Reviews and expert opinion Server Snack

Strobe-Quik Web Solutions Ltd. (trading as Server Snack) uses a data center in its native New Zealand. Its English-language website advertises a range of Linux and Windows shared hosting plans, virtual servers, domain registration, search engine optimization, website design/development, WordPress and Joomla CMS software, and social media services.

Features and Ease of Use

Server Snack offers seven shared hosting plans (across Linux and Windows), and three VPS plans. The Linux shared hosting plans provide you with:

• cPanel control panel
• 25 MB to 1,000 MB disk space
• 200 MB to unlimited monthly traffic
• One to unlimited email accounts with webmail and forwarding
• Up to unlimited MySQL databases
• Up to 10 add-on domains and up to unlimited subdomains
• Unlimited parked domains
• PHP support (on the three higher plans)
• FTP access
• SpamAssassin and antivirus
• Daily backups

Hosting plans allow access to raw logs, so you can see website statistics in their raw (non-graphical) form. You also get full website statistics to help you keep track of such things as sales conversions.

R1Soft Enterprise backup software performs daily block-level backups, and incremental backups are stored remotely for 30 days.

Although the 99.9% uptime guarantee is just about the industry average, some parts of the website suggest a higher 99.99% uptime for Linux hosting plans.

If shared hosting is not sufficient for your needs, you can take a VPS plan with SSH root access for complete remote control of your server. The Parallels Power Panel (PPP) lets you administer your server and perform backup/recovery tasks.

Pricing and Support

Server Snack’s shared hosting plans are pricey, with (not unusually) the Windows plans costing more than the Linux plans. You can pay for plans in New Zealand dollars by check or credit card on monthly to biennial billing cycles. Since not all billing cycles are available for all plans, you’ll need to check for the plan you pick.

There are no setup fees, you get a 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can benefit from a month’s free hosting when you sign up for the website design and hosting service.

You can contact this company by telephone (during working hours on weekdays) and by support ticket (24/7), but I have to tell you that my test support ticket elicited no response. Remote support is available via TeamViewer, and if you have to resort to self-support, you will find an acceptable (but not exceptional) knowledge base: