DigiRock.co.jp review

First impression

GMO Digirock is a web hosting services provider and software development company based in Kita-ku, Osaka, Japan. They first opened their doors in 1999 under the name MyRanking.com, reselling dedicated servers out of California. In 2011 aligned their business with the GMO Internet Group of companies, before finally settling on their name as GMO Digirock in 2013. This company is made up of a close-knit team of 23 hosting professionals and offers services such as Domain Registrations, Shared Hosting, and VPS Hosting.

Trial Period

Their Shared Hosting plans come with a 10-day trial period, allowing new users to explore their services at no cost. For VPS plans, they offer two categories: V1, featuring budget-friendly options, and V2, focused on performance. V1 plans include a 30-day trial period, while V2 plans offer a discounted rate for the initial 30 days and a 30-day refund policy if the service falls short of expectations.

Billing Cycle

Digirock's Shared Hosting plans offer customers flexibility in commitment periods. You can opt for monthly, quarterly, twice-yearly, annual, biennial, or triennial terms, whilst their VPS plans provide annual, biennial, or triennial options. While their prices are already reasonable, opting for longer periods entitles you to a slight discount.

They currently accept all major Credit Cards, Bank Transfers, and Convenience Store Payments at 7-Eleven, Lawson, Family Mart, and Seicomart shops, as well as WebMoney as valid payment methods.

Control Panel

They include the XREA Control Panel on their hosting plans. This intuitive and user-friendly panel was custom-developed by their in-house team and allows users to manage all aspects of their hosting account with ease.

Limits

Digirock Shared Hosting plans come in three options to choose from, namely XREA Free, XREA Plus, and Mail & Backup, which as the name implies doesn’t offer any website space, but purely a unique domain name with emails.

The XREA Free plan includes 10GB SSD disc space, 5x MySQL databases, 5x PostgreSQL databases, and 100x POP/IMAP email accounts, but as this plan is free of charge, one needs to be aware that it does include advertisements being displayed on your site, whilst the XREA Plus plan features a generous 200GB SSD space, 10x MySQL (MariaDB) databases, 10x PostgreSQL databases, and 100x POP/IMAP email accounts. Both these plans include a Shared SSL certificate.

Lastly, there’s the Mail & Backup plan that offers 100GB space and unlimited POP/IMAP email accounts.

Their VPS plans, running on Apache 2.4 series web servers, offer various scalable options that range from 200GB SSD space, 10x MySQL databases, and 200x POP/IMAP email accounts on the Core Mini V1 plan, right up to 800GB NVMe SSD (RAID10) disc space, and unlimited MySQL databases on the Core-Z plan.

Website Builder

Digirock does not offer a website builder as part of their plans, however they do include a one-click WordPress installation. This hugely popular content management system (CMS), is a software program that enables individuals with no coding skills to create, edit, organize, and publish content to the Internet, making building and managing your own websites a breeze, and with 835 million + websites running on this CMS, one can hardly go wrong.

Security

Although Digirock keeps most details of their server security confidential, they do disclose that all plans are protected by a network firewall, and come standard with advanced spam and virus filtering, as well as a free SSL certificate by Let’s Encrypt. Customers do have the option of buying more secure certificates such as AlphaSSL, ShopSSL, and GlobalSign Company Certification SSL, a reliable corporate certificate that confirms the existence of a company through inquiries in third-party databases, telephone calls, and more, at an additional cost.

Complimentary backups across multiple regions to ensure the safety and integrity of your data are also included.

OS

Both their Shared & VPS servers come standard with the CentOS operating system, a community-driven open-source Linux distribution based on the Red Hat Enterprise source code and known for its great security features. Additionally, their VPS plans offer full root access, empowering users to install their preferred operating system.

Support

They offer Email and Live Chat support between the hours of 10:00-17:00 (Japan local time) on their Shared Hosting plans, while VPS plans also include Phone support. Although replies are quick, one needs to be aware that support is only available in Japanese.

Conclusion

Digirock provides cost-effective plans powered by top-notch hardware and a high-speed 1TB backbone. These plans could be suitable if you're comfortable with limited support and are located in, and more importantly proficient in Japanese. However, if you're located elsewhere, it's advisable to explore other hosting providers as the language barrier alone could be too much for most.