Cryptoservers vs 1984 Hosting — which to pick?
A multi-region alternative to Iceland-only 1984, with modern orchestration and a weekly signed canary.
Looking for an alternative to 1984 Hosting? 1984 Hosting is the Iceland EFF-aligned veteran; Cryptoservers spans 4 jurisdictions with modern infra. Cryptoservers is an offshore VPS and dedicated bare-metal host incorporated in Saint Kitts and Nevis, with hosting in Iceland, the Netherlands, Romania and Switzerland. We accept seven cryptocurrencies, ship 1 Tbps of DDoS absorption included on every plan, and provision a VPS in 41 seconds median from confirmed payment to SSH login.
Side by side
1984 Hosting vs Cryptoservers — the spec table
Numbers and facts only. Where the competitor wins, the table says so.
| Specification | 1984 Hosting | Cryptoservers |
|---|---|---|
| Datacenter regions | 1 (Iceland) | Iceland, Netherlands, Romania, Switzerland |
| Corporate jurisdiction | Iceland | Saint Kitts & Nevis (outside 14-Eyes) |
| Founded | 2006 | 2024 |
| Payment methods | Cash by mail, BTC, fiat (cards, SEPA) | BTC, XMR, LTC, ETH, DASH, BCH, DOGE (crypto only) |
| KYC at signup | None | None — payment-only signup |
| DDoS protection | Basic | 1 Tbps anycast, included on every plan |
| Provisioning median | Instant on most plans (no published metric) | 41 seconds (weekly canary attestation) |
| Hardware era | Mixed; older nodes in fleet | EPYC + Xeon Gold + DDR5 NVMe |
| Warrant canary | No formal cadence | Weekly, PGP-signed |
| Status / SLA artefacts | Limited public reporting | /canary/, /status/, /network/ all public |
Honest assessment
What 1984 Hosting does well — and where it falls short
Each competitor gets real credit for what they do well. The cons section reflects published facts and recurring customer feedback, not marketing FUD.
Strengths of 1984 Hosting
- One of the oldest privacy-first hosts (founded 2006) with deep alignment to EFF-style free-speech principles.
- Accepts cash by mail — genuinely unique payment option no other reputable host offers.
- Bitcoin support since the early days of crypto adoption in hosting.
- Iceland-only with the same constitutional and IMMI advantages as other Icelandic hosts.
- Instant deploy on most VPS plans — operationally responsive.
Limitations of 1984 Hosting
- Single Iceland jurisdiction — no failover for legal-redundancy threat models.
- Smaller team and less visible technical expansion than larger no-KYC competitors.
- DDoS protection is basic; large attacks have resulted in extended downtime in past incidents.
- No formal warrant canary cadence or transparency artefact tracking.
- Customer panel and product UI feel dated relative to current peers.
Decision guide
Which one fits your use case?
Sometimes the competitor is the right answer. We say so when it is.
Pick 1984 Hosting if…
- Cash-by-mail payment is meaningful to your operational security model.
- Brand alignment with EFF-style free-speech messaging is part of why you're choosing the host.
- Iceland-only is acceptable and brand age (~20 years) is a primary trust signal.
Pick Cryptoservers if…
- You want four datacenter regions instead of Iceland only.
- You want modern orchestration with a published 41-second deploy median and weekly canary attestation.
- You need 1 Tbps DDoS absorption included rather than basic protection that has historically struggled with large attacks.
- You prefer an actively-maintained customer panel and modern infrastructure (EPYC, Xeon Gold, DDR5 NVMe).
Cryptoservers in 4 facts
What's different about Cryptoservers
VPS from $16.99
Five tiers of KVM virtual servers on AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon Gold with DDR4/DDR5 ECC and NVMe storage.
Dedicated bare-metal
Five single-tenant tiers from $79/mo — full IPMI, 4-hour hardware-swap SLA, no neighbours.
4 jurisdictions
Iceland, Netherlands, Romania and Switzerland. Real legal redundancy across regimes.
