Is it the best HIPAA-compliant hosting on the planet? That’s something I’d be answering throughout this Atlantic.net review.
To get you a clear picture of the company, I’ve set up my own server site and run multiple tests. This should get you a clear picture of its practical performances rather than on-paper claims.
If you need a server, HIPAA compliant or not, Atlantic.Net may be of some help. Whether they are a best fit for everyone, it is objective; but in my opinion they provide pretty decent features and their 100% SLA is industry leading.
In this piece, I’ve discussed the OS, server locations, backup options, AUP, collaboration features, and everything else you should be paying attention to when choosing a VPS.
Let’s get started, then?
Why trust this Atlantic.Net review?
I believe “reviews” should be first-hand experiences. Anyone can go to a website, read its features, and rewrite them. That’s not a review.
Hence, to ensure I bring you an accurate and genuine idea about Atlantic.Net, I signed up and tested their servers.
I’ve two servers hosted on Atlantic.Net as of now:
I also purchased a domain just for the purpose: https://www.updateland.in
As the screenshot above shows, this domain is routed to the nameservers from Atlantic.Net.
This is to prove that the domain is hosted on Atlantic.Net.
Hence, nothing I say in this review is mere speculation or opinion. It’s all my own experience. Let’s dive in then?
What services does Atlantic.Net offer?
This Atlantic.net review is only worth your time if it offers the services you need.
The company seems to be a one-stop solution for everything related to a hosting server.
It offers:
- HIPAA Compliant hosting
- WordPress hosting
- Dedicated servers
- Private/Virtual cloud
- Managed hosting
- And many other types of hosting and hosting add-ons.
Choice of 9 operating systems
Some of you reading this may be comfortable with Windows for its better UI, while Linux remains the more app-friendly choice. Maybe you’re into FreeBSD or Oracle?
In any case, Atlantic.Net lets you select from a pool of 9 different operating systems. The available choices are:
- Ubuntu
- CentOS
- Rocky
- Arch
- FreeBSD
- Fedora
- Debian
- Windows
- And Oracle.
One-click applications
Many of you on this Atlantic.Net review may just be looking for a HIPAA-compliant WordPress host. Looking at their third-party reviews, an impressive list of their awards, and a top-notch website makes an impressive case for their contendership for the number 1 spot for top-class HIPAA hosting services.
Atlantic.Net offers a ton of one-click applications you can install. The list includes:
- WordPress
- Lamp
- MySQL
- Docker
- Node.js
- Nextcloud etc.
Of course, you’ll need to get the licenses separately if your application requires a license.
7 server locations
Server locations may be of importance to you for multiple reasons, eh? For example, you may have a very targeted audience region, or does your content need special legal privileges?
Whatever your reason, Atlantic.Net lets you choose from 7 different server locations; the options include:
- Dallas US
- Ashburn US
- New York US
- San Francisco US
- Orlando, US
- London, UK
- And Toronto, Canada.
The company also plans to offer Amsterdam and Singapore as new locations in the future. Does that make a massive impact on my decision? Probably not. However, more locations are always more desirable, aren’t they?
Rest assured, all the available locations are tier-1 servers and geographically capable of serving a global audience, aren’t they?
Atlantic.Net Pricing plans
This is one aspect of Atlantic that should impress you. Atlantic.Net understands everyone’s budget and requirements differ.
Hence, it doesn’t force you to overpay for features/specs you may never use.
For starters, it has “purpose-based” servers. You can choose from a pool of servers designed to meet specific purposes:
- General
- Storage optimized
- Memory-optimized
- Compute Optimized etc.
Then, you can choose from over a dozen different available plans.
As the screenshot shows, the plans start at $4.00/month. That’s a pretty low entry point, wouldn’t you agree?
Optional Add-ons
Another aspect I like about Atlantic.Net is it doesn’t force features on you. Instead, you get to choose what you need or do not need.
E.g., when setting up the servers, you get to choose if you’d like additional backups.
Yes, those are available. However, without backups, you risk losing months of your hard work in case something goes wrong, don’t you?
You can opt for daily backups, which will cost 20% of your server price.
Similarly, you can choose to enable IPv6. Even though this is free, the company doesn’t just shove it down your throat. You get to decide if that’s something you’d like to have.
Free snapshots (50 GB/year)
So, the backups we discussed earlier aren’t free! But that doesn’t mean you must pay for backups!
Atlantic.Net does allow manual snapshots.
You can use these snapshots when upgrading your servers, changing your servers, or for any other purpose requiring a backup of your website.
To the best of my knowledge, the free snapshot offer stays active for one year from the date of your signing up.
After the period expires, it’s just 5 cents/GB.
