Hosting Forum

Netfirms Hosting Review

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:56:17 +0000

I recently took advantage of a netfirms hosting offer that allowed me to use the host for a VERY low price for the year. I didn’t plan to review Netfirms, nor did I need yet another host, but this opportunity I could not pass up.

Tech Support

I haven’t had the chance to contact tech support yet. When I do, i will update this review. However, I have heard from others that it decent, but not great. I have basically seen mixed reviews of their tech and sales support.

Speed and Uptime

So far, speed seems ok and uptime is also ok. There have been, I think, some outages.

Features

The UI leaves a little to be desired. I have a hard time finding what I’m looking for. Also, they do hit you with advertising. Which, like Justhost, is a huge pain in the neck since you are PAYING for the service. Why should you be subjected to ads?

Bottom Line

Overall, I like their hosting. It’s pretty good, but I do not think I will be renewing my service when it expires.

Myhosting Review

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:46:31 +0000

Today we are briefly reviewing Myhosting. Sorry if this review is a bit sparse, but we are pressed for time. Also note that this host is reviewed by a guest host, so we didn’t actually test this one ourselves. Also note, this review is for their share hosting.

Tech Support

Tech support is amazing. I get great response time and I have yet to receive a bad experience. They have dealt with any issue that I have quickly and politely.

Speed and Uptime

Uptime is near 100%, so this is pretty good for shared hosting. Speed is so-so.

Bottom Line

Not a bad host! 4/5 stars

Fatcow Hosting Review

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:02:08 +0000

Today we will be reviewing Fatcow web hosting. Fat cow is a shared webhost. If you’re not sure what that is, you should check out the forums, where you should definitely get a general education before making a hosting decision. Anyhow, you can read our review or simply read this summary: Fatcow is a GREAT budget webhost!

Fatcow is also a Green host. Meaning that all the energy they use to power their servers comes from a green energy source (if this is important to you). They have been around since 1998, so you have less worry they will suddenly go bankrupt!

This review is structured as follows: we do an indepth review of the host and at the end we have a link to fatcow’s 50% off hosting promo!

Tech Support

Tech support is very important when it comes to web hosting. Fatcow’s support ranks well in the three categories we highly value. 1) they are helpful. this is the main thing you’re looking for when you call, isn’t it? 2) theyare friendly. I’ve dealt with some very rude customer service techs in my day, but fatcow is exemplary. 3) they are native English speakers. Sadly, being able to understand my tech support reps has been a huge problem in the past!

Speed and Uptime

I believe fatcow offers a pretty standard 99.9% uptime guarantee. In our experience, many hosts offer this guarantee, but few actually uphold it. Fatcow seems to be the exception to this rule. Their uptime has been great.

Speed seems to be decent for most customers and excellent for many others. We have no speed complaints from Fatcow.

Features

They offer one click installs (which are a must if you host a lot of websites with CMS, ecommerce or WordPress). The standard “unlimited” speed and space apply. If you run a low demand website or low traffic website, then this should apply to you. But if you have a high traffic site, you have no business buying shared hosting anyway! Fatcow is also a green host. They are probably the biggest green host on the internet.

Another feature they offer is Daily server backups to preserve your files. This can be great in the event of catastrophic dataloss. Additionally, many web hosts do not offer this great feature.

PHP, CGI, MySQL (unlimited databases), and Python are all built into the the hosting account. They also offer a free domain (so shave $10 off your yearly bill if you need a domain).

Bottom Line

Fatcow is one of the best shared hosting providers on the new. We strongly recommend Fatcow! 5/5! They offer a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can give em a try…

Host Gator Review

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:44:18 +0000

Up next to review is the host gator. Hostgator is a shared host that features, at the time of writing, the following features

Unlimited Disk Space, Bandwidth, and Email (pretty standard and not really unlimited)
Free Site Building Tools and 4,500 Website Templates, Free Shopping Cart Software, Free Forums, Photo Galleries, Membership Scripts
24/7/365 Technical Support
45 Day Money Back Guarantee

Not bad. The 1st item is fairly standard. the second item is hit or miss, the 3rd fairly standard and the 4th is nice to see if they honor it.

Tech Support

Tech support is decent. It is always available, waits aren’t too bad and the support techs are native English speakers. We have no complaints here.

Speed and Uptime

I’ve found the speed to be decent. I have seen a bit of downtime, but nothing to get too upset about.

Features

They’re a green host. Most other features are mentioned above. The features offered seem pretty standard. The price is pretty good! You can buy several different levels of hosting depending on how much bandwidth you need.

Bottom Line

Good host, not amazing. Like the tech support. You probably can’t go wrong here.

Justhost Review

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:43:43 +0000

Next in our series of hosting reviews is Justhost. For our Justhost review, we will be breaking down the review as we usually do. Before I get into it, I think it’s fair to say the following: Justhost is a decent budget host. If you’re hosting low traffic websites and lots of them, you can’t go wrong with Justhost. I myself purchased Justhost long term for more savings. So far, they’ve done a good job hosting my static minisites, but I would not recommend them for forums or high demand services.

Tech Support

Ouch, not so good in my experience. I do not like automated services and Justhost’s ticket system is quite annoying…

Speed and Uptime

Speed is ok, it’s the uptime that is sometimes a problem… Running a WordPress blog seems to work just fine, but a more demanding CMS or a forum doesn’t run quite as fast.

