While searching for a Windows host, I found GearHost.com. Their plans are great and cheap. Does anyone have exprience with this host? Please post your opinions and any experience you have with this host. I wonder if their iControl Control Panel lets users set up directory permission?
Thank you very much for spending time replying to my post!

VN.

I have never heard of them, but by looking at their site they appear to be professional, and have a nice layout. Their packages look good, lots of space and bandwidth for very good prices; however they don't offer MySQL databases, so that may cause you some hassle in the future. The larger packages do have SQL, and it is easy to convert scripts built to work with MySQL to SQL. Another thing I noticed was that their site took a while to download, which could mean that your site will also load slowly, but then again it could have just been caused by their Flash header slowing the rest of the page down. In conclusion these guys look good, so if you are ok with not having MySQL then you should try them out. They have a 30 day money back guarantee, so if you find them to be too slow for you, then you could always get your money back.

I do like their site as well....

ryank (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=8092) (of gearhost) is a member here by the way, in case you have any questions.

Well, here is the straight scoop. I'm currently with GearHost and I like the quality of their services so far and customer support has been fairly decent although I haven't had much of a need. Ryan Kekos placed a phone call in right after I made an pre-sales inquiry and having the convo that I did with him is what truly sold me on GearHost. I haven't been disappointed with my decision yet nor have my partners.

The only thing I can complain about is their failure to meet the deadline on iControl be completely functional. Not that I'm in dire need of any of the features, but speaking from a business point of view ... failure to meet deadlines is a no-no. But as my friend JustinK stated earlier: any good programmer doesn't meet a deadline :)

The only disclaimer to this is the fact that our company site is not publically viewable at the moment. But e-mail has been running smoothly and the few uploads that I have made went smoothly. Uploaded a few test pages and those all went over well as well.

I'm a previous Site5 customer and I don't think anyone will be able to rival the service I received there ... but GearHost has come damn near close and thats saying a lot.

Take it for what it's worth ...

To answer your question: Yes, you can set directory permissions in iControl.

Originally posted by Jeff Rambo
I'm a previous Site5 customer and I don't think anyone will be able to rival the service I received there ... but GearHost has come damn near close and thats saying a lot.

Now you've made me curious. . . why do you no longer host with Site5 if they're the benchmark?

The site I was running was an online magazine which also included an online radio show. The site is no longer functional thus there wasn't a need for continuing to host with Site5.

I would of hosted my company site with Site5 but we were in need of a windows based host.

Thank you everyone for taking time answering my questions, especially Jeff Rambo! I think I'll just wait until the iControl is fully functional. Then I'll sign up for the platinum plan. I hate to deal with customer support. If anyone else has experience with this host, please share your opinions. I really appreciate your feedback!
Have a happy new year!
VN.

I'll let you know when iControl is up and running completely.

Well I was very active on WHT for a while ;), been busy lately so I haven't been able to say hi. Just wanted to say that iControl is getting yet another push as well as our own site this weekend. vn411, I'll PM you if you would like once the update is complete.

Thanks Jeff for the kind words and everyone is welcome to PM me directly or email me.

Joseph, BTW we do support mySQL in case that wasn't answered yet.

Originally posted by ryank
Joseph, BTW we do support mySQL in case that wasn't answered yet.

Ah yes, forgot about the answer to that one. Although I don't need to follow up on the man's word himself, but, yes ... they do support mySQL.

I am in the middle of setting up accounts with them and I will probably take one of their dedicated servers in the next few days. I will keep you all informed.

Untill now it's amazing. Their response to all my questions (a lot) has been fast, to the point and very helpfull. One of my friends joined yesterday and he has the same experiences.

The Dedicated Server will be the real test....

Just signed up with Gearhost yesterday and am already having mixed feelings. I never received the promised "Welcome" email that I was supposed to receive "shortly" after registering an account. I also tried to submit a support request to them via the iControl interface (which is still unfinished), and I was forwarded to an email address. Ok fine. I submitted my request via email and have not received any sort of response (not even an auto-respond). Hmmmmm.
I hope I'm not jumping the gun on any of these issues, but it makes me wonder how reliable they are going to be.

On the good side, I just logged into my account and uploaded my pages. Speed is great. I just hope they get some of the iControl features fixed (like domain manipulation).

