks, an Australian company known for domain name registry, Crazy Domains.

If you're interested, you can watch this interview with Alvin Poh regarding how he started Vodien and the eventual sale.

2024

Over the years, web hosting with Vodien was relatively non-eventful. There were occasional minor issues, e.g. DDoS attacks, but those were resolved quickly.

This year, my experience went south.

It all started with a phone call from their sales agent asking me to upgrade my server which is running an OS that's going to be outdated soon, and would no longer be receiving security updates.

The new server recommended to me was a few times more expensive than my old server, while offering no substantial upgrades to web hosting performance. The main difference to me was the new server is running a new OS.

I asked the sales agent why she would recommend me such an expensive server that I won't be making full use of and I can't remember her answer but it's something that does not make any sense because after all my blog won't be making use of the expensive server.

I told the sales agent to look at how much resources I was using and she would know that I don't need such an expensive server.

Throughout the sales call, the sales agent just said "I understand" for each rebuttal I had. Clearly she had no idea what the word "understand" means.

I took several weeks to decide whether to upgrade.

Meanwhile, my blog had some issues and had difficulty loading pages. I contacted Vodien and they sent me a report that basically said my server was using too much resources, and wanted me to upgrade.

Look, I know my blog is running slow. I don't need you to send me a report to tell me the same thing that my blog is running slow. Fix my problem.

I know for a fact that my blog is no longer serving as many readers as before, so for the blog to load so slow is out of the ordinary and not due to lack of resources. These guys at Vodien just want me to upgrade to the more expensive plan as the older cheaper plans were phased out.

Anyway, it's about time I update the old version of my CMS so I went with the upgrade eventually. I was told the migration would be at the end of the month.

After I paid for the new server, end of the month past, and then one more month past and server migration had not happened. I was still paying for my old server, and paid one month of for the new server and didn't do anything with it.

Eventually migration happened.

And they messed up my migration, big time.

I was able to sign in, but I could not access my admin pages to write or upload pictures. To and fro with their customer service took around one month, which means I wasn't able to work on my blog for one month. Work was piling up.

Eventually, it was my web developer from Innomedia Technologies that help me fixed all the problems. Without my web developer's help, I would have let my Vodien contract run out and shut down the blog that I had spent 15 years writing on. This was how frustrated I was with Vodien.

My experiences are not unique. There are many reviews on Google Maps with similar experiences.

People said Vodien staff kept recommending server upgrades. Calls were cut off after a certain time (it's actually easier to get service through chat than through call). Messed up migration. You have to read more reviews yourself to get a clearly understanding what company you're dealing with.

I've also seen many people say that Vodien customer service used to be good. It was good, but unfortunately now it's not. The company needs to improve because web hosting is an extremely competitive business. You can't compete with specifications and price because all that's listed and people can compare easily. So if you're customer service sucks, then how are you going to compete? How well can the company attract new customers when negative reviews pile up?

Since my recent negative experience with them, I've started saving money to switch to a new web hosting company in the future once my contract with Vodien expires. It's highly unlikely that I will remain with the company. And of course this is not a company I would recommend you go with for web hosting services.

Video review

This video review covers the same content that I've written.