Ukrainian hosting provider CityDomain has been registering domains and hosting custom PHP and MySQL websites since 2005. It also offers VPS hosting, dedicated servers, and extras such as SSL certificates, SMS, and trademark services.
Features and Ease of Use
Basic bloggers or unsophisticated startups can start with the low-cost beginner package called “Room,” which can host only one website. Scaling up, the “Apartment” and “Apartment+” intermediate plans may be suitable for medium-size enterprises and advertising agencies. For an online store or a large corporate website, the additional storage space provided by the “Penthouse” highest plan could be best suited to your needs.
All web hosting accounts are administered via the ISPmanager control panel. Although it’s not as popular as cPanel, it does the same job of allowing you to create or import websites, create webmails with anti-spam, setup MySQL databases, configure redirects for emails and URLs, and add FTP accounts.
This host offers a website builder to build your web presence, and a free SSL certificate to secure it. And for the more advanced among you, Cron jobs allow you to schedule regular tasks rather than having to execute them manually each time. Nightly backups have the potential to save you from a data loss disaster.
If shared hosting isn’t sufficient for your needs, a virtual rental server (VPS) package lets you choose your preinstalled operating system such as Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, FreeBSD, or Windows. You can install the ISPManager Lite control panel plus other applications on top.
If a VPS isn’t enough, you can go for a dedicated server with free traffic that can be deployed within five working days. Each server is administered using the ISPManager control panel and includes 100 GB of backup storage. KVM is available on request, and you can install a range of operating systems, including Fedora, Ubuntu, CentOS, and FreeBSD.
CityDomain utilizes a 24-hour intelligent monitoring system to deliver regular updates to its customers.
To give you an idea of the kind of uptime you can expect, I tested the uptime of CityDomain’s own website over the course of a week. I recorded 99.95% uptime, with five minutes of downtime during the week:
Pricing and Support
You can check, register, and manage your Ukrainian domains via CityDomain’s automated DNS manager. Registration is simple and should take no more than five minutes at most. If you buy multiple addon domains, you’ll get the fifth .cx.ua domain free.
CityDomain looks keen to maintain consistent pricing while still delivering quality services. You can choose cheap monthly hosting in Germany or Ukraine, or you can pay upfront for a year via credit card, bank transfer, Privat24, or QiWi. You can also take advantage of a 10-day free trial, but this may not be enough time to fully assess the hosting services.
You have ten days you pay the invoice for your hosting order. Any funds that you load to your account cannot be withdrawn, so don’t end your account prematurely unless you have requested a refund for unused services. Services are geo-restricted, and you have to verify your phone number to use a service.
Although technical support is available 24/7 via ticket submission, you can only access live operators via telephone or live to chat during working hours on weekdays. The support team can also help you migrate your existing website, as I discovered:
