Hi I'm switching host provider because problems with uptime and support, and the finalists are:

reseller-center.com
infuseweb.com
fluidhosting.com
hostnexus.com

All feedback on these 4 providers are very welcome, please tell me about support, uptime, reliability, pros and cons based on your own experience

Any aditional reccomendations are also welcome


I need ASP.NET, MSSQL, MySQL (optional), control panel for me and my customers, own nameserver (ns1.me.com), create my own plans and prices, automaticly bill my clients according to therir plan, great uptime and speed

Thanks alot!!!!

I'm also new in relessinlg hosting, so I don't know anything about heml or other control panels and what they can do, just for you to know

Thanks again!

The hosts you list cover Helm, Plesk, and HSphere. I've tried hosts with all and used Plesk and HSphere in-depth.

My (brief) summary:

HSphere is more flexible and has some very nice options if you'd like to use a 2 domain names as separate email entities (me@domainA.com and me@domainB.com) but have both using the same webspace (DomainB.com is alias of DomainA.com). HSphere was also less intuitive for me and didn't do well with some windows-specific features (it's a trouble ticket request to create a Virtual Directory or set server folder permissions). This last bit shouldn't be a big deal for the hosts you list if they have good support. This may be a bigger deal if you were going with an economy host where you're not assured a quick response.

Plesk doesn't have the flexibility (in my opinion) but is full-featured. Because it has fewer configuration possibilities, it is simpler to use and more intuitive. One thing that I love is the backup feature which will incorporate your Email configuration, backup your database, and all your files, too. Because you’re requesting MS SQL, this may be a very nice feature as you can backup your DB to a file without an admin’s help. I haven’t found the restore feature to be useful as the backup files are very large and would have to be stored on the server (uploading through the control panel doesn’t work, even for small domains ~15mb). Having control of your own backups is huge in my opinion (and when it’s convenient, it will happen more often).

I’ve used Helm and found it to be in-between. I didn’t like the layout of the pages, but that’s completely a style issue.

Anyway—all thing being equal, I’d go with an HSphere host if you need control and will be either working through the control panel yourself or working with sophisticated users. I’d go with Plesk if you have more straight-forward needs. All three are good control panels and would serve you well.

As I’ve been looking around at Windows hosts with good support, I’d be interested in your summary of your experience when you’ve wrapped things up.

Tim

Reading through your needs again, miempresenlinea, HSphere has good billing features integrated. Plesk has nothing. I don't recall Helm's position on integrated billing but I believe it is not integrated. A lot of folks will use ModernBill for their billing and I believe it integrates into your control panel, but your host would need to support that.

Thanks for your reply sherript, it has been very usefull to know all that about these control panels.

At the end I signed up with hostnexus, because reseller-center was too slow to answer support emails and a little bit not-nice, I think they have some uptime issues.

fluidhosting has really great support, the problem is that in the package for 8 domains (wich fit my budget best) works with domains sharing the same webspace as you mention on HSphere, and I need multiple domains to be independent in all aspects, and thet didn't have a control panel for my clients in that package. I think they are a wonderfull option, but a little more expensive than hostnexus

Hostnexus has Plesk and I'm starting to love this control panel because it fills all my needs and my clients have a control panel too. Their support has been usefull and nice but a bit slow (6 hours to reply), still I trust their response time will decrease since they have been honest and thery are just starting in windows hosting as far as I know.

It's been like a week since I signed up and I'm completly satisfied with uptime (100% so far), speed and the control panel, I got a great feeling on this provider right now, still I will make another review in a few months to tell you how it goes.

Have a great weekend!

Originally posted by miempresaenlinea
because reseller-center was too slow to answer support emails and a little bit not-nice,

Good Luck David with Hostnexus, as I believe you will get good support/service as there as well. When I looked through the system to see what maybe one of the techs had replied, I see 2 emails between you and support.


Ticket Created
Oct 22, 2004 7:56:42 PM

note: Answered by admin.

[Oct 22, 2004 8:17:07 PM]


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
note: Picked up by admin.

[Oct 22, 2004 8:12:16 PM]

I really didn't see much "a little not nice" in the reply to your 17 questions. Sorry if you took it that way. I will go over this with the support staff today however.

Either way "Good Luck in your future endeavors" !!

you're right, when I look back to those emails, the response was nice, maybe not so nice as the others, and thats why I got that impression, I got to tell hostnexus and fluidhosting responded in a much detailed way, creating more confidence and letting me know they take me very seriously.

I only say this so you take note for future customers, since it bacame obvious to me (as I'm a hosting provider as well) that those details can make the diference in a client's choice.

Have a great weekend reseller-center guy

miempresaenlinea, thanks for choosing HostNexus. :)

As you mentioned, Windows is relatively new to us and only our top admin has any real Windows skills. Once we filled our first server, I hired 2 Windows admins to take over the majority of the support and I was extremely disappointed in their skill and response time so I decided to let them go after about 4 days and searched high and low for some new admins and finally came to a decision. The new team is working out nicely and cleared a backlog of tickets left over from the other guys. They are MS qualified and now hard at work learning the complexities of Plesk for Windows and also getting used to our support system and internal communications. They've been with us since Tuesday and I'm finally happy with the support and the service which grew so huge so quick that I had to scramble to catch up. :)

Just to follow up, Helm does have integrated billing ;)