Extremely easy admin UI
So, how hard is it to use Atlantic.Net in general? I’d say not very hard.
Here’s the admin UI you see when you first log in to your account:
As is clear, the left sidebar is the navigational panel. You can access the different parts/features that Atlantic.Net provides using the options on the left sidebar.
The options are laid down pretty neatly and are easy to understand, aren’t they?
Adding a server is equally easy, as I’m sure you’ve spotted the “Add server” button. All the servers you’ve provisioned are listed at the center and can be accessed with a single click!
Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)
As with any VPS, Atlantic.Net has its list of contents/services it allows and doesn’t allow. This is what’s included in the AUP.
- Anything illegal or harmful to others
- Abusive languages
- Spamming
- Obscene content.
I am including a link to their AUP, I think its pretty standard.
Easy upgrades
Eventually, you’ll outgrow your initial server requirements (hopefully), won’t you? As your business grows, you’ll need more RAM, bandwidth, and everything else.
Fortunately, you can scale your Atlantic.Net servers in a single click!
There’s this “reprovision” button that lets you do just that.
Do note that once upgraded, you can not downscale your server currently, but you can always provision a smaller server and migrate accordingly.
Root access /Private IPs
Most of you may be interested in these additional features if you’re going for a VPS.
Of course, as with any VPS worth its salt, you get root access with Atlantic servers. Similarly, private IPs, are assigned.
You can even purchase additional private IPs, which cost $0.003 per hour/IP address.
Invite team members without sharing login credentials
It’s possible some of you on this Atlantic.Net review work with a team, eh?
It’s not always practical to share login credentials for your entire server with the team.
That’s where the newly introduced Teams feature on Atlantic.Net comes to the rescue.
It lets you invite team members and grant them limited access. For example, you can allow access to IP addresses, DNS, Block storage, etc. There are different groups/roles, depending on which each member’s access level is defined.
This is an entirely free feature included with all Cloud accounts.
50 GB free Secure Block Storage
Another major freebie from Atlantic.Net is its free SBS.
It’s basically your hard disk on the cloud. You can use it for your website or anything else.
The “Secure” part of the SBS is what’s interesting. For starters, the data is encrypted at rest. But additionally, it’s also mirrored multiple times. This ensures that even if one such block is unavailable, your entire data remains available from one of these additional mirrors.
You get 50 GB of free storage for your first year. After that, even after the year ends, it’s still priced at a low 7.9 cents/GB/month.
Server tests and results
So, we’ve discussed what the company “claims” to offer so far. However, the servers need to be of good “quality” (speed/uptime), too, don’t you agree?
To test the same, I’ll run a few tests on my website www.updateland.in
First, I’ll run a basic Pingdom test. It gives me a basic idea of the website’s speed. The goal here is to get a website that loads <2 seconds.
As the screenshot shows, my website did load fast and within the preferred time limit. (Please excuse the “Performance Grade” because I didn’t optimize my site correctly, and the server isn’t at fault here).
But hey, the Pingdom test heavily depends on each website’s content. The text, graphics, background scripts, and a lot more.
So, it can’t be the universal test to ascertain a server’s quality, can it?
To get a second opinion on the server’s speed and performance, I ran another test on it.
This is the “Server Response Time” test. It checks the server’s speed and the time required by the server to respond to a browser’s request.
Because my servers are based in the U.S., it stands to reason I got the best response for the U.S. locations. However, even the highest delay was just 274ms which still is pretty decent. You can run a speed test here
In a nutshell, I’d say the server’s performance is acceptable and generally impressive.
Our Take:
For over 29 years, Atlantic.Net has been a trusted and tested web hosting provider, specializing in HIPAA and PCI Cloud Server Hosting.Atlantic.Net also provides top notch HIPAA Word Press Hosting and If you have huge sets of computation for clinical trials and research; Atlantic.Net provides an excellent cloud platform for Bio Tech, Pharma and universities.
More information on PCI Hosting https://www.atlantic.net/pci-compliant-hosting/
Atlantic.Net review: Is it the best HIPAA-compliant host?
The HIPAA part of things is mostly just compliance. However, the company does take care of logs, firewalls, business associate agreement, and everything you need from a HIPAA-compliant server.
As far as its server features go. I’d say it’s pretty impressive. Wouldn’t you? For starters, there’s the extremely easy-to-use UI. Then, you can choose from 9 different operating systems, 7 locations (more coming soon), free snapshots, free SBS, and so much more.
You even get 1-click applications such as WordPress and cPanel. So yes, I’d say Atlantic.Net is worth a try, at the least. The best part? There’s a 100% free trial you can sign up for off this Atlantic.Net review and take a deeper look with its free trial.