1 Tbps DDoS
Anycast scrubbing fabric included on every plan. Public ASN and peering matrix.
FAQ
1984 Hosting vs Cryptoservers — questions answered
Is 1984 Hosting still operating?
Yes — 1984 Hosting has operated continuously since 2006 and remains one of the longest-running privacy-first hosts in Iceland. The team is small, the infrastructure footprint is single-jurisdiction, and the brand is aligned with EFF-style free-speech principles. For users who specifically want a long-tenured Icelandic host with cash-by-mail payment as an option, 1984 remains a credible pick. For multi-regional resilience or modern orchestration, alternatives exist.
What is the best alternative to 1984 Hosting?
For multi-jurisdictional VPS hosting, Cryptoservers is the most direct alternative — four regions including Iceland, modern AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon Gold hardware with DDR5 ECC and NVMe, 41-second provisioning, weekly PGP-signed warrant canary, 1 Tbps DDoS included. If Iceland-only with cash-by-mail payment is a hard requirement, 1984 itself is the only viable pick. OrangeWebsite is another Iceland option with broader fiat-payment support but a similar single-jurisdiction limitation.
Does 1984 Hosting accept cash payments?
Yes — 1984 Hosting genuinely accepts cash by mail, which is unusual for any hosting provider and a feature no major competitor matches. For threat models where blockchain-traceable payments are still too much exposure, this is operationally meaningful. Cryptoservers is crypto-only and does not accept cash; the use of Monero for payments achieves a comparable privacy outcome on-chain but requires the buyer to already hold or acquire XMR. Different threat models, different right-tools.
Can I host a Tor exit node on 1984?
Tor relays and exits can be run on 1984 Hosting, consistent with Iceland's permissive posture toward Tor traffic. The handling and abuse-response process is less formally documented than at peers like Cryptoservers, where Tor-relay hosting has its own dedicated /solutions/ page and the abuse SLA is published. Both providers can host the workload; the difference is in the visibility of the operational support contract.
Does 1984 Hosting have multiple datacenters?
No — 1984 Hosting operates from Iceland only. There is no second region for failover or geographic redundancy. Cryptoservers covers Iceland alongside the Netherlands, Romania and Switzerland, so if Iceland-anchored hosting is what you want but you also want an alternate region available, the multi-jurisdictional structure of Cryptoservers solves both at once. For Iceland-purist setups, 1984 and OrangeWebsite remain the two primary options.
Is Cryptoservers more reliable than 1984?
Direct uptime comparisons are hard without published SLAs from both sides — 1984 does not publish formal uptime metrics. Cryptoservers publishes a weekly PGP-signed canary that includes infrastructure status, and a public /status/ page. On DDoS resilience, Cryptoservers ships a 1 Tbps anycast scrubbing fabric on every plan; 1984's protection is more basic and has resulted in extended outages during large attack events historically. For workloads where DDoS resilience matters, the gap is real.
How fast does Cryptoservers deploy a VPS compared to 1984?
1984 Hosting reports instant deploy on most plans but does not publish a measured median. Cryptoservers measures deploy time as part of the weekly canary attestation and reports a 41-second median from confirmed payment to SSH access. For operationally rapid workflows (CI runners spinning up per pull request, ephemeral failover capacity, time-sensitive deployments), the published and audited 41-second figure is more useful than an unaudited "instant" claim. For one-off deployments the difference matters less.
Is 1984 better aligned with privacy activism than Cryptoservers?
The brands tell different stories. 1984 leans hard into EFF-aligned free-speech messaging, draws its name from Orwell, and has cultural alignment with the privacy-activism community. Cryptoservers is more operationally focused — the marketing is about uptime, deploy speed, jurisdictional posture and DDoS capacity rather than political alignment. Both will host the same workloads (Tor relays, mail servers, journalism infrastructure) without takedowns. Pick on infrastructure and jurisdictions; either brand carries the political weight you want.
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Read comparisonReady to deploy? 60 seconds, no email
Pay in any of seven coins. Pick a jurisdiction. Get root in 41 seconds median.