I am looking to provide some of my clients with their own CPanel for their websites so I am looking to setup a reseller account. I have done a lot of research and right now am looking at either VarHosting.net or SJRHosting. I have read many reviews and I am still undecided, so I am looking to see if anyone has tried both, or other possible options.
What I am looking for:
Storage: 10-20GB
Bandwidth: at least 100 GB/month
Price: US$ 20-40/month
Those aren't set in stone, just what I tend to be looking at.

I must say that things like managed support for my customers is not a must, but is definitely a plus. My business is solely word of mouth, and I have a personal relationship with each of my customers so I have no problem handling the support... but if it is included then I can always give my customers a second 24/7 option besides me.

What do you guys think of those two companies? Or do you have any other suggestion for good companies within my ranges?

Thanks!
Justin

I was with Varhosting since spring 2005, and i've been with SJRhosting for a little over a month and already my own personal opinion, is that SJR are by far the better company, they take their clients and support issues far more seriously than Varhosting, their servers have lower server loads, and the whole hosting experience is far more enjoyable and less problematic!. This is exactly what hosting should be all about!.

The package I am on with SJR is only $1 a month more than Varhosting, and in comparison it is a small amount to pay, because the service, for ME, so far has already been 10 times better at SJR than with VH!.

I have heard both positive and negative things about VarHosting, but they seem to be going downhill (correct me if I'm wrong), and their end-user support that is included is not all that great from what I have heard. I've never tried their services, so I don't have firsthand experience.

I would suggest doing a few searches on both of the hosts here as I know there are reviews of both (just make sure to read the entire thread ;))

Chris1973, thanks... that is what I was looking for, someone who has tried both.

I have read a lot about each in the forums, and so far I hear a lot more good about SJRhosting... Varhosting, like you mentioned adakist, I find reviews go both ways... So I am still unsure. The way it looks now, I will probably end up with SJR since I tend to hear more good about them.

Please keep the comments coming, I probably am going to think about this more as the week goes on. Just don't want to jump in to anything until I am sure.

I have tried a few companies for my own hosting needs... some good, and some real bad... Just don't want to have to do that when it comes to reselling. I want to find a good company and stick with it for a long time. I like the company I am with currently, just they don't offer reseller accounts...

I haven't tried both, but i tried VarHosting. And i'm still with it. I'm happy and i got all my problems set. I used to be un BR1 in US, now im on a custom made plan in UK and i really like speeds and uptime. I admit i had downtimes in BR1, the budgets accounts on VarHosting. I check my uptime daily and since i moved in UK i havent ever noticed a downtime. The scripts showed me few less then 1% downtime one day.

I would try both, you have 30 days to decide. THe moneyback guarantee works.

Thanks Aurelian,

I was thinking about trying both... but I hate dealing with refunds. But it is the best way to decide.

To give a little more background... I am currently looking at and comparing the Varhosting THR2 (or THR3) and the SJRHosting Reseller Basic plans.

I haven't tried both, but i tried VarHosting. And i'm still with it. I'm happy and i got all my problems set. I used to be un BR1 in US, now im on a custom made plan in UK and i really like speeds and uptime. I admit i had downtimes in BR1, the budgets accounts on VarHosting. I check my uptime daily and since i moved in UK i havent ever noticed a downtime. The scripts showed me few less then 1% downtime one day.

I would try both, you have 30 days to decide. THe moneyback guarantee works.


Node107 of Varhosting today 10 of March
Uptime March 97.674

A good way of finding out exactly what problems occur and how efficient and quickly the staff address them (or IF they address them) is to read in detail varhostings own client forums!This is an interesting thread (http://www.varhosting.net/forums/index.php?topic=881.0) showing just how high server loads can go!. Again, note the clear lack of any input from Varhosting staff members - you'll see this common occurance on almost every thread. Support seem to have just given up monitoring their forum and re-assuring their own customers!.

Jpack - as a suffer of Varhostings service for many many months, I would urge you to do a little more research before making a decision!.

Annoymity level of Varhosting is much better.Any end client can find the traces of SJR Hosting .Reseller Zoom has also got good annomity level.

Also try to compare no of domain and server quality & response which is offerred by SJR , Varihost & reseller zoom .

Only faster response may be misleading.Balence eqation of many factors are to be judged by the indivisuals as per their need.

Annoymity level of Varhosting is much better.Any end client can find the traces of SJR Hosting .Reseller Zoom has also got good annomity level.


I'm not sure how you determined this. SJR Hosting uses an anonymous host names, anonymous ip addresses and anonymous name servers. Plus we allow you to use your own domain name servers. If you edit your A record with the new private name servers there is a very little chance anyone could tell who hosts your account. I do not know how it could be any more anonymous.

thanks everyone for the valuable input. I appreciate all of your comments. I am still doing more research, reading a lot of forum postings and trying to figure out what is right for me and my clients. So far SJRhosting seems like the one I would feel most comforable moving to... I just wish it came with a billing system. I know I can use my Paypal merchant account, but I wanted something a little more professional so I could create some customizable invoices. I saw I can go with a modernbill account for around 8.95/month, or a clientexec account for about 9.95/month.

