Sakura.ne.jp review

First impression

Sakura Internet has been in business since 1999.  They are based in Japan and provided their customers with a variety of different hosting options.  

The site itself is in Japanese and does not have options to translate into English.

Even with Google translating for me there was a lot on the page that was displayed in images, which could not be translated.  Fortunately, there was enough information to get a good feel for the company and the services they provide.  If you don’t speak Japanese, however, you will want to go with another hosting option.

Sakura Internet is a data center operator founded in 1996. We support your Internet life and business with a focus on hosting services that lend server areas to customers and housing services that store your equipment at our data centers.

You’ll get a 99.99% uptime guarantee with this company, which is better than what most hosting providers today can offer.  They use good quality hardware and keep it in quality data centers to reduce the risk of outages and other problems.  They also have solid state drives, which are very stable so your data is protected.

Trial period

They also offer a two week free trial, which is nice. Their hard drives are configured with RAID 1 mirroring for added speed and stability and they also provide good virus checking software to keep your site clean.  There really isn’t anything that makes this company stand out from other hosting providers in a significant way, but there aren't any important features that are missing either so you’ll likely have a good overall experience.

There are a lot of different hosting options to choose from. They offer shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers and cloud hosting packages.  Within each of these categories there are a number of different choices you can make to ensure you’re getting exactly what you need.

Billing cycle

Whenever dealing with companies that sell only in a foreign currency it can be difficult to get a really good feel for the price.  Even once converted to dollars there are additional factors that can influence whether it is a good deal or not.  As you would expect, this company’s prices are listed in the Japanese Yen.

Billing options are flexible, with monthly,  and annual billing cycles available to accommodate different customer preferences and budgetary requirements. Discounts are offered on longer-term commitments, incentivizing customers to opt for extended billing cycles. The company's billing system is transparent, with no hidden fees, and provides clear information on renewal costs and any additional services.

Control panel

Sakura offers In-house cPanel dashboard on their hosting service, ensuring a user-friendly and intuitive interface for website and server management. The control panel allows easy management of web files, databases, email accounts, and domain settings, along with one-click installations for popular applications like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.

Limits

Each Sakura hosting plan comes with different resource limits, including disk space, bandwidth, CPU usage, and memory. These limits are designed to meet the needs of various types of websites, from small personal blogs to larger e-commerce sites. The company also offers scalable solutions, allowing customers to upgrade their plans as their website grows, ensuring that the hosting environment can adapt to increasing demands.

Light Plan - can host 1 website, comes with up to 100GB SSD Storage, and Unlimited Bandwidth.

Standard Plan - can host up to 5 websites, up to 300GB SSD Storage, and Unlimited Bandwidth.

Premium Plan - can host unlimited websites, up to 400GB SSD Storage, and Unlimited Bandwidth.

Security

Sakura Security is a top priority, with measures including firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and regular malware scans to protect against online threats. The company employs SSL encryption for data transfer, ensuring that sensitive information remains secure.

Shared SSL is a service that allows our customers to share and use our SSL certificates. Unlike proprietary SSL, you can easily run a secure site for free.

Foreign IP address filter is a function that allows you to restrict access from overseas to specific protocols such as FTP and SMTP. Security can be strengthened by preventing unauthorized access from overseas.

OS

Sakura provides flexibility in operating systems which are Linux hosting solutions. Linux is an open source operating system (OS). An operating system is the software that directly manages a system's hardware and resources, like CPU, memory, and storage. The OS sits between applications and hardware and makes the connections between all of your software and the physical resources that do the work.

Support

This is one area where I couldn’t find much information about the company.  They didn’t have a page on their site that was dedicated to support, or at least not one that was in English.  This makes it difficult to evaluate the quality of the support they offer.  I did not find any customers complaining about their support teams, but presumably most reviews would be in Japanese anyway so I only was able to find a few.  While there is no reason to think this company would have bad support, it would be nice to have more information.

Although Sakura has a support information page where you can find more information, FAQ contents, and Knowledgebase. They also offer Chat support, Email support and Phone support options.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for hosting in Japan, this is a good company to consider.  They have a lot of features and packages to choose from and their prices seem quite reasonable.  They are also a very reliable hosting provider so your site will be up and running for your customers at all times.

Sakura Japanese hosting company offers a robust and reliable hosting solution for a diverse clientele. With its focus on security, performance, and customer support, it stands out as a competitive option in the hosting market.