So, I signed up for a VPS and went for the Medium VPS at 8.99 EUR to try it out. The performance was ok but I noted some initial lag on connect. I have a couple of UK VPS and one in Germany with Hetzner.

From my UK location, when I ping my UK VPSs I get an average of 20ms, with Hetzner its 32ms. With Contabo it's 80ms. That might not seem significant but really it is for a UK visitor connecting to a UK server.

I opened a ticket and politely asked about this. I suspected it was routing, Portsmouth is not the hub of the UK from a connectivity viewpoint, I appreciate that but just wanted to get their thoughts on it.

The response I got back was "Suggest you look for another provider".

Ok then, cancelled.

@robi said in Moving a Ghost Blog to Wordpress:

Apparently there is @luckow

https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-properly-move-from-ghost-to-wordpress/

With https://wpghostimport.com/ converting the JSON export

Another path may be to use RSS to read all the posts into WP.

Nothing to lose right so I gave it a go. Worked incredibly well. Not perfect but it means I have a lot less to do.

@nebulon Thanks, I actually did that and to me at least the difference was nothing.

Digital Ocean = 26ms
Hetzner = 35ms

To me at least, that does not appear a significant difference in terms of visitor load time.

@girish All of my sites are just info blogs, a forum and a custom-built history site. They will be fine pretty much anywhere.

Going to go with Hetzner, as I say, not a cheapskate, was willing to pay Digital Ocean $40 per month but Hetzner Cloud gets as good if not better reviews and for much less money. Seems daft not to

@marcusquinn - I am fine with DO, Vultr and Hetzner to be honest. But when I saw a new UK location it was worth checking it out. The performance difference is night and day and clearly so is the support.

I wouldn't even have minded if they just fobbed me off but to tell me just to walk if I wasn't happy, lol.

@robi - Definately in Portsmouth, it's a configuration issue that is the cause, I gave them a full trace log back to Portsmouth showing precisely where the issue is, just needed a little tweak and it would have largely been sorted. Hence my support ticket to nudge them, which they didn't appear to appreciate

But regardless, whether you are paying 8 EUR for 6vCPU/8GB Ram or 27 EUR for 10vCPU/60GB Ram (lol) they are without doubt horribly oversold. Your mileage will vary. All about setting expectations and if you don't expect much then you won't be disappointed.

Like I said before, 20ms to 80ms may not seem much in isolation but there are other factors which impact visitors inside/outside of the UK and so on. For most that don't do a lot of optimization, it is unlikely to be a noticeable difference. So if Contabo works for people, then it's good for what it is.

@jdaviescoates said in Ghostboard.io - Analytics for Ghost blogs:

Mostly, I think, because doing basically anything with Ghost seems to require messing with code.

This is definitely a reason. It can be difficult to make any changes without going into the code.

I also don't like their 'integrations' which is a sloppy alternative to an app store for add-ons. A prime example, inserting images using unsplash, they have that built-in but it is kind of useless. If you directly add an image using the unsplash integration it can't resize it so your site ends up with large non-optimized images. Solution? Download the image and then upload it. WTAF?

Most of their integrations require adding things to the header, CDNs and so on, it just ends up bloating the site and slowing it down.

Far too opinionated in the way you should, perhaps must use it.

It is a great idea, works well for many who just want to start blogging and have no specific theme/plugin requirements but done in node.js has created so many limitations it's just not very flexible.

It would also be nice if Revolut would do a joint account, I am guessing their limited offering is due to what they can do without a full licence.

I do have Monzo and Starling, there are differences, but overall I just prefer Revolut for what I need it for.

But in any event and back on topic. Just don't use your regular accounts to make purchases on the internet when it comes to hosting and other services. Many get by without incident but you appreciate it when it does happen and the impact is next to nothing.

Just terminology, not winning and losing in the sense you think. ICANN refers to the registrar you are transferring away from as the losing registrar and the other as the gaining registrar.

@luckow said in Moving a Ghost Blog to Wordpress:

@LeeW yep it's so simple. But to be fair: there is no magic import button to move your content from one cms to the other

Yeah, I knew that. It's going to take time to do it, but at least this way I can do it over a period of time then switch when ready, makes it so much easier.

