Is Upcloud Legit? Yes, it is a fully registered company with all the necessary documents and has been operating since 2010 without a problem.
Upcloud is known to be one of the first 10 European Cloud hosting companies. The Upcloud headquarters is located in Helsinki, Finland and that is where their first data centre is situated. After a while, they opened their second data centre which is currently located in London. As time went on, Upcloud expanded and now has up to 12 data centres across Finland, London, Seattle and Singapore.
What products and Services does Upcloud Provide?
Their products and services are divided into 3 major categories as stated below;
Computing products
I’ll provide brief details of the services under this category
Cloud Servers
Some of the key features of the Upcloud Cloud Servers are;
- High, efficient and consistent performance since all their cloud servers uses the enterprise-grade hardware.
- Their plans are flexible enough for you to choose what suits you most.
- Powerful API yet it is very easy. You can design your own cloud servers, configure it at wished and delete it anytime. With the control panel, you can deploy it in just 45 secs.
In general, using the Upcloud Cloud Server guarantees you of having a 100% uptime SLA, user-friendly API and control panel. All this helps you to focus more on your business rather than wasting time in cloud management.
Private Cloud
Upcloud’s Private cloud is a hybrid cloud of both public and private cloud. This gives you the privilege of enjoying the services on the public cloud on a dedicated compute host. That is, you have your hardware all to yourself.
You can also share vCPUs and memory the way you like on your private cloud and expect to enjoy one of the world’s fastest cloud storage.
Sites Like Upcloud
There are many other popular and legitimate cloud service provider sites like Upcloud. They are the best Upcloud alternatives currently online. The sites have similar features and software to that of Upcloud.
Below are the sites like Upcloud:
- Vultr
- Linode
- Hostwinds
- Ramnode
Managed Databases
You get one of the best databases that is scalable (horizontally or vertically as you like), simple to deploy, comes with a maintenance manual for free, has automated backups (with 1,7 or 14 days retention on 1,2 and 3 nodes respectively), high availability, and you can secure by design.
Database management systems that can be used to deploy Upcloud Databases include;
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
Storage Products
Under this category we have;
MaxIOPS
Upcloud developed an in-house block storage technology known as MaxIOPS which helps guarantee high performance and reliability. Some of the key features of the MaxIOPS are;
- Quality performance and reliability
- Storage space flexibility up to 2 TB
- Can be easily transferred between cloud servers.
Object Storage
Things that make Upcloud Block Storage includes;
- With the aid of advanced HTTPS encryption and SSL certificates which are automatically enabled, Upcloud’s object storage can confidently use multiple storage devices in storing all your data redundantly.
- They can be scaled easily which is increased to correspond with your business growth at a maximum of 1TB per instance.
- Their data storage is fully featured as it has a flexible capacity (250GB, 500GB and 1GB), programable interface and S3-compliant, it can be managed and delivered effortlessly.
Object storage Pricing
Upcloud provides cheaper prices where each terabyte costs $20 only. Below is the pricing structure of Upcloud’s data Storage
- $5 each month – this allows you to have access to storage up to 250GB and Transfer up to 500GB
- $10 each month – this allows you have access to storage up to 500GB and transfer up to 1TB
- $20 each month – this allows you have access to 1TB storage and 2TB transfer.
The object storage contributes to the Network Transfer Pool as well as benefits from it as any outgoing transfer that is more than the pool is charged at $0.01 for each GB.
The Object Storage is available in all their data storage centre across Helsinki FI-HEL1, Amsterdam, Chicago, Madrid, Frankfurt, London, San Jose, Sydney, Singapore, and New York.
Qualities of the Object storage;
- One is permitted to have multiple object storage devices as desired because each of the object storage device have a capacity of 1TB only.
- Object Storage is redundancy enabled thereby ensuring that you are protected against data loss.
- Object storage guarantees you a full refund on your first payment within 30 days if you are not satisfied with their services.
Simple Backup
Their Simple Backup services enable you to safeguard the critical data of your business. It gives you access to screenshots of those data which can be stored for up to a year. Some of the features of this Simple Backup plan are;
- It takes fast Snapshots so as not to make your cloud servers slow down.
- The backup schedule is tailored to be chosen with respect to your needs.
- It can be accessed quickly
- It can be restored with ease
- It can be cloned to a new storage device.
Simple Backup Pricing
- $2 Weekly Plan – this covers daily backup for the previous 7 days. Each month is +20% of Simple Plan price and a total of $12 monthly for server
- $4 Monthly Plan – this covers daily backups for the last 7days, and weekly backups for the last 4 weeks. Each month is +40% of simple plan price ana total of $14 monthly for server.
- $6 yearly Plan – this covers daily backups for the last 7 days, weekly backups for the last 4 weeks and monthly backups for the last 12 months. Each month is +60% of the Simple Price Plan and a total of $16 monthly for Server.
Networking Products
This is where you find;
SDN Private Networks
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) gives keeps you in charge, provides you with cloud infrastructural security and elasticity. New flexible private networks L2/L3 can be built and tailored down to meet your cloud connectivity needs.