My 2 cents.

deepshine,

I'm sorry you are having problems, our automation signup does work but sometimes emails are not sent for whatever reason (invalid entry, network latency, etc.). Please email me offline with your accounts details (i.e. domain name) and I'll take a look into it.

Yes, iControl by this weekend will allow you to create domains and modify domains on the fly.

hello ryank,

you´ve told me in an email that you are going to setup unix servers in the near future. will those packages give shell access too? If so, could you make an exception and already set up an unix account for me? It´s urgent, as I have to move to another host since my current one just raised its prices ...

I just wanted to post a quick note as a follow up to my last. After reading my previous comments, Ryan from Gearhost called me directly and addressed all of my questions. That's what I call great support. If only more companies had the same focus on their customers....
I'm sold on GH. Period.

I signed up for the shared hosting last week..having mixed feelings too.............Speed wise, I am satisfied.....just some other aspects...gearhost schedule a move last week...a tansfer to be exact of files to a new server...at the same time, I had my DNS changed ........all the time , I recieved mail informing me of the transfer status.....that is fine, until after its been more than 72 hrs and my domain is still not resolving...I e-mailed them and got a reply that it should be working.....only then it work but it was pointing to the i-control login page..O_O...(it has to be pointing to a default.htm page) When I tried to login to the ftp server to change that, I can't , naturally I thouhgt the transfer was just done and the ftp is not accessible yet...waited and waited...finally I send another e-mail and the answer I got buffled me......."Your IP has changed, didn't you get the wide e-mail informing this." >_<, no I did not recieve anything.....I must say that I am not too impressed with this......becuz of that, my site was down for 2 extra days......>_<;;

Another issue to bring up is CGI.....this is what I consider very basic set up........but I am having lots of problem with it...the first thing that hit is that I cannot set the Chmod of the files.....its keeps saying command not understood...and its after many e-mails that they finally got it to work for (for a while, I am having problems again!) just that script Now I just ecountered the same error trying to setup Greymatter.....-_-......setting all these up has always been a breeze on the free servers (Infoseek web, etc) and I thought it should be painless on a paid web services.....I could not be more wrong......

Oh yes, the iControl panel is not working for certain features now too.........

I will be certainly be a happy man if they can resolved the CGI problem........well I am waiting to see if everything can be resolved........before deciding to stay or leave.......

This is not to slander Gearhost, I am merely sharing my experience so far.......I must comment that the replies to techical questions do come in quite promptly. Just my 0.02.

Liz,

Just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry things are not working out for you perfectly as they should. I've looked over your account notes to notice that your problems with DNS were mearly because you were trying to access your temporary URL (username.gearhost.net) not your full address plus you had not default file in your root directory, our company wide email had instructions to go into iControl to note your new IP thus why you couldn't get into ftp using your temporary URL or old IP.

In regards to your CGI issues these are not Linux systems so some scripts do need to be modified (a Windows kind of chmod ;)), it seems your scripts are not using fully qualified paths either thus, as a courtesy we changed them for you to get them working, twice which is not a problem but again just making sure you understand the underlying issues here.

It looks like we fell short on some communication issues that I will address. Please let me know what your current status is via email as WHT isn't the proper place to handle your issues, I want to personally make sure that your a happy client.

I am really sorry I didn't get into this thread until so late, all I can say is GearHost are excellent.

* They answer the phone at 4AM, even at 5PM there are no hold times.

* E-Mails are always responded to within 3 hours.

* Ryan personally contacted me to Welcome me to the service (apparently he did that for a few other people who signed up as a result of my experience), can you imagine being the CEO of a relatively new host with all the things that are going on and still contacting new customers individually!

* You have access to a wide variety of databases (MySQL, MSSQL) and programming languages (PHP, ASP, Perl, CFM).

* You get 'unlimited' sub-domains, alias domains, 'seperate' domains and e-mail addresses. Yes, I too am wary of 'unlimited' but GearHost have not put a stop to me adding literally dozens of e-mail addresses (and as soon as iControl supports it, sub-domains aswell).

* iControl almost deserves a whole thread to itself, it is shaping up to be a truly excellent piece of software with excellent usability and features, and on top of all that it looks hella cool.

* You get a dedicated IP Address, which is useful.

