Host experiences and testimonials thread

[Jacqui]

This thread is for posting your hosting experiences. We are looking for rational, supported testimonials here. Don't engage in idle chat and discussion in this thread, it will make the thread less effective. If you want to discuss a particular host than make a new thread, that's what this forum is here for.

*snippys*

hostrocket - http://www.hostrocket.com/ - corporate plan

my site on their servers - N/A

Pros:
1. Very fast. Great vB performance.
2. Support for GZIP. Good GZIP performance.
3. Excellent and very functional online control panel.
4. Great price for the features you get.

Cons:
1. Uptime isn't all that. Sometimes uptime and performance are awesome. Then sometimes you hit a period where your site goes to crap. The last couple days have been bad. They tell me they are working to fix it. You will find that different people have different things to say about hostrocket's uptime (whether good or bad). You would be wise to do some extra research.
2. Support tickets sometimes take a while to get a response.

Hostrocket is a great host but their uptime needs work (from my experience. other people might disagree). Great performance though. Very fast vB performance with GZIP enabled.

I'm sure this has probably been talked about in this thread already, but I'm blowed if I can find it, there's a fair few pages to go through there!
Can anyone tell me if the cons here have improved much since the first post a few years ago?

[Jacqui]

Oh, by the way, stay away from Lunar pages http://www.lunarpages.com/index.php - they have atrocious service!

They emailed our website telling us we'd been moved to an abuse server for exceeding our CPU usage, but didn't get back to our questions for over 3 days. We had no idea what the problem was, what could have caused it, nor did they give us /any/ insight whatsoever.

It has now been over 2 weeks and our website is still on the abuse server though we've done everything they have asked us to. We have lost members due to this downtime and there's no indication that we'll be taken off it anytime soon. The worst part about it is that some of our members are experiencing no problems accessing the site whatsoever, some have problems accessing the site sometimes (including our techs), some can only access the site using proxy servers, and others haven't been able to access the site at all since they moved us.

It has been a very frustrating and stressful experience for every one of us and we've had it with them.

[feldon23]

I would move IMMEDIATELY and reverse the credit card charges.

[Rob B]

Anything on Vista Pages?

http://www.vistapages.com/

VistaPages are pretty good. Their packages are very good and affordable. They do have their downsides though:

• Up and down uptime. The server loads are very high and you often get two or three minutes where your site goes down. Nothing major, but can be irritating.
• Replies to support tickets can be rushed and unhelpful.

But everything else is good.

They are not keen on having vB on their shared plans though. If you install vB when on a shared package you will soon be asked to move to semi-dedicated which is a jump of about $30 a month.

[Rob B]

I would move IMMEDIATELY and reverse the credit card charges.

Reverse credit card charges? Does that mean force a refund Please explain.

[Floris]

He probably means he will do a chargeback on the credit card.

[protosky.com]

Where can I find the count numbers of vBulletin Vs. PhpBB

Where can I find the count numbers of vBulletin Vs. PhpBB ?

--
Protosky Technologies
Data and Telecommunications
www.protosky.com

[Colin F]

I don't know of any such numbers available.
http://www.big-boards.com/ has a listing of some of the bigger forums on the internet, and what forum software they are using.

[feldon23]

How many people use phpBB (which is free and can be installed on most websites by clicking one button) vs. vBulletin ($165)?

Not a fair fight.

[Colin F]

$160 without VAT actually

[greenchicken]

How many people use phpBB (which is free and can be installed on most websites by clicking one button) vs. vBulletin ($165)?

Not a fair fight.

You get what you pay for, there is no finer board made than Vbull at any price...

[shwing]

Nothing bad to say about ServerMatrix. I pay more than I'd like to for probably more than I need at the moment, but it's been so good that sometimes I forget they're there. I like them a lot and have rented a server for over two years.

Server: Dual Xeon 2.8 GHz
Primary HDD: 73 GB SCSI
Secondary HDD: 73 GB SCSI
RAM: ECC Registered 2048 MB RAM
Number of ips: 11 IP Addresses with FloodGuard
Bandwidth: 2000 GB Bandwidth
Uplink Port Speed: 100 Mbps Uplink
Web Analytics: Urchin 300 profiles
Database: MySQL
Backup Service: Network Backup - 40 GB
Operating System: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Version 3 (recommended)
Server Management Plan: Gold
Control Panel: cPanel/WHM with Fantastico
Drive Controller: SCSI
Monthly Charge: $274

[James Kojiro]

The below statements are factual and are verifiable by my attorneys in Houston, Texas, United States and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He has copies of all correspondence between me and 1&1 and I will give his address upon request. He has over 200 copies of these articles and will surrender them for free.

It all started in the beginning of the year. 1&1 Internet, Inc. has been uncooperative throughout the entire process. My package only included domain names but this focuses on their overall support.

My invoices were paid to 1&1 and yet, they sent my bill to a collections agency. I had to pay that agency over $600 which so far totals $1200. However, I run my own small business which is in the process of moving to Canada. Basically, this means funds were tight (and still are).

After 4 months, I had completely paid off the debt to 1&1 and their collection agency but 1&1 would not unlock my account for 1 month. I called them at that time demanding that they cancel my package and the person on the other side of the phone confirmed the cancellation.

Now, they are charging me $125 in renewal fees and I called my lawyer in Houston, Texas to try to resolve this. THIS is the last thing I need because I am in the process of getting my Permanent Residence in Canada. I confrenced my lawyers in Edmonton, and in Houston with the people at 1&1 and they fought with us for an hour making absurd claims and threatening to take legal action against us for revealing this information to the public.

After the call, I conversed with my lawyers and they said that they wouldnt mind taking the heat for these pieces of detretis. I had drafted a contract with all of them so that we can distribute this. I had the transcripts typed up, translated in french, the phone call in mp3 and burned these things on 400 CDs. 200 of them will be at my lawyer's office in Houston overnight.

1&1 is a terrible company to do business with. Don't do hosting, domains nor anything else with them. I just got off of the phone with them. Get any domain you have with them off of the account. Move to a better registrar that respects their clients like Spirit Domains, Webnames.ca or Invision (once they start offering domain names). Move to a better hosting that truly respects you and your needs (Invision, A Small Orange or even eleven2)

Sincerely,
Kyle Korleski

[SirTalksalot]

Ouch that is bad Kyle,

I'm currently with 1and1, and I am most likely moving to ASO as soon as I can. Their CS is easily the worst I have ever experience, and there are many restrictions that they fail to mention until after you have signed up. I have contacted the Advertising Standards Agency, and await their reply with interest as I believe their adverts in this respect are misleading.

If you join 1and1, expect them to not be able to care less about you. When I wrote a letter to them expressing my disappointment and threatening to find a better host, I got yet another cut and paste reply; this one was explaining how I go about cancelling my account.

I get constant database errors through, and when I phoned up they said, "is it working now?",
to which I said, "yes",
only for them to reply, "so what's your problem?". I asked that they look into the constant problems, and they promised to look into it and email me with the results, neither of which they bothered to do. When I complained about this, I got my first hand typed reply explaining that "crashes happen", and that I would have to deal with it basically. No doubt that reply has now been added to their cut n'paste library.

AVOID 1and1 like you would the plague!

[James Kojiro]

You mean to tell me that you were lucky enough to actually get through the hold times? It doesn't matter because the phone support is as bad or worse than the e-mail support, which could take days to get back to you.

Someone ought to contact the Better Business Bureau on these cyber-thugs.