Does Nitrous Networks have Better Minecraft Hosting than Shockbyte?
We Put both services to the test. Read on to find out more
We have had quite a few requests in the last while to do a review on Nitrous Networks Minecraft Hosting so we thought we would finally get around to it.
But to make things even more interesting, we decided to compare them to another popular Minecraft Hosting service, Shockbyte.
You might be surprised to see the results.
Features
First, let’s compare some of the most important features of each service. Below is a summary of each Minecraft host.
| Feature | Nitrous Networks | Shockbyte |
| Refund Policy | 7 Days* | 24 hours |
| Server Locations | 8 | 4 |
| Reviews* | 4.5 / 5 | 3 / 5 |
| Dedicated IP | $1.60/month | $5.00/month |
| SSD Storage | Yes | Yes |
Feature Comparison
Our feature summary doesn’t explain the differences fully, so let’s take a look at each point, one by one.
Refund Policy
Refunds in the Minecraft hosting industry are typically pretty tough. I can’t personally blame the hosting companies as there tends to be a high rate of fraud in this market so they need to protect themselves.
Now, having said that, let’s take a look at the two companies and see how they compare for offering refunds.
Shockbyte
Shockbyte offers a 24 hour moneyback guarantee. Definitely not the best in the industry but at least they offer one. Digging deeper into the reviews at Trustpilot shows that they seem to not like to give refunds as there are a lot of reviews commenting on this issue.
Normally we wouldn’t be too concerned about these complaints since it is way more common for people to leave reviews when they are unhappy than when they are pleased. The problem is that virtually every page we reviewed on Trustpilot had this same complaint listed over and over again.
Nitrous Networks
Nitrous Networks offers a 7 day moneyback guarantee. But it’s not quite so straightforward. According to their Terms of Service (TOS), they only offer refunds if their services are at fault. That doesn’t seem so great but it does hold them to account for providing a decent product since these are the examples of valid reasons for asking for a refund:
- The control panel being unavailable for more than an hour.
- Your service being unavailable before any mods/addons or maps have been installed on to the server.
- An error resulting in the activation of your service taking longer than 24 hours.
- No initial reply to a support ticket within 12 hours.
While we are not fans of conditions being applied to refund policies, at least Nitrous Networks gives a reasonable amount of time to make sure their service is up to par and will honor refunds if they don’t live up to their end of the bargain.
Server Locations
Shockbyte
Shockbyte offers only one server location in North America and one in Europe. They also have servers located in Singapore and Australia. If you are located in or near Singapore or Australia, Shockbyte might perform better as Nitrous Networks has no servers in these areas.
Nitrous Networks
If you are located in Europe or North America, Nitrous Networks has much better server choices for you than Shockbyte. Here is a list of Nitrous Network’s server locations:
- London, UK
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Falkenstein, Germany
- Quebec, Canada
- Ashburn, VA, USA
- Atlanta, GA, USA
- Phoenix, AZ, USA
- Buffalo, NY, USA
Reviews
This is where things really start to fall apart. We compared user reviews on various platforms that can be trusted for impartiality. These include:
- Trustpilot
- Hostadvice
- Spigotmc
- Minecraftforum
We analyzed hundreds of reviews and forum postings on the above sites and found that Truspilot’s ratings of both services was more or less accurate when compared to all the sites in general.
Overall, Shockbyte is a more well known brand than Nitrous Networks. Perhaps the popularity of their services is to blame for their much lower review rating when compared to their competitors.
Two of the most common complaints regarding Shockbyte on Trustpilot are lack of support and not receiving refund, even when asked for within the 24 hour time window.
We noticed on Shockbyte’s Facebook page that they have removed the option to rate their service. But thanks to Google, we are able to see what their rating was prior to removing the rating feature. Can’t say as I blame them.
Support
Hopefully when you order a service, everything works great and you don’t need to contact support to fix problems. We all know that this isn’t always the case. I’m sure you’ll agree that it can be very frustrating to be ready to play only to hit some kind of a technical glitch.
Both Shockbyte and Nitrous Networks offer online chat as well as ticketing support. For both services, online chat is only going to be of use for the simplest of problems and both companies will request you open a ticket for any questions or problems that require real support.
In our opinion, using a ticketing system for tech support is a good idea since you then have a complete record of your conversation with the company. It allows both you and the tech support department to review previous messages to ensure the best support possible is being given.
Nitrous Networks
Support response seems to be where Nitrous Networks really shines. During our analysis of hundreds of reviews of both companies, we read time and time again about how quick and knowledgeable tech support is at this company.
Making support a top priority is clearly why Nitrous Networks overall reviews are so positive. In our opinion, quality of support is the second most important feature of any hosting company – with the first most important being quality of the hosting service.
While we all hope that we don’t need to use tech support, it is reassuring to know that Nitrous is able to answer your questions quickly and accurately to get you back to your game.
Shockbyte
The number one complaint we read hundreds of times over on our sample review forums is the general lack of support at Shockbyte. This ranged from slow responses to tickets, inaccurate replies and often times no response at all to open tickets.
Want to get a response to your support ticket at Shockbyte quickly? Sure, just shell out another $3 and apparently they will respond faster.
To be fair, tech support is one of the single largest costs to most hosting companies. After using and reviewing hundreds of services including web hosting, vpn’s, minecraft hosting and more we have found that more often than not that the quality of support is what makes a service shine or fail.
Shockbyte definitely gets a fail in the support department. Support is a vital part of any hosting business and charging people to get a response in a reasonable period of time is unfair. Perhaps Shockbyte should charge a bit more for their services so they could afford to hire more staff and provide decent support in the first place.
Summary
For hosting services such as Minecraft Hosting, price is only one of many factors you need to consider. Quality of servers, speed and knowledge of support and low latency / ping times are all more important considerations than price.
There is an old saying: “Buy cheap, buy twice“, meaning that if you buy the cheap option you will inevitably be unhappy with your purchase and end up buying the one you should have in the first place.
If price is your only consideration, then Shockbyte is probably your best choice as Nitrous Networks offers a premium service but at a slightly higher price. If you want a game server that will run reliably with fast speeds and low ping times, then Nitrous Networks is your clear choice.
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