UDN Hosting Review – Hosting for Non-profit, Scientific, Anti-censorship Projects

This UDN hosting review will see if UDN qualifies as one of the best anonymous offshore hosting companies, or not?

It’s made with a very “not for profit” mindset and that’s one of the primary trust-factors.

If you need to host content which your govt./country/society won’t accept, it may be worth a peek.

Before we start with this UDN host review, note that the company is pretty “non-traditional” and you may see a few things which you don’t generally expect.

Table of Contents:

But hey, this piece wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t worth it. Let’s get started then with this UDN hosting review then?

UDN Hosting Overview

UDN stands for “Ukranian Data Network”. I said “non-traditional” earlier, didn’t I? Well, the website is one of the most basic websites you’ll ever see. This is what it looks like:

So, it basically is just a page and nothing else. Clearly shows how the company doesn’t care about “looking good”.

This is why I said it’s a company whose primary mission isn’t to “earn money”. Else, they’d make their website look good, professional and attractive, wouldn’t they?

Here’s an overview of its features:

  • Primary URL: https://www.urdn.com.ua/
  • Servers in: Ukraine
  • Payment methods: Crypto + Fiats
  • Cheapest Plan: $6.00/month.
  • Servers: VPS, collocation
  • Server management: Available, optional, charged extra.

If those features satisfy some of your requirements, your time on this UDN hosting review wouldn’t be wasted.

What are the offered server locations?

As the name suggests, it offers servers from Ukraine. Kiev, Ukraine is the location if I’ve to be exact.

Now, from a legal perspective, Ukraine sure is a good place to host content away from the more conservative governments.

No other location is offered or available, but I’d say Ukraine is a good option by itself.

You can also check my BlueAngelHost review or KatzGlobal review . They’re some of the most location-rich, DMCA ignored offshore hosting companies.

Is UDN hosting anonymous?

The company on its homepage clearly mentions that, non-profit, scientific, and anti-censorship projects is what it focuses on.

It also says that it believes strongly in network neutrality, free & open-source software, and decentralization.

It even has mentioned “privacy” as one of its features.  This does assure us that the company does respect user-privacy.

Then, because the webpage is basic, the orders need to be placed manually. This further is desirable because then there wouldn’t be any automated links created between you and the company. You can use anonymous E-mails to place and manage an order!

Obviously, it also accepts payments via Cryptocurrencies. (Complete list provided in the “Payments” section below.)

All in all, I’d say it’s pretty anonymous.

Are UDN servers good?

As I always do in my reviews of these best anonymous offshore hosting companies, I’ll put the servers through a number of tests.

And, obviously, I’ll let you verify the displayed results independently and from your side. You don’t just need to trust “screenshots”.

The three tests I’ll be conducting are:

  • Page load-time test
  • Server Response Time test
  • And traffic-handling test.

The tests will be conducted on the domain- https://www.UDN.com.ua/. We’ve verified that the domain is indeed hosted on UDN servers, and here’s proof:

Let’s get started?

Page load-time test

It’s a simple load-time test which measures the overall time required to load a page in its entirety.

Just being  fair and honest though, the domain for this test is extremely lightweight. It’s a 2.5KB page and has no dynamic elements such as images, scripts etc.

Hence, the load-time for a more content rich website will surely not be as fast as these results.

Either way, I tested the servers from 4 different corners of the world. It performed the best from Germany and only needed a load-time of 148ms.

(Verify result).

UK, London came up second with 192ms. It performed good even for U.S visitors and only needed 611 ms  of load-time.

Asia requests were the most delayed and required 1.38 seconds to load up. But, that’s expected considering the server location.

Now, these results are pretty biased because the load-time is heavily centred around a website’s “content”.

So, we move to our second test which will get us results which depend less on every website’s individual content.

Server Response Time test (SRT)

The SRT too obviously depends on a website’s content, but, it also takes into account the actual server’s performance.

In other words, if the SRT results are good, it’ll mean the servers indeed are good. If the SRT results aren’t good, it means the numbers above are only good because of the low page-size.

