Amsterdam-Based Web Host Saves Customers Time and Money With Affordable, Quickly Deployed Servers

TL; DR: Every web hosting customer has a unique wishlist. While some may be able to compromise little things, such as email hosting, some features are just non-negotiable in the hosting world. Thankfully, Phanes Cloud delivers on all the must-have features. The web hosting company provides fast SSD storage, rock-solid CPUs, and privacy protection all while offering affordable pricing and flexible server control. We spoke with Simon Bakker, the Director of Phanes Cloud, about the hosting platform, its cloud infrastructure, and new solutions.

All healthy relationships, whether friendships or romantic partnerships, require work. A vital part of that work includes the art of give and take. In some relationships, you may have to give more than you take or vice versa but you know the give-and-take balance will always come.

In business, it’s similar. But I can say there is one major difference. Ending a business partnership can often come with valuable outcomes or fruitful results, which certainly beats the heartbreak or bitterness of other typical breakups.

Simon Bakker, the Director of Phanes Cloud, knows this well. An owner of multiple IT companies, Simon has worked with various companies over the years. One company in particular, Flaunt7, was a lead customer of his reseller hosting services.

Through this reseller partnership, Simon got to know the Flaunt7 owner. Then one day, the owner asked him if he would like to take over Flaunt7.

“From there, I took over Flaunt7. Since all the servers that they were renting were already rented from me, I had all those servers in my possession already. So that was a massive cost saving. And then I rebranded it to Phanes Cloud,” said Simon.

Launched in September 2022, Phanes Cloud provides rock-solid cloud infrastructure, bare metal servers, and web hosting solutions. Phanes Cloud takes pride in delivering user-friendly and reliable hosting that enables teams to launch applications and websites with just a few clicks.

Below, I’ll cover what Phanes Cloud offers, its differentiators, and what’s next for the web hosting company.

Phanes Cloud serves more than 50,000 customers, with a network backbone of 2,500-plus servers and 120 Gbps. Since it rebranded in September 2022, the web hosting company has poured time and resources into upgrading its cloud infrastructure.

The team replaced the old management infrastructure from Flaunt7 to provide users with a more powerful, user-friendly experience. Phanes Cloud offers a variety of web hosting services and solutions, which makes it ideal for different needs.

“We have multiple server types. The servers that we operate I build them myself. So I select the components that will be installed, and then I test them before building the servers with them,” said Simon.

Simon told us about some of the technology Phanes Cloud uses to develop its infrastructure foundation. Those components include AMD Epyc, and AMD Ryzen CPUs. Its servers can come with up to 32 cores, giving you the utmost power.

Phanes Cloud’s infrastructure also promotes affordable prices. Simon said the servers all use the same motherboard and primary components.

“So that brings the cost down a lot. The whole web hosting runs on AMD Epyc. We also have a large chunk of the cloud server infrastructure that is also powered by AMD Ryzen,” said Simon.

Customers would be happy to hear that Phanes Cloud’s hosting offerings include blazing-fast NVMe SSD storage, tons of RAM, a RAID 10 setup, and at least 10 GB of fiber internet. You can also take advantage of its incredible savings deals.

“For our web hosting service, we’re offering a 50% discount if customers pay for the whole year upfront. It’s great savings. And for our cloud servers, we also have that saving but for the first month only,” said Simon.

Whether you have RAM-hungry applications or CPU-demanding workloads, Phanes Cloud has a solution to fit your ongoing goals and needs.

Keeping Up With Customers and Competitors

The Phanes Cloud team keeps a close eye on the market and its demands. Simon told us the team speaks with other hosting company owners and follows conversations on tech forums to stay up to date with all happenings in the hosting landscape.

Thanks to its well-connected infrastructure, Phanes Cloud can easily add new developments or technologies when it has to respond to a pressing need.

“The best thing is that we have a lot of servers that are pretty much exactly the same. The disk or the processor may be different, but the motherboard is the same. So we can scale and act quickly if needed,” said Simon.

Phanes Cloud also considers customer requests. The team gathers reviews and support tickets to assess customer satisfaction and needs.

“We gather feedback from users to improve our offerings. Most of the requests come via the support tickets and then we can look into these requests and whether we can actually provide them,” said Simon.

Phanes Cloud does a lot of things the right way. Located in the Netherlands, it is privacy-first and protected by the strict laws of the European Union. It builds its servers in-house to ensure high quality and offers instant deployment, allowing you to get started with projects immediately.

But if the Phanes Cloud platform is marked by anything, it’s by these two primary attributes: affordability and flexibility. Simon told us that is how the company seeks to differentiate itself. We covered some of its savings above.

Phanes Cloud is flexible in a couple of ways. It not only allows you to easily scale your cloud instances, but it also offers full control over your resources.

“So we give people full control. They get access to the control panel and they can do pretty much everything that I can do too with their server,” said Simon.

Users can deep dive into their servers to create and customize their hosting environment to their liking. Gain access to remote management, open the console, and the physical server is all yours to customize.

A Data Center a Stone’s Throw Away

Another highlight of Phanes Cloud is its proximity to its data centers. Unlike other hosts, the Phanes Cloud team can easily travel to its data center suite for in-person maintenance.

“Our office is actually an hour away from the data center. So if any issues occur, we can act quickly,” said Simon.

Phanes Cloud rents an entire suite in a data center near Amsterdam and its home base. Simon and his business partner manage the network and have total control over the hosting resources.

“We have our own router infrastructure. We also have pairing agreements with other internet providers in the Amsterdam Internet Exchange for quick access. Basically, we handle pretty much everything, from the network to the servers,” said Simon.

Simon spoke to us about new or upcoming additions to Phanes Cloud. The team is currently working on a resource pack designed for virtual machine users.

“So you will be able to buy specific resources beforehand, pay monthly for them, and then make virtual machines with these resources in however way you want to configure them,” said Simon.

Users will be able to choose and assign multiple cores, RAM, and IP addresses, among other features within their requirements. Simon said every pack will be sold at a fixed price, but customers can upgrade for more resources when needed.

“That way, people can utilize our API to automatically create servers for their clients or to scale their web applications,” said Simon.

Phanes Cloud also recently launched partner program pages on its revamped website. These programs include a reseller hosting solution and an affiliate system.

“For the reseller program, we set up a white-label version of our control panel. That way, the customers of our resellers don’t know we’re behind it. It looks like it’s our reseller that they’re renting from,” said Simon.

As for the future, Simon said the team will continue to keep track of demands. He said he has been keeping a close look at ARM servers, which are powered by ARM processors.

“Maybe that’s a future thing that we will offer, but it’s not mainstream right now. So I think in the future those types of servers will take off. And if then there’s any demand for it, then we will offer it too,” said Simon.