All the SDN features are available and accessible in all the Upcloud data centres globally. Some of the latest features of the Upcloud SDN are; the floating IPs where special IP addresses become transferrable between cloud servers (ensures high availability at all times), the Utility network and the Private network.
Network Transfer Pool
The Network Transfer Pool makes it possible for all transfer quotas of all your Upcloud products and services to be freely transferred into one account-wide transfer pool.
Some of the benefits of these pooling quotas are;
- They can be tracked easily
- The ability to have one quota for everything
- They can be accessed in all Upcloud data centres
- The usage is quite flexible, don’t expect any limits on your hourly usage nor expect to be charged surprisingly or excessively.
- Can be used immediately
- And it is cost effective.
Is Upcloud Legit or Scam?
As a Finnish private limited company that Upcloud is, you can rest assured that they are fully registered and provides legitimate services.
What to Benefit as Upcloud Member?
One of the things to benefit from Upcloud asides, quality services and a good pricing scheme is their referral program. It provides the opportunity to earn some cash as analysed below.
Referral Program
Upcloud allows you to earn free Upcloud credits when you share and invite your friends with your personal referral code. Upon registration, your referred friend earns $25 worth of Upcloud credits and you will also be credited with $50 worth of Upcloud Credits. But your referred friend will have to keep his/her account active for a minimum of 28 days and also makeup to 2 valid transactions before you will be credited.
Career at Upcloud
Upcloud provides you with an opportunity to join one of the world’s innovative teams if you have the skills required.
As an Upcloud employee, you get to enjoy;
- Flexibility to work either remotely, partially or full- time
- Opportunity to travel for company and retreats to the different office locations globally
- A friendly, and accommodating working environment with opportunities of a relaxation centre and hosting office parties once in a while
- Provision of snacks, and beverages to keep you refreshed at work
Join the Upcloud employees today.
Upcloud Billing
There are two types of subscription plans at Upcloud, “Simple Plans and Flexible Plans”. When using the Simple plan, your bills will be charged on an hourly basis for 672 days per month. That is 28 days. But in cases where there are more than 28 days for that month, you’ll be charged with the monthly rates. It doesn’t matter whether your server is on or off, the billing keeps running for the stipulated time.
When using the flexible plan, you will be billed per hour based on the prices of the resources you used.
Simple plan pricing ranges from as low as $5 per month up to $640 per month.
Payment Options – you can credit your Upcloud balance through Credit cards (Visa and MasterCard), PayPal (debits and credit cards, PayPal balance or your bank account which is all dependent on your region), and via Paytrail Bank Transfers for Finland residents only.
Upcoud Partnership Program
If you want to be more confident in the services you provide your clients, it is advisable to go into partnership with Upcloud to enable you enjoy more privileges.
Some of the privileges you receive as an Upcloud partner include;
- Personal Manager – Upcloud gives you the benefit of having a personal Partner Manager that is tailored to respond to your technological issues and development. This act enables you to have a real time or human support whose average response time is just 1mins 37s. Note that this support is available 24/7. You are assured of getting up to 89% customer care satisfaction.
- Budget Friendly – if you are looking at getting quality services for a fair price, then, Upcloud is your sure bet. Their pricing scheme helps to increase your business profits which is an added privilege.
- High Performance – with the same price they offered, you should entertain no doubt because quality performance is assured.
- Increased growth and Success – partners get access choose what suits them more in the partnership development sessions. Be it Training Sessions, co-marketing or any other, the choice is yours. Also, joining their marketing team will give your business more publicity.
- Your Opinion Matters – you get to receive first hand information about their new products and services before they hit the market. Also, you can state your opinion or provide ideas about these products and services.
Currently, some of Upcloud Partners include; RunCloud, Aiven, ServerPilot, HashiCorp and Ploi.io. You are encouraged to Partner with Upcloud if you fall into any of these categories; a Reseller, A technology solution provider, or a Service provider.
Pros and Cons of Upcloud
Pros
- High flexibility with cost effective schemes
- Good customer care services
- Provides you with features that enhances the quality of performance
Cons
- It seems not to be suitable for beginners as the interface looks quite complicated
- The hosting services cannot be shared
- There have been complaints of VPS being cancelled without prior warning.
Upcloud Support
Upcloud provides quality professional customer care services for their customers 24/7. You can reach out to them via their live chat on their control panel, or via email. You can visit their official website at www.upcloud.com for more details.
Conclusion
Upcloud cloud hosting company seems to have all figured out in terms of the quality of services provided for their customers. The cost-effective nature, absence of noisy neighbours, availability and having a 100% uptime SLA is some of its key features of Upcloud that customers find exciting.
Another good service provided by Upcloud is the assurance that you will be compensated or refunded as the case may be if there are any interruptions in the service they provide with the SLA in force. You can even access free trial versions of their products and services from time to time as a customer.
However, some of the challenges that may be encountered are that their system may not accommodate a beginner in the tech world is something that should be considered, they are advised to make their user interface a lot more friendly.