Here’s the result I obtained using Bitcatcha (verify results):

Now, it’s graded A+ by Bitcatcha. Also, if you look at the SRT numbers from London or Germany you’ll be impressed.

Even for Asian regions such as Banglore and Singapore the results are better than what I expected.

So yes, you can  use UDN regardless of where your visitors are from.

SRT when traffic spikes

The numbers above are impressive. But, will they remain so when there’s a traffic-spike on the domain?

So, I created 20 bots (virtual users) which I’ll send to the website. They’ll demand all the same resources from the server as a real human being.

This is the server activity which I recorded when the 20 virtual users stayed on the website for a duration of 5minutes. (Verify results).

The average SRT for the entire test duration was just 119.52ms. Now, this clearly means the server is capable of handling real-time traffic without slowing the website down.

In conclusion, I’ll say UDN hosting is very fast. The load-time results recorded earlier weren’t fast only because the domain had a basic web page. But, because the servers indeed offer good resources.

You can also check our Webcare 360 hosting review if server-speed is your topmost priority.

How can you pay on UDN hosting?

I’ve mentioned multiple times on this UDN hosting review that the company takes privacy seriously, haven’t I?

To ensure the same, it also accepts payments via a number of modes. Broadly, both cryptocurrencies and fiats are accepted.

When using Cryptocurrencies, you can pay via Bitcoin, Monero, Litecoin, or ZCash. Or, fiat modes can be used which include bank transfers, Western Union, PayPal, Bank transfers, Moneygram, RIA, Unistream, or even cash!

Because the orders are placed manually, it may be possible to negotiate some other mode of payment as well.

What are the offered modes of support?

If you’ve seen the website, you know there’s no live-chat. No “support ticket” feature exists either.

The only mode of contact possible is via XMPP/Jabber or E-mail. Again, they didn’t forget anonymity and privacy.

They’ve shared their PGP key on the contact page. E-mails can be encrypted. They’ll also encrypt the replies if and when you share your PGP key with them.

As far as languages goes, support is offered in English, German, Swedish, Spanish, French, and, obviously Ukranian.

What content is accepted/rejected on UDN hosting?

The company doesn’t have a public AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) page. Hence, there’s no clear list of the allowed or restricted content.

However, going by its claims of privacy, decentralization and anti-censorship, I’d say it probably allows everything. Obviously, except internationally illegal content such as illegal porn or terrorism.

I’m not entirely sure about its DMCA policy though.  It’s best if you get in touch with the team before making a purchase. Specify what you’ll be uploading and ask them if it’s allowed.

What are the UDN pricing plans?

The company doesn’t offer shared hosting plans. Only VPS and Collocation are available.

A total of 4 VPS plans exist:

  • V1: $6.00/month – 1vCPU/ 512MB RAM/ 40GB storage.
  • V2: $12.00/month – 2vCPU/ 1GB RAM/ 60GB storage.
  • V3: $23.00/month – 3vCPU/ 2 GB RAM/ 80GB storage.
  • V4: $45.00/month – 4vCPU/ 4GB RAM/ 100GB storage.

The bandwidth is unlimited on all the plans, considering you abide by the fair use policy.

The only limitation is that it only offers x86 and x86-64 operating systems. However, you can install a custom OS yourself. The company does provide Spice as well as VNC access for you to do so.

Note that these plans are customizable. So, if you need custom specs, just drop them an E-mail.

Moreover, “managed” services are available. They take care of the management on any of these plans, for an additional price, of course.

The Collocation services start at $50.00/month. No other plans are mentioned.

Final Verdict- UDN hosting review

So, is UDN hosting worth it? Well, if you’re seeking anonymity, privacy and a company which believes in anti-censorship views, then yes.

It doesn’t require registrations for ordering the servers, and that’s extremely rare. The payment modes are anonymous as well (when Crypto is used).

Based on the tests conducted above, I’d say t he servers too are pretty impressive. I’d have loved if it offered more locations, but it’s still acceptable.

All in all, there’s not a lot of reasons to not like the company. That’ll be all for this UDN hosting review folks. You can check any of our other reviews for the best anonymous web hosting companies if UDN didn’t meet your requirements.

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