What do you guys prefer for billing? Is it that important for customization? I just want something I can set reoccuring payments, and also automatically send reminders... I like clientexec and modernbill since they would integrate with my account to automatically suspend accounts and such...

Keep the comments coming... you guys are helping me to make an educated decision. Meanwhile, I will keep reading the forums for reviews.

Thanks!

I'be been with VARhosting for almost a year now. Among other things, what appealed to me was the apparent transparency of management, with the good, the bad and the ugly all appearing on the support forum. The cost to service ratio is pretty much unbeatable.

The support was excellent at the start. There were a few downtimes, and I hoped things would be ironed out. Instead, things got worse the last few months, with on of my complaints about server overload being brushed off with "we're working on it" way back in January, till my email disk was finally 100% full and *no* email worked at all for a day.

To their credit, once I connected with live talk in the middle of the night PAC time, Julie, who answered, took a look and admitted that my email was not working because the disk was 100% full. She suggested I write a support request and her "supervisor" would see that it would be taken care of ASAP. (I said it needed to be done within 6 hours, or I would be out of there.) It was taken care of, with the disk load being down to 84% and my email working. In fact, the 'supervisor' was owner/manager Roj himself. He assured me that the other disk that was 96% full was 'only' a back-up disk.

At the moment all disks for said server are over 82% full and some at 90%. I don't find that totally reassuring.

All this is out for all the world to see on their support forum.

But where is the SJRhosting support forum?

All we know is the experience of very *few* people who post here plus what they advertise on their web site.

VARhosting would look a *whole* lot better if they didn't have a free forum where customers post whatever happens. Would it look as good as SJRhosting? I don't know, but I'm leery of jumping from one bad situation to another host where I will shortly be no better off. I feel a *whole* lot more comfortable with a host that has an open forum!

Inga
http://www.icopia.net/
http://www.mm24-7.com/

Sometimes lack of reviews on an independant forum such as this can be a good thing. After all it's given that people will usually complain vocally when given a poor level of service (or have a desire to warn others), compared to the few people who will write of their positive experiences.

So lack of reviews or information on a host can *Sometimes* indicate that their customers are largely content.

On the subject of hosts own forums, they only serve as a point of support or pre-sales if staff bother to frequent them. In other words they are only as strong as the people who are answering the questions and addressing existing clients, when this interest dwindles then it becomes the weakest link in the chain, and part of the problem.

Thanks everyone for the continued comments. It really helped me to make an educated decision.

To give you all an update... Last week I took the plunge and signed up with SJRHosting! They were running a special in March that made it even more competitive and helped make the decision quite easy. (it is listed in the shared and reseller offers sections in the advertising forums).

So far, I have nothing but positive things to say about SJRHosting. Their support has been absolutely phenomenal! They have been insanely quick to respond to each one of my support tickets. You don't need a forum when you have support like this. I believe the longest response time I had so far was well under an hour, most only took a few minutes. I really would prefer it this way, if I have a question I will email their support and get a response... not post to a general forum.

The server load has been very low, and I have not seen any downtime as of yet.

I will be sure to keep everyone up to date with how things are going with me using SJRHosting... but really, so far I am very pleased. I did not get a chance to try other competitors, but right now I have no reason to.

Thanks for all of your help!

I will be sure to keep everyone up to date with how things are going with me using SJRHosting...I'm looking forward to it. Then you'll be able to report on their server load and uptime on a server marked or almost marked as "filled". :)

That being said, I'm glad to hear you're enjoying great initial service. May it be a sign of great things to come!

Then you'll be able to report on their server load and uptime on a server marked or almost marked as "filled".

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 73G 29G 40G 42%
//dev/sda1 99M 12M 83M 12%
/bootnone 982M 0 982M 0%
/dev/shm/dev/sdb1 74G 21G 50G 30%
/backup/usr/tmpDSK 485M 22M 438M 5%
/tmp/tmp 485M 22M 438M 5%
/var/tmp

I am seeing only about 40% full... so I won't be able to comment on a full server. Looks like I have room to grow at SJRhosting.

Hello SJRHosting.com,

First, I'm a client of you, and I must say your service is very good. I fell satisfy, but a very little confuse is my client can trace back to SJR, and I don't like that. Appreciate if you can resolve it

you can go to -----> domainwhitepages.com

enter a domain name hosting with SJR, then you will find in the bottom.

mydomain.com IN SOA server: ns1-discovery.welcomesearchers.com
email: sysadmin.sjrhosting.com
serial: 2006040601
refresh: 86400
retry: 7200
expire: 3600000
minimum ttl: 86400
86400s

Yes, look at the line 2, the point is email contact in the DNS records.
I think it will invisible when you change it to another one.

That will great.

Hello SJRHosting.com,

First, I'm a client of you, and I must say your service is very good. I fell satisfy, but a very little confuse is my client can trace back to SJR, and I don't like that. Appreciate if you can resolve it

you can go to -----> domainwhitepages.com

enter a domain name hosting with SJR, then you will find in the bottom.

mydomain.com IN SOA server: ns1-discovery.welcomesearchers.com
email: sysadmin.sjrhosting.com
serial: 2006040601
refresh: 86400
retry: 7200
expire: 3600000
minimum ttl: 86