Just terminology, not winning and losing in the sense you think. ICANN refers to the registrar you are transferring away from as the losing registrar and the other as the gaining registrar.

This is just like so many similar situations of the past where people get spooked, rush to something different but ultimately revert back.

Much like the cPanel issue where so many said cPanel would die because of the pricing hikes. Never happened. Quite a few went to DirectAdmin but it was the lowend budget hosts that had to move to something cheaper.

Same thing here, people appear to switch to Mastodon but they soon realise it's not all that and most have likely already gone back to Twitter.

It would also be nice if Revolut would do a joint account, I am guessing their limited offering is due to what they can do without a full licence.

I do have Monzo and Starling, there are differences, but overall I just prefer Revolut for what I need it for.

But in any event and back on topic. Just don't use your regular accounts to make purchases on the internet when it comes to hosting and other services. Many get by without incident but you appreciate it when it does happen and the impact is next to nothing.

@timconsidine

I use them for small but regular transactions, internet, travel and so on. I would never use them, Monzo, Starling or other online FI with my income or savings.

Revolut has a clear purpose for most, it is not their main banking account.

@timconsidine said in Fraudulent Charge on Credit Card - possible Contabo breach (TBD):

Just one word of caution : Revolut doesn't yet have a full UK banking licence, so don't put our life's savings with them.

They don't have any licence. The money you hold with them is still protected under FSCS as they use UK banks to hold the money who do have a licence.

They are completely safe up to the FSCS limit.

Not really a problem as their overall service is very limited until they get a licence. Early next year hopefully.

@humptydumpty This is why I never use a card I rely on for other things. All my hosting-related costs (everything on the internet in fact) go on Revolut, that way I never need to worry about cards being cancelled and I know for sure where the problem originates from.

@jdaviescoates said in Ghostboard.io - Analytics for Ghost blogs:

Mostly, I think, because doing basically anything with Ghost seems to require messing with code.

This is definitely a reason. It can be difficult to make any changes without going into the code.

I also don't like their 'integrations' which is a sloppy alternative to an app store for add-ons. A prime example, inserting images using unsplash, they have that built-in but it is kind of useless. If you directly add an image using the unsplash integration it can't resize it so your site ends up with large non-optimized images. Solution? Download the image and then upload it. WTAF?

Most of their integrations require adding things to the header, CDNs and so on, it just ends up bloating the site and slowing it down.

Far too opinionated in the way you should, perhaps must use it.

It is a great idea, works well for many who just want to start blogging and have no specific theme/plugin requirements but done in node.js has created so many limitations it's just not very flexible.

Looks quite good though, the pricing is not that bad when you compare similar plugins on WordPress. Certainly appears quite feature-rich.

I like Ghost for many reasons but am still nervous about it for reasons I can't explain.

@robi - Definately in Portsmouth, it's a configuration issue that is the cause, I gave them a full trace log back to Portsmouth showing precisely where the issue is, just needed a little tweak and it would have largely been sorted. Hence my support ticket to nudge them, which they didn't appear to appreciate

But regardless, whether you are paying 8 EUR for 6vCPU/8GB Ram or 27 EUR for 10vCPU/60GB Ram (lol) they are without doubt horribly oversold. Your mileage will vary. All about setting expectations and if you don't expect much then you won't be disappointed.

Like I said before, 20ms to 80ms may not seem much in isolation but there are other factors which impact visitors inside/outside of the UK and so on. For most that don't do a lot of optimization, it is unlikely to be a noticeable difference. So if Contabo works for people, then it's good for what it is.

@marcusquinn said in Contabo: New UK Region:

Top be fair to any provider offering anything priced in single digits, but they time they've paid staff to answer an email or two the cost of business exceeds the income. I think most provider's smallest instances are really loss-leader marketing.

Not relevant in relation to the issue though. Whether I pay 8 EUR or 80 EUR, it will not change the problem of an 80ms roundtrip, it will be the same for any service within that DC. It could be teething issues that will get better, either way, not my concern anymore.