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Atlantic.net is one of the older brands in the web hosting industry. Founded in 1994, its history stretches even further back than common consumer-oriented hosts like GoDaddy and IONOS. It was also among the earliest providers of cloud hosting.
Today, Atlantic.net boasts formidable infrastructure, operating from data centers spanning the globe and covering multiple regions from New York to Singapore.
What types of hosting does Atlantic.net offer?
Aside from some typical hosting products most will recognize, like cloud hosting, the rest of Atlantic.net’s product line is best described as either high-performance or meant for control and compliance. These primarily affect companies with specific regulatory, privacy, or other needs.
Cloud hosting
Atlantic.net’s cloud hosting range is the most recognizable and should suit everyone, from regular users to developers and SMEs. It’s also the most flexible, offering scalability from micro (1 CPU, 2GB RAM, Linux at $8/mo) to “wow” (32 CPUs, 192GB RAM, Linux at $816/mo).
This is surprisingly cheap compared to other cloud providers like DigitalOcean and VULTR, where plans with the same specifications cost $10/mo (the same at both providers). And that’s not even mentioning Cloudways, which offers a managed Cloud at those same specs for $278/mo.
Pricing is also daily flexible, with customers able to choose between on-demand, 1-year, and 3-year terms. Naturally, the 3-year term option offers the greatest price reduction. You can also choose Windows-based cloud plans, but they cost more due to licensing fees.
Cloud hosting plans are also sub-categorized to cater to those with specific needs. This includes storage-optimized, memory-optimized, and compute-optimized plans. Each of these plans have their resource allocations tweaked to best serve your needs.
GPU cloud hosting
In the booming age of AI, GPUs have become more essential than ever before. If you’re dabbling in this area, Atlantic.net offers a good range of NVIDIA-based GPU cloud hosting plans. The plans start at 32 CPU and 192GB of RAM with a single NVIDIA L40S card and range up to 224 CPU and 1920GB of RAM with 8 NVIDIA H100NVL cards.
Prices for these plans are naturally hefty (from a consumer’s perspective) and start at $1058/mo on 3-year terms. At the upper end of the scale, expect to pay up to $19,262/mo on the same terms.
Atlantic.net’s dedicated hosting plans start at pretty modest levels. That means servers with 6 cores, 8 threads, and 128GB of RAM for $266/mo on 3-year terms. At the high end of the scale are servers with 32 cores, 64 threads, and 1TB of RAM for $1,895/mo on the same terms.
Bare-metal servers are priced lower, with the starter server offering 6 cores, 12 threads, and 64GB of RAM for $138/mo (sale price). On the other end of the scale, it goes to 64 cores, 128 threads, and 256GB of RAM for $495/mo. You can also reach out to them to create a customized server that fits your requirements.
Specialized hosting plans (HIPAA and PCI)
Unlike regular web hosting plans that are loosely marketed by many service providers, specialized offerings like HIPAA and PCI hosting are beasts of an entirely different nature. You can’t simply slap a “secure” label on a standard server and call it compliant.
Atlantic.net builds these environments from the ground up to pass audits and is one of the few providers willing to sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA), which legally binds them to protect your data. That’s one of the most critical requirements for any HIPAA-compliant application.
Atlantic.net’s HIPAA solutions offer pre-configured packages. These servers also include the full compliance stack (Firewall, VPN, Backups) for Windows or Linux servers. Prices range from $333/mo to $757/mo, with custom options available.
For those running ecommerce websites or online stores, PCI-compliance is where Atlantic.net shares your responsibilities. The company ensures that your hosting infrastructure (physical network, hardware, and OS) is secure, while you ensure your application code is compliant. Prices range from $416/mo to $6,872/mo.
How fast is Atlantic.net hosting?
Since Atlantic.net is currently offering new customers 1 year of free cloud hosting, we decided to go big and test a server with 4 CPUs and 8GB of RAM based in their Singapore data center. That was apparently a good choice, as we recorded some strong results in both core performance and resilience.
However, take these test results in context because, unlike most other hosts we test, this one had to be built and configured from scratch. That process alone took us two days (due to slight server-end technical hiccups), unlike shared hosting, where a few clicks will do.
|
CPU & Memory |
Operations with large text data |
10 |
| Row 1 – Cell 0 |
Random binary data operations |
8.2 |
| Row 2 – Cell 0 |
Recursive mathematical calculations |
7.4 |
| Row 3 – Cell 0 |
Iterative mathematical calculations |
9.55 |
| Row 4 – Cell 0 |
Floating point operations |
8.44 |
|
Filesystem |
Filesystem write ability |
9.28 |
| Row 6 – Cell 0 |
Local file copy and access speed |
9.5 |
| Row 7 – Cell 0 |
Small file IO test |
10 |
|
Database |
Importing large amount of data to database |
1.4 |
| Row 9 – Cell 0 |
Simple queries on single table |
6.12 |
| Row 10 – Cell 0 |
Complex database queries on multiple tables |
7.17 |
|
Object Cache |
Persistent object cache enabled |
0 |
|
WordPress core |
Shortcode processing |
6.9 |
| Row 13 – Cell 0 |
WordPress Hooks |
8.83 |
| Row 14 – Cell 0 |
WordPress option manipulation |
8.18 |
| Row 15 – Cell 0 |
REGEX string processing |
7.94 |
| Row 16 – Cell 0 |
Taxonomy benchmark |
8.47 |
| Row 17 – Cell 0 |
Object capability benchmark |
9.08 |
| Row 18 – Cell 0 |
Content filtering |
4 |
| Row 19 – Cell 0 |
JSON manipulations |
7.03 |
|
Network |
Network download speed test |
9.63 |
|
Overall |
Your server score |
7.7 |
WordPress core benchmark scores were quite good, with strong results across all categories. However, the overall score of 7.7 wasn’t particularly good compared to other unmanaged VPS providers, especially Bluehost.
