CCI Hosting is another platform which markets itself as one of the best Offshore hosting companies. But then again, who doesn’t? That exactly is the reason why we’re scribbling this CCI Hosting Review down. To get you a clearer, honest and transparent picture of the company.
How so? Well we do not stand to gain or lose anything with your decision of going, or not going with CCI Hosting. So whatever we scribble throughout this CCI Hosting Review is the most honest picture possible.
If you’ve been through any of our other Best Anonymous Offshore Hosting reviews; you’d know that the question we address in these reviews are:
- Is CCI Hosting Anonymous?
- Is CCI Hosting Offshore?
- What Content Isn’t Allowed on CCI Hosting? (AUP).
- Are CCI Hosting Servers Good?
- Page-Load Time
- Server Response Time (SRT).
- SRT when Traffic Increases.
- How much do the Servers Cost, and How can you Pay?
We like to start our anonymous offshore hosting reviews with an overview. Simply because it helps you get an outline of the company in a fizzy.
CCI Hosting Quick Overview
The company was established in 2002, it sure has undergone a number of changes since then. But here’s what it looks like currently:
- Primary URL: https://www.ccihosting.com/
- Servers Location: Panama
- Payment methods: Bitcoin + Fiats.
- Cheapest Plan: $6.00/month.
- Servers: Shared Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, VPS Server, Anonymous Domain Registration
- DMCA Ignored: Yes.
- Gambling Websites: Yes.
- Content not allowed: Listed in the AUP section.
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Is CCI Hosting Anonymous?
That depends on what your version of an anonymous offshore hosting company is. CCI Hosting is anonymous in the sense that it doesn’t share your personal data with other third-parties. So it does keep its customers/clients anonymous.
However, we’ve confirmed and it does require real, accurate information during registration. So that means you have to divulge your real name, address and other such information.
It sure is anonymous when it comes to Payments, and accepts Cryptocurrencies as a mode of payment. But that doesn’t matter considering how the registration inform has to be true.
If you require absolutely anonymous offshore hosting companies, you should totally look at our Cyber Bunker Review and Anonymous Hosting Review.
Is CCI Hosting Offshore?
It totally is. Its primary tagline is –“Leader in Offshore Web Hosting since 2002”. The company is based out of Panama, and that’s where the servers are located.
Panama is my second favorite offshore location after The Netherlands. The company even has a specific page explaining its Panamanian benefits.
I would’ve loved if the company offered a couple more locations as server-choices. Either way, Panama is a pretty good offshore location.
What Content Isn’t Allowed on CCI Hosting? (AUP)
The company mentions being a lot liberal with its content policy because it’s based off Panama.
The list of content which isn’t allowed is pretty concise as well. The following content isn’t allowed:
- Illegal Porn.
- Weapon / Drug Marketplaces.
- Hacking
- DDOS / SIP Scanners / Botnets / IP Spoofing.
- Phishing
- Carding
It also is a DMCA-ignoring company. It has been clearly mentioned on the site that all DMCA complaints are ignored, unless they’re from Panamanian Authorities. Furthermore, no immediate suspension / termination of accounts happens on behalf of these complaints. This by far is as liberal a DMCA policy as they come.
A number of other content which are generally restricted, such as Online Gambling/Casinos, Financial websites, and even Audio/Video sharing sites are allowed.
Even Tor relays, IRC, VPN Services and File-Hosting services are allowed. This is pretty rare, not even the best offshore hosting companies allow them; but CCI Hosting does.
What truly makes it offshore is its “Applicable Law” policy. It doesn’t let the global laws effect its users, or the content hosted on the servers. Only the Panamanian laws apply. Hence whatever is illegal in your county, but legal in Panama can be hosted.
Why is it important? Well because a number of other similar companies, BlueAngelHost or Webcare360 aren’t as liberal.
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Are CCI Hosting Servers Good?
