Deprecating SporeStack EU

I am sad to announce that I am deprecating the use of SporeStack EU. As many of you know, SporeStack EU is whitelabeled hosting (at the provider's request.) I do not run it.

However, it reflects poorly on SporeStack when a provider does not do well. And SporeStack EU has had a number of troubles lately. I have lost a couple of customers over it, understandably so. Providers should meet some minimum standards.

For many, it's been working great, and the price point is much better than Vultr or DigitalOcean. But its reliability has not been up to par, so I can no longer recommend it.

You can still launch SporeStack EU servers through the API/CLI. I've removed them from the website to disuade use.

At this point, I regret adding it in the first place and wish that I had vetted the provider more properly. At the time, I had great interactions and didn't see any oproblems, but now they've appeared. There is a fairly high bar in the hosting industry when uptime is established by the nines. But most of all, communication and transparency are most important.

This leaves customers with the traditional DigitalOcean and Vultr options, as well as Slow Servers, which is not automated.

I am trying to decide how to best move forward.

At this point I recommend DigitalOcean most highly. Vultr's API has been having some troubles lately. DigitalOcean is the most reliable option. That's not to say that there's not numerous successful launches on Vultr every week, but it's just not quite as solid. When a Vultr server is up it tends to stay up quite well, but I also see more host outages for Vultr than DigitalOcean.

This is frustrating because as a company, Vultr clearly values me more as a customer than DigitalOcean. Vultr has been very responsive with issues and has a much more "complete" offering with more OS options, etc. Vultr is also a little bit more affordable than DigitalOcean (though DigitalOcean's 512MB plan is a fantastic option for many.) But Vultr's API has always been a bit finicky, to say the least, and its had more outages as of late. So, DigitalOcean goes to the top of the list because it's the most proven option to get a server up and running. Don't get me wrong, I still recommend Vultr, but when a provider's API acts up it's not a great experience for the user.

And both companies are large and pushing for AI, so I'm not happy spending money with either. But they do provide working products and they are responsive if there's a problem. Those are mandatory traits in hosting.

If you don't mind waiting for a server and you want to pay less than DigitalOcean or Vultr (especially through SporeStack), Slow Servers could be a good fit for you.

Update (2026-09-23)

I have now blocked creation of new SporeStack EU servers from the API.

I have had zero contact from the provider, which makes me quite concerned.