Unity Collab Questions

I was using Git (specifically Gitea) and the results were perfect at first. However, it didn't exactly work for my usecase.

What I'm doing is developing a game whose server and client exists in the same project. I don't want to build after every small change to test server&client. My usecase was to duplicate the project where one editor acts as the server and the other editor acts as the client (same project , 2 editors).

The Git / Unity interaction here was slightly odd in that it is technically two entirely separate projects. Then I noticed Unity Collab. Went through setting it up and synced it into another client project and it worked.

Then for a few minutes I couldn't connect to the website or any service features in Unity. Came on the forums to see if something happened and noticed this thread has so many negatives about Unity Collab.

So here's a couple questions based on the usecase I described above.

1. Does the sync speed increase if you're a paid user of Unity Collab?

2. Is Unity Collab actually a functioning service? With lots claiming lost files, slow or painful sync times, a bothersome "checking for changes" popup etc. it seems risky. Note: I use 2018.2 so any future 2018.3 fixes may not apply to me unfortunately so I'm dependent on it working now.