KnownSRV is a European host that was established in 2013. Despite being relatively new in the market, they’ve firmly established a reputation as a solid offshore hosting provider with excellent customer service. They offer shared, VPS, and dedicated server hosting solutions, and they operate out of data centers located in Luxemburg, Romania, and the Netherlands.
Features and Ease of Use
KnownSRV has four shared hosting plans available, with the option of selecting the location of the server your website will be hosted on. The most basic plan, SH-V1, comes with the following:
- 5GB RAID10 SSD storage
- 30GB premium bandwidth
- Unlimited FTP accounts, emails, and MySQL databases
- PHP and CGI support
- DDoS protection
All shared hosting plans come with free website migration service, the Softaculous app installer, and a cPanel installation.
I’d say that while KnownSRV isn’t the most generous hosting provider, they do offer good value for the cost. In most shared hosting packages, it’s typical to pair such low prices with lower-quality storage drives and less bandwidth, but KnownSRV has made it a point to offer SSD storage and a decent amount of bandwidth with each package. That fact, coupled with their unlimited FTP accounts, emails, and MySQL databases even with their most entry-level shared hosting plan, wins points in my book.
KnownSRV has a 99.9% uptime SLA, which is promising. Their server speeds are a little slower when pinging from a U.S. location, but that was understandable given that their servers are located in the Netherlands, Luxemburg, and Romania. All things considered, KnownSRV’s server performance was excellent.
One of the primary selling points of KnownSRV is that they are an offshore host. This means that hosting your website with them affords you full data privacy (particularly from local authorities), better security, and greater anonymity. If you’re concerned about maintaining freedom of speech or sidestepping overbearing governmental regulations, an offshore host might be a good choice for you.
Pricing and Support
KnownSRV is excellent price-wise. Offshore hosting providers are typically more expensive than their regular counterparts, but KnownSRV’s packages are priced affordably and are comparable to their non-offshore competitors. Typical of many hosting providers, they also offer you greater discounts for selecting longer terms.
KnownSRV provides three primary categories of hosting: shared cPanel hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated server hosting. The first two categories have four available plans each, while for the dedicated server hosting, you need to contact their expert sales team to customize a dedicated server according to your specific requirements.
There is no free plan available, but they do have a seven-day money back guarantee on shared cPanel hosting and VPS hosting packages. Only first-time customers are eligible for this refund.
Upgrading or downgrading your hosting package is possible, but only by contacting customer support; there isn’t an option to do it directly from your user admin panel.
KnownSRV’s customer support is superb. They offer a live chat (which is only accessible when you log into your account), knowledge base, and support ticket system, and typically respond very quickly once you contact them. For instance, when I put in two separate tickets for two separate issues, both tickets got a response in approximately 15 minutes, with clearly-written answers that resolved both issues.
How much does KnownSRV cost?
KnownSRV offers plans from $3 to $15. The price depends on which type of hosting plan you choose. You can see the updated pricing table (updated weekly) below.
Which KnownSRV plan should I get?
My recommendation is to start with a cheaper plan. You can always upgrade later on. KnownSRV can help you with the migration to a more expensive plan. The increase in visitors many times takes longer than expected and you shouldn’t pay a lot of money until the need arises. Of course, your needs may vary, and you can consult with a hosting expert from KnownSRV here.
How good is KnownSRV’s customer support?
KnownSRV is not ranked as one of our top web hosts. But that can also be a result of KnownSRV being a small, under the radar, hosting provider. There are advantages to a small hosting company – as a customer, you are more important to them. You can also check out our comparison of the most popular web hosting services here.