Running a forum with Justhost, I have found that it is constantly down for 30 second to 1 minute periods. Some of my websites seem to have the same problem. For this reason, I’m probably not going to renew my Justhost service when it expires.

Features

They have a lot of the same features that a lot of webhosts offer. Fantastico one click installs, unlimited emails, etc…

Bottom line:

They’re ok, but there are a lot better options. See our Review on Fatcow for instance.

Hostpapa Review

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:37:28 +0000

Hostpapa is a terrific web host. Their service is inexpensive, fast and has a lot of great features that come bundled. Customer service is exemplary! Read on to see our full review.

Tech Support

Although this website is intended for anyone who is looking for a webhost in North America, we do have a slight slant towards Canadian users. Since Host Papa is based in Niagara Falls, users in Ontario get great performance from their hosting servers. It’s nice to dial up and speak to a friendly Canadian and get the service you deserve.

Speed and Uptime

For a free host, I have to say the speed is excellent! Against other free hosts, we have not yet encountered many that are faster. Additionally, they offer 99.9% uptime as a guarantee. So far, we have not see any Hostpapa hosted websites that are down.

Features

They offer a free domain for the life of the hosting account (which is basically $10 off the price of your hosting). They have one click installs for popular blogging software like WordPress.

Bottom line: Great host, can’t go wrong

BlueHost Review

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:53:33 +0000

The following is our in-depth review of Bluehost. Bluehost generally gets decent reviews. There are a number of people who have decried their tech support, uptime and others. We have not had such an experience. Our reviewers have found Blue host to be reputable, reliable, inexpensive and cordial.

Customer Support

Bluehost’s customer support has been far above average. It is not as good as that we have experienced at Dreamhost, but for the price it is very good. You need to keep in mind, that our experiences might not be average. A lot of users have expressed negative opinions about tech support, so keep this in mind!

Speed

Speed is decent! We’re happy with uptime and speed that we’ve seen at Bluehost.

Features

They offer pretty much every feature you would expect!

Dreamhost Review

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:44:52 +0000

Today, we’re reviewing Dreamhost. Thus far, for the purposes of this review, we have only used Dreamhost’s shared hosting. So, we can’t entirely comment on their VPS and Dedicated hosting. Circumstantially, we have heard from friends and associates that this is quite good as well!

The review is structured as such. We will discuss Dreamhost in depth and then we will provide Dreamhost promo codes if you want to sign up! Dreamhost is an employee owned company that was founded in 1997.

Tech Support

Based in California, they also provide 24/7 technical support. The beauty part is: the tech support is also based in California. Meaning you talk to an American who understands the company and who does not have a thick accent. If you need help, I have found that you get it promptly and they speak to you as if you matter. Any issue I have ever had has been resolved quickly and has left absolutely no bad taste in my mouth.

Speed and Uptime

Dreamhost offers a pretty standard 99.9% uptime guarantee. In my tests, i haven’t noticed yet any downtime. I’m sure they have the 0.1% downtime listed for liability reasons. I’ve never seen their service fail. So, reliability is top notch. They offer a fairly standard ‘unlimited’ bandwidth and storage.

The speed of Dreamhost is fantastic. I’ve had no complaints from any of my customers across the continent. From Canada to Mexico.

Features

They really beat out most of the competition in this department. They offer full support for MySQL, PHP, Python, Perl. They provide a free domain name. Their One-click installs allow you to install WordPress, Joomla, Concrete5, PhpBB and many, many other CMS, blogging software and other web apps at the click of a button. I can’t tell you how handy this is. I manage a lot of websites and this is a big help.

Interface

The interface is clear (and ad free!) and very easy to use. All the most commonly used tasks are easy to access in the side panel.

Money back guarantee. If you’re not satisfied in 97 days, they will give you a full refund! I’m well over the 97 limit now and I’m as happy as ever!

Promo Codes. Checked on Jan 20, 2012

DATA	Max discount of $50.	Click here to use this promo code
TECH	Free extra domain name and unique IP address.	Click here to use this promo code
DOMAIN25	Free extra domain name upgrade bonus and $25 discount.	Click here to use this promo code
UNIQUE25	Free unique IP address upgrade bonus and $25 discount.	Click here to use this promo code

1&1 Review

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:39:36 +0000

1&1 is a shared hosting provider. I have had an account with them for over 5 years and I think it’s time I reviewed their service. Overall, I used to be somewhat satisfied with one and one, but today I am less than satisfied. I have only stayed with them because I am basically too lazy to transfer the 100+ websites I have hosted with them.

Interface

First off, their interface is god awful. And it is only getting more dated by the minute. It has stupid limitations and is very unintuitive to use.

Support

Their support is fairly terrible. They’re foreign, unhelpful, and in one case, I was basically insulted by the support tech.

Speed

Not great

Price

The price is OK, but pretty standard these days for cheap hosts. I have heard many horror stories of them changing people’s hosting plans without asking. This has never happened to me, but if you scour the internet for bad 1&1 reviews, you will not have any trouble finding them!

Bottom Line

There is almost no reason to choose 1&1 hosting. I would recommend you pay slightly more for a much better host like Dreamhost. Check out our review of their service at the link.