If anyone wants more of my experience with GearHost, please contact me for the customers perspective (and Ryan, obviously for the hosts perspective). :)

I hope that any of you looking for low cost, excellent, reliable and fast Windows (and soon Unix) based web hosting, I can't recommend GearHost any more highly. GearHost are as close as i have found to a perfect host. :)

Wow 30GB transfer for $14.95 per month, if the speed is as good as it sounds , this seems a company I could do business with !

Their packages are waayyy tempting , I would also be very interested to hear of anyone's experiences with GearHost

Yups - 30GB, and from various people I have talked to they actually live upto it!

I really cannot recommend this host enough!!!

Sign up now! ;)

However, I am sure you could ask any of their current customers and they would be saying the same as me!

Maybe I have missed something, but if you can create an account with
500mb disk space
30GB bandwidth
Unlimited domains
Unlimted pop3

For $14.95

That means you could use 1 account for a resellar account, all with the one control panel, for $14.95, if most small sites are around 1MB thats a pretty cheap deal for website designers. then again is this a case of if it sounds too good 2 be true it probably is ? or have I missed something ?

I am with GearHost as well and you can search the forums for my views on their service. To add to my previous comments, I'm still a customer and still happy beyond belief.

sji, whilst you could do that. I believe it would break their Terms of Service to resell accounts on a non-reseller account, but Ryan could correct me on this. I really don't think it would be fair to do that though because these guys will do everything humanly possible to keep you above and beyond satisfied with their service. You also won't be able to let each user administrate their account through iControl as only the primary account user can access iControl (as far as I know).

Well I was meaning from a web designers point of view for hosting clients , as the actual client wouldn't need a control panel. Your right it wouldn't work for reselling hosting. Their prices are easily re-sellable at their individual packages.

If that's what they are offering I don't see why it wouldn't work, but maybe its a loophole that will be closed, or as you say against their TOS.

Yeah, it could work for just hosting demo sites or whatever. But just remember if a client gets big and eats 70GB of bandwidth, you're gonna have to pay for that extra 40GB aswell as whatever your own site uses.

Hm, I think I will wait until they offer unix packages.

I do really hope this host stays for a while ....

If there business plan is sound, and they can run at a profit from the packages they offer I too hope they last.

Their packages are feature rich, I might give them a go, if I do, I'll be sure to let the board know how it goes ......watch this space......

The business has been in planning since 1998, so I would say they have some sort of idea of what they are doing. ;)

Anyway, this is my guess on what's happening, they are currently running on corporate backing they recieved sometime in 2001, they launched late-2001. By my estimates they will be a loss making company until at least Q3 2002.

That's just my €0.02

i use aletiahosting.com no problems at all! very satisfied :)

Since I recently signed up w/ GearHost, I thought I would pitch in my 2c (exactly what it's worth) :cool: I am a new poster to this board; the good news is that my experience w/ GH has brought me from the shadows of lurking.

I read all of their package info and decided to call. Ryan picked up the phone after one ring. I asked a bunch of questions and received just the answers I was looking for. All the while Ryan represented his company very professionally. Couple of notes:

-You can host *multiple* domains under one acct, each domain can point to its own sub dir (multiple sites). You are only limited by your acct options (space, transfer, etc). This is a very attractive feature for me because I host multiple low-bandwidth sites for family and friends. Since IIS offer multiple host headers, there really is no need to have a separate account for each domain.

-The control panel is very slick but a few features are unfinished. Ryan told me it will be complete very soon and I have read a few msgs here that it will be done by this weekend.

-Network appears to be very fast and upload times are good.

-DJ in support is very helpful and responsive. Usually within an hour I hear back via email.

-There pricing is phenomenal. I also hope that GH profits nicely and continues at these price levels.

With their features, support, and price model I expect GH will soon be overwhelmed with new accounts. I can only hope that Ryan & co. are prepared and grow into a lucrative business.

A big thumbs up! Highly recommended. How do we invest? :agree:

Best,
-dig

Originally posted by digThisXL
Since I recently signed up w/ GearHost, I thought I would pitch in my 2c (exactly what it's worth) . . . . . . . What is the site you have hosted by them?

http://www.delconenterprises.com is my primary domain hosted with them but the DNS changes have not replicated and it will still pull the site from my old server. You should be able to pull up the new location @ GH & test speed: http://63.123.145.112

(There are a few tweaks I still need to make on the site's new location, please forgive the mess.)

