Linkclub is a group of Japanese hosting companies each with its own specialism. The customer service is limited, but there’s an option for all kinds of business owners.
Linkclub is a Japanese “computer club” with several sub brands: Linkclub Hosting X (professional dedicated server rentals), Linkclub Hosting Service (Windows servers for businesses), and Kukuli (which was reviewed here). Reportedly with more than 100,000 members, the websites are all in Japanese.
Features and Ease of Use
Linkclub Hosting X sells dedicated server rentals, which come with the following core features:
Track record of server availability of 99.999%
Domain registration available
Up to 100 add-on domains
SSL certificates available
Up to 120 GB disk space
Unlimited monthly data transfer
First, Linkclub Hosting X uses Intel Xeon 5300 series processors, with servers in RAID 10 configuration to minimize the risk of data loss in the event of a disk failure. The servers are located in the NTT PC data center, in an earthquake resistant position in Japan, and whilst there isn’t an uptime guarantee, it does advertise an average uptime of 99.999%.
Plans come with support for more than 80 free programs e.g. osCommerce, phpBB, Joomla!, and Drupal, as well as PHP (although it’s only slow version 5), and up to 30 databases. It’s nice to see SSH access is allowed, and there’s support for various advanced programming languages including Ruby and Python.
Second, Linkclub Hosting Service, another sub brand of Linkclub, specialises in Windows servers for businesses. These plans come with support for PHP and ASP, as well as Microsoft SQL databases, and multiple CGI tools like bulletin boards, guestbooks, and so on.
Pricing and Support
The plans are quite expensive, but with both options your getting a dedicated server rental, so the prices are in line with similar companies (if a little higher). You’ll need to buy a SSL certificate and domain name with both of the services, so make sure to consider those costs.
Linkclub Hosting X offers a 15 day free trial on its plans, but it’s less clear if the same deal is offered by Linkclub Hosting Service, instead it appears to offer a 14 day cooling off period. The websites are quite confusing and not that obvious how to get started with Linkclub.
Linkclub Hosting X offers support via its FAQ page or email, whilst Linkclub Hosting service have FAQs and an online contact form. I emailed them both (in English) and despite waiting a few days, I didn’t get a response. In an ideal world, I’d like to see both of the sub brands display the contact details more prominently, with the addition of business hours.
Linkclub has a lot of experience and expertise in the hosting industry, with multiple sub brands catering to different specialisms. I’m not overly impressed with the customer service, but there’s plenty of choice and you can have your data stored in a Japanese data center.
Pros
Use of a Japanese based data center
Choice of Windows or Linux serves
Support for advanced programming languages
Multiple sub brands so you can find a plan for you
Mark is a full stack web developer specializing in HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, MySQL, and PHP. When he's not busy building websites or geeking out over the latest addition to his ever-growing gadget collection, he enjoys playing drums for his progressive rock band. He can also make a mean Spanish omelet.