By good, we primarily mean on the speed/uptime and other such technical fronts. Why should you believe anything we say? We understand the Internet has plethora of reviews about every hosting company out there.
To make sure our reviews stand out, and you truly get an honest picture we conduct tests on the server. Moreover, we let you verify the test results independently, so there are no screenshots/charts just to please your eyes.
Their support staff gave us the following IP address for Speed-tests: http://190.97.166.130/. Although the address redirects to an error page. Hence, we verified that CCIHosting.com is indeed hosted on the company’s own servers (verify). Therefore, that is the website we’d be using for all the tests on this CCI Hosting review.
Page-Load Time
The first and basic test, tests how fast a page loads in totality. Isn’t conclusive of anything, yet gets us a basic insight regarding the average load-time for a page of the same size.
Well, the results were the fastest from USA. The page loaded in as little as 1.35 seconds (verify result).
Even the locations slower than USA were pretty impressive. Europe demanded 1.94 seconds, and Germany 1.99 seconds. Both of which lower than the 2-3 second Google requirement for good SEO.
*The 2-second speed requirement is pretty controversial, and “speed” has multiple definitions. Either way, below 2 seconds is sure impressive.
The site loaded slowest for South America, and even then less than 3 seconds were required! In a nutshell, the speed is pretty acceptable for now.
Server Response Time (SRT)
As mentioned earlier, “speed” has multiple definitions. While the above test measures a site’s speed in totality; the SRT differs. SRT isn’t how fast your entire webpage loads, rather how fast your server responds to the browser’s request to load it.
Let’s just say that the SRT speed is directly proportional to the page load-time. We tested CCI Hosting’s SRT, and here are the results (verify results):
Sure it’s not as impressive as the results seen in our Evoluso Review, but the speed isn’t completely depressing as well. A number of companies such as the ones reviewed in our ZGH Hosting review or PRQ Review have similar speeds.
SRT when Traffic Increases
A website isn’t meant to be “static” or without visitors, is it? So why should you believe results obtained on a website without any known traffic? You shouldn’t.
So let us send a number of Virtual Users to the site. On the back-end, we’ll be monitoring the server’s response time and some other metrics.
We ran the test for around 3 minutes, and the traffic gradually increased from 1 to 25. Here are the results we obtained (verify).
If you look closely, you’d see that the blue line is almost completely straight. Which means the SRT-requirement doesn’t skyrocket even with increased traffic. It started with 119ms for 1 user, and even with 24 active VUs only asked for 116 milliseconds.
So the sever does handle traffic-load pretty well.
How much do the Servers Cost, and How can you Pay?
CCI Hosting is an all-rounder. As in, you can purchase Shared hosting, VPS hosting as well as Dedicated servers. Infact, some of the “allowed content” mentioned in the AUP section of this CCI Hosting review is server-specific.
Meaning, the content is only allowed on some servers and not others. Anyway, the Shared servers start at $10.00/Month going up to $39/month. Plesk shared servers range from USD $6.00/month to USD $24.00/month.
VPS plans start at $39.00/month and have the highest plan priced at $99.00/month. There are additional more expensive “High-End plans” available as well.
Finally, Dedicated servers start at $99.00/month and go up to $279.00/month. The pricing may differ based on your OS-choice (Windows / Linux).
As mentioned earlier in this CCI Hosting review; Cryptocurrencies are accepted in addition to Fiats for payments. You can pay using:
BTC, ETH, DASH, Credit Cards, PayPal, And Wire Transfers.
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Final Verdict
My final words on this CCI Hosting Review, based on the observations above are pretty positive. It may not be the most privacy friendly offshore hosting provider, but is up there in the list.
Totally is one of the most liberal providers in terms of “content allowed”; and the server location too is perfect. The one aspect I didn’t like was its support, it’s not very fast. Neither is it very detailed or accurate with its information.
But sure those points aren’t deal-breakers. Do drop your two cents on this CCI Hosting Review and what you think of the company?
