I am seriously considering DZones for hosting. I would like to know:

1. Anyone use them?
2. Have they been reliable?
3. Do they have pretty much the "typical" server setup?
4. General comments?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Hello,
I was with DZones for a little bit. Generally they are ok...but they had problems.
1. It is a one person show, if you need support...forget about it, it took about 2 weeks for a responce (on a good day).

2. Their mail server went down about 1 a week, needless to say it was VERY annoying.

BUT, to answer your question they have the standard set of software installed. I would NOT recomend them.
I switched to http://www.hostmagik.com
They are wonderful!!!!! The support is GREAT!!!! They bend over backwards to help, even reconfiguring their software, and debugging your scripts.
I hope this answers your question, if you want feel free to contact me.

-Chris :D

Hi,

1) As a web designer/reseller I have two accounts with them and using third party password protected scripts directory for my clients and it seems to be very secure. Lately, I thought of cutting cost by moving my clients site to one of my reseller account since it's already paid for. it blew wide open the .htaccess file and most scripts wouldn't work and had to switch back to dzones.

2)They are very reliable although support is a bit slow(one day reply) but they always monitor/maintain their servers very well, you can rest assured that your site is in good hands.

3)Yes, they are a bit expensive, but value for your money considering the excellent maintenance and care that they provide. As an example one of my site's bandwidth was utilised by someone linking to a script and they inform me to rectify it which I was not aware of.

3) They have been in business for quite some time if I am not mistaken and their billing is very prompt and faultless.


Just my views and experience with them.

About a year ago I hosted with them for about 2 months. From what I can remember, the support was second rate, though not terrible, and server speed was decent. What made me switch from them though, was that MySQL constantly spit out 'too many connections' errors.

A quick post about Dzones in 2004 (and now 2005).

They were quite simply, awful. My website was down over a dozen times in 2004 (not just for half an hour here or there, but like days at a time).

The biggest failure was in November 2004, my whole site went down for two weeks, I lost ALL my data and files. When they restored everything, they had restored from December 2003 -almost a year before. When i asked them of this, they happily informed me this was the most recent backup they had.

They have no support to speak of. Emailing them kicks off a series of automated responses which are randomly picked from the following list.

1) Your site is working fine our end, please check it again
2) There is a coding error with your pages, please test them properly
3) We are doing routine maintenance, it will be up shortly
4) We are experiencing technical difficulties, we appreciate your patience.

Its quite a funny pastime to just email Dzones support with something like "hey, i was just wondering how you guys sleep at night sucking as bad as you do"
and then receiving "There is a coding error with your pages, please test them properly" as an explanation.

I was wondering how long into 2005 i could go without my site being down, can i manage the holy grail of an uninterrupted month? or maybe a week? No chance, 3 days is how far i got, the site went down on Jan 3rd and it is still down as i write.

Dzones I believe once had a good reputation, but I shall not be renewing my membership with them when it comes to that time of year. They are quite simply an utterly pointless company, what good is webspace if it is never available? They have obviously made huge cost cuts in order to maximise profit, at the cost of offering any kind of service at all.

Stay well clear of these clowns, unless you like wasting money or you have a site called "500 server error"