Best,
dig

And I had my welcome page and my site ready before I got off the phone with sales! However, they haven't added my other domain yet, but I'm not sweating that because I'm looking forward to their control panel update this weekend. I like to do stuff myself anyway (control freak) ^_^

ochiba

http://www.rhhllp.com for me -- we've been with GearHost since December 8th, page isn't available to the public yet and we've decided not to go with a welcome message of any sorts yet. But if anyone wants to test the speed of our server (we're on thetis), I'll gladly upload a few test files for a day or two.

Untill now I am a very happy camper as well. I decided to order a dedicated server, called them up, first got a lady (which means thay Ryan isn't working alone in his basement impersonating a bunch of males ;) ) then I talked to Ryan. Within a minute or two I had placed the order and had the guarantee that I could start uploading my files within 30 minutes! A few hours later all my files were up on my new dedicated server.....the fastest I have ever seen.

Untill now I am pretty much amazed about everything and I hope they are going to be able to keep this up. I was hoping that this hosting server would not get discovered/hyped up as that is usually the moment that hosting company crumbles under the new pressures.

If you want to know, my main sites are The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Network with www.lordotrings.com as the main site. With the DSN transfer given yesterday you should be able to test the speed on this bad boy within 48-72 hours....can't wait myself.

O yes, if you do check my site please notify me when you see the following message on the bottom of the homepage:

NOW ON A DEDICATED SERVER

It currently says NOW ON A NEW SERVER which has to do with the transfer I did 5 days ago!

Originally posted by pgkooijman
Untill now I am a very happy camper as well. I decided to order a dedicated server, called them up, first got a lady (which means thay Ryan isn't working alone in his basement impersonating a bunch of males ;) ) then I talked to Ryan. Within a minute or two I had placed the order and had the guarantee that I could start uploading my files within 30 minutes! A few hours later all my files were up on my new dedicated server.....the fastest I have ever seen.

Untill now I am pretty much amazed about everything and I hope they are going to be able to keep this up. I was hoping that this hosting server would not get discovered/hyped up as that is usually the moment that hosting company crumbles under the new pressures.

If you want to know, my main sites are The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Network with www.lordotrings.com as the main site. With the DSN transfer given yesterday you should be able to test the speed on this bad boy within 48-72 hours....can't wait myself.

O yes, if you do check my site please notify me when you see the following message on the bottom of the homepage:

NOW ON A DEDICATED SERVER

It currently says NOW ON A NEW SERVER which has to do with the transfer I did 5 days ago!

Hey, nice site you have there! But I can´t find the message you´re talking about :(

Thanks for the complements, if you're a LotR Fan(atic) yourself you should definitely check out www.lotrplaza.com

I removed the message to make it more certain that people would just contact me if the Dedicated Server was online. I was getting a lot of mails from people saying they could see the old message....

<<Email support requests directly to hosts and please do not post them to the forum>>

<<Email support replies directly to clients and please do not post them to the forum>>

<<Email support requests directly to hosts and please do not post them to the forum>>

<<Email support replies directly to clients and please do not post them to the forum>>

Ryan, cool. I hadn't noticed the ticket manager thing, anyways, DJ sorted me out. That dude rocks, he deservers a raise!! :)

Too bad they don't have Linux hosting or I'll sign-up immediately.

Still holding back my money until Feb when F2s truly ends their
free service.

Since we are using the forum to make requests to Ryan ;)

<<Please do NOT use the forum i nthis way.>>

The sites are up on the dedicated server which is pretty great.

<<Email support requests directly to hosts and please do not post them to the forum>>

I agree on the raise for DJ by the way. And while you're on it give a Raise to Markus and Brooke as well.

I wrote to them 2 email, asking more information about some custom options and payment. No reply

In all honesty, akaize, cut them some slack. Its Sunday. Maybe they want to spend time home with their families, not work every hour of the week just to please you.

Hi sludge!

Reply to my post is your first posting in this board, Are you a real newbee ;)

I sent them a mail 4 days ago, so it was a working day!

And send another mail tody....

Try calling them up. This has worked pretty good for me and they often try to solve your problems while you are at the phone. The Support Tickets are also good. The first one I sent got replied in minutes. The last one I sent took a day but still I got answered.