
MediaTemple is a well-known web hosting provider, specifically in regard to their VPS service. In fact, most of MediaTemple’s customers are upgraded accounts (VPS, dedicated, etc.). This is no fluke, as they have put in a considerable amount of time tweaking their service offerings. After all, they have been around since 1998 – more than enough time to make consistent technological changes necessary to enforce their position as a leader in the web hosting industry. Still, how can a hosting company really differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack? MediaTemple does a fantastic job of this by making it crystal clear what VPS service is good for who. Are you a business, e-commerce site or an agency? Or, are you a web developer, SysAdmin or Linux pro? Consequently, MediaTemple delivers a range of features. From a simple control panel to some of the most powerful features on the market for heavy VPS users, they have it all. Additionally and most importantly to business owners, MediaTemple offers exceptional scalability. Never pay for more than what you need.
Features & Pricing
Once you get to the VPS page, MediaTemple makes it very clear which VPS plan is good for you (depending on what type of customer you are). For this MediaTemple review, we will start with business, e-commerce, reseller or agency users. These Linux based VPS plans offer the Plesk control panel which is widely regarded as one of the easiest to navigate. It boasts a range of features including 200+ one click app installers, MySQL set up without containers, pre-installed versions of PHP, Perl and Python, etc. This control panel also allows for easy integration of phpMyAdmin. For these types of customers, we have compiled this chart to help break down the information for you:
Features |
Plan 1 |
Plan 2 |
Plan 3 |
RAM |
1GB |
2GB |
4GB |
Storage |
30GB |
50GB |
100GB |
Bandwidth |
1TB |
1.5TB |
2TB |
Admin Access |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Site Backups |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Hosted Domains |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
CentOS 6 |
Pre-Installed |
Pre-Installed |
Pre-Installed |
Web Stats Quick View |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
MySQL 5.5 |
Pre-Installed |
Pre-Installed |
Pre-Installed |
Price |
$50.00/month |
$100.00/month |
$150.00/month |
As for web developers, they will also be extremely pleased to see what is on offer through MediaTemple. These plans use the Parallels Power Panel web interface and you can choose your Linux OS (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, or CentOS):
Features |
Plan 1 |
Plan 2 |
Plan 3 |
RAM |
1GB |
2GB |
4GB |
Storage |
20GB |
40GB |
80GB |
Bandwidth |
350GB |
650GB |
1.5TB |
Root Access |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Instant Provisioning |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Full SSH |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
SAS RAID 10 Disks |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Site Backups |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
ProDev API |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Price |
$30.00/month |
$50.00/month |
$100.00/month |
Additionally, as mentioned above, MediaTemple likely has the best flexibility customers can receive on a VPS package. Scale up or down, and never pay for more than what is necessary.
Customer Support
Go to the MediaTemple website and see what they mention. Many web hosting companies will boasts about their wide array of features, their outstanding reliability or other gimmicks to entice customers. MediaTemple takes another approach. The very first thing they mention when asking the question ‘Why Choose MediaTemple?’ is about their commitment to customers. They do have a Help Center which is standard among large web hosting providers. This Help Center comes with many nice service features such as a knowledgebase, a forum and a blog. However, the difference here is that MediaTemple does not promote their Help Center. Rather, they prefer direct customer contact. The main methods they promote are live chat, twitter, phone (toll free) and e-mail. All of these options are 24/7/365. We understand response times and attitude vary per customer however as with all web hosting reviews, we have tested MediaTemple’s customer support several times. We only had positive experiences with them – fast support and knowledgeable, domestic staff.
Reliability
MediaTemple has gone above and beyond the standard of reliability. Many customers assume that reliability simply means uptime. This is categorically false and many times customers have complained about slow speeds and terrible performance through other hosting providers. Fortunately, MediaTemple not only guarantees 99.999% uptime but also uses the latest technology and highest performance hardware (SAS RAID-10 disks – i/o isolation), which ultimately provides VPS users with one of the fastest and most reliable VPS services on the market. They also take it a step further with their developer plans by utilizing the newest Parallels Containers technology, which provides the most effective and resourceful OS virtualization. This in turn allows for higher performance with much less system overhead.
Summary
With over 15 years of hosting experience, MediaTemple has created a truly respectable VPS web hosting service. You may not receive every add on feature that is offered by top VPS service providers like BlueHost but the majority of webmasters do not end up using most of the features. Also, if you are running a business, MediaTemple may be a great choice for you due to the ease of scalability. More importantly, they offer highly efficient reliability and fast speeds which is what most webmasters look for, specifically when search for the best VPS hosting solution. In addition to that, MediaTemple offers sufficient features, reasonable pricing and stellar customer support, which makes them a great choice for all webmasters.