Part of the reason for this is likely the lower CPU core speed of 2.5 GHz, which is slightly lower than what we see in most contemporary hosts. For example, Bluehost runs 4th-gen EPYCs at 2.7 GHz, while ScalaHosting sticks with Intel running at 3.6 GHz.
|
Concurrent users |
5 |
9 |
15 |
|
Transactions |
8582 |
10888 |
10584 |
|
Availability |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
Elapsed time |
299.08 |
299.01 |
299.82 |
|
Data transferred |
701.37 |
891.56 |
865.25 |
|
Response time |
0.17 |
0.24 |
0.42 |
|
Transaction rate |
28.69 |
36.41 |
35.3 |
|
Throughput |
2.35 |
2.98 |
2.89 |
|
Concurrency |
5 |
8.91 |
14.99 |
|
Successful transactions |
8582 |
10888 |
10584 |
|
Failed transactions |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Longest transaction |
5.42 |
5.26 |
6.16 |
|
Shortest transaction |
0.02 |
0.02 |
0.02 |
True to form, with decent server specs, Atlantic.net held up well under siege, passing all three tests with 100% availability. It also did so without specific load-balancing features configured, showing similar results for longest transaction times even at high loads.
Customer support
Atlantic.net’s customer support offers a “High Touch” approach that gives customers direct access to engineers, rather than navigating a maze of chatbots and menus.
This was proven during our test of their systems when he encountered issues with server provisioning. We sent a message to the support team from our customer dashboard and received a response within an hour.
The support staff at Atlantic.net knows what they’re doing, and when first-line assistance can’t help, problems are automatically escalated to the proper technical department. Our server provisioning issues were caused by a technical fault at their data center, and engineers worked overnight to resolve the complex issue within 12 hours.
You get several support channels here, including phone, email, a ticket system, and live chat. The support channels are available 24/7. However, it’s essential to understand that support is available at several tiers, depending on the packages you purchase.
For self-help, there is a blog section that covers some content, but we find it a little unstructured and challenging to access. Seeking an answer from Google seemed faster – even if the answer leads you back to Atlantic.net’s content. There is, however, very visible and extensive API documentation covering everything from authentication to DNS.
Who should use Atlantic.net?
Atlantic.net is a little special from our point of view. It’s unlike Cloudways, which comes with an excellent server management dashboard. However, it’s unlike a typical cloud provider because it lets you deploy servers that are fully configured to run specific apps, such as WordPress. You can even choose the deployment framework, such as a traditional LAMP stack or Docker.
That makes it technically usable by a broad range of users, while also being highly flexible in its options. Here, though, we have to insert a massive caveat. While deploying a WordPress-ready server (for example) works in a pinch, you’ll still need technical skills to manage it. Imagine having to handle server security hardening, package updates, and everything else via the command line, and you’ll get the idea.
At the end of the day, the overall vibe it gives off is highly technical and professional. Because of this, we feel that Atlantic.net is suitable for either those with more niche requirements or, at the very least, certain categories of individuals with a decent level of technical skills, such as developers, system administrators, and the like.
So, who do we recommend it for? Here’s a short list:
Healthcare Organizations and MedTech Startups: This is the group that will find Atlantic.net the most vital. Specific products here help them to solve a complex problem. For example, in healthcare, the biggest hosting headache isn’t technical, but legal compliance.
SMEs without IT Teams: Thanks to managed services, Atlantic.net becomes accessible to a much broader market. SMEs that need more robust hosting but lack technical backing can rely on these services to move forward.
Ecommerce and Fintech Companies: The vital points to consider here are security and, again, compliance. Atlantic.net’s PCI-Ready hosting options make this abundantly clear. Additionally, the 100% Uptime SLA and scalability can prove lifesavers during the sales season.
Final verdict
It would be a mistake to take Atlantic.net as your run-of-the-mill cloud provider. It’s highly scalable and flexible, plus gives relatively non-technical customers some quality-of-life tools to make cloud hosting more manageable.
But don’t expect it to be as simple to manage as Cloudways. That makes sense as well, since Atlantic.net charges significantly less. Almost half as much as Cloudways, plus Atlantic.net throws in more system resources.
For those seeking a middle ground between affordability and ease of use, Atlantic.net is definitely worth looking into.
Atlantic.net FAQ
Is Atlantic.net HIPAA compliant?
Yes, Atlantic.net is HIPAA compliant. It offers a fully audited HIPAA-compliant hosting environment and is willing to sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA). This document is required by law to share liability for protecting patient data. Their compliance stack includes encrypted VPNs, off-site backups, and intrusion detection systems.
Where are Atlantic.net’s data centers located?
Atlantic.net claims to operate a global network of data centers to ensure low latency and compliance with local regulations. However, when we signed up for a cloud plan, our options seemed limited to various US locations plus Singapore.
Will Atlantic.net help me migrate my existing website or application?
Atlantic.net claims to operate a global network of data centers to ensure low latency and compliance with local regulations. However, when we signed up for a cloud plan, our options seemed limited to various US locations plus Singapore.
How does the billing work for Atlantic.net cloud VPS?
Atlantic.net uses a per-second billing model for its cloud platform that’s similar to Cloudways. While there is a set monthly fee, that’s more of an upper-end cap. The reality is that you only pay for the exact time your server is running (not the time it’s idle).
Does Atlantic.net support Windows or just Linux?
Atlantic.net is one of the few remaining places that offer Windows-based plans, especially across almost its entire product range. That means Windows Server editions (2016, 2019, 2022) across both their Cloud VPS and Dedicated Server lines.
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