What Is BandwagonHost
BandwagonHost (nicknamed “BanWaGong” in Chinese-speaking communities) is a VPS provider under IT7 Networks, a Canadian company. It’s not the cheapest VPS around — far from it. What makes it special is one thing: CN2 GIA routing to China.
If you don’t need connectivity to China, skip this review. There are much better options for the price.
Why People Pay Premium for CN2 GIA
CN2 GIA is China Telecom’s premium international transit network. The difference between regular routing and CN2 GIA to China:
| Metric | Regular Route (Vultr) | CN2 GIA (BandwagonHost) |
|---|---|---|
| Latency to Shanghai | 185ms | 138ms |
| Peak-hour packet loss | 8-15% | 0-0.5% |
| Evening stability | Heavily degraded | Rock solid |
During China’s peak internet hours (8-11pm CST), regular international routes get congested badly. CN2 GIA bypasses this congestion entirely. That’s what you’re paying for.
Benchmarks
Test: CN2 GIA-E plan, Los Angeles DC6, 1 vCPU / 1GB RAM.
Network (The Main Event)
China connectivity during peak hours (9pm CST):
| ISP | Latency | Packet Loss | Route |
|---|---|---|---|
| China Telecom | 140ms | 0% | CN2 GIA bidirectional |
| China Unicom | 165ms | 0.2% | AS4837 out / CN2 return |
| China Mobile | 175ms | 0.5% | CMI out / CN2 return |
These numbers are exceptional for US-West to China during peak. Most providers see 300ms+ latency and 10%+ packet loss at this time.
CPU
| Test | Score |
|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 Single | 780 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi | 790 |
Weak. This is bottom-tier CPU performance. Fine for a proxy or light web server, but don’t expect to run anything compute-intensive.
Disk IO
Sequential Write: 520 MB/s
4K Random Read: 32,000 IOPS
4K Random Write: 18,000 IOPSStandard SSD, not NVMe. Adequate for basic workloads but nothing to write home about.
Pricing
| Plan | Specs | Transfer | Route | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| THE PLAN | 1C/1G/20G | 1TB | CN2 GT | $49.99/yr |
| GIA-E | 1C/1G/20G | 500GB | CN2 GIA | $49.99/qtr |
| GIA-E | 2C/1G/40G | 1TB | CN2 GIA | $89.99/qtr |
| Tokyo | 2C/1G/20G | 500GB | Japan Softbank | $89.99/qtr |
For the hardware alone, these prices are terrible. A $50/year plan gives you 1GB RAM and 20GB storage — RackNerd offers 2.5GB RAM for $12/year. But RackNerd can’t touch China with a 10-foot pole during peak hours.
Who Should Buy BandwagonHost
- Users in China who need stable access to overseas servers
- Developers connecting back to China from abroad
- Anyone running services that must be accessible from mainland China with low latency
- People who want to pay with Alipay/WeChat (limited options elsewhere)
Who Should Skip
- Anyone whose users aren’t in China (Vultr/Hetzner are 3-5x better value)
- Projects needing high CPU/RAM (specs are too weak)
- Budget-limited users (same money gets much more hardware elsewhere)
- High-bandwidth applications (500GB-1TB/month is restrictive)
Final Take
BandwagonHost sells one thing: the network pipe to China. If that specific pipe is what you need, there are very few alternatives that match its reliability. But as a general-purpose VPS? It’s overpriced and underpowered.
Know exactly why you’re buying it before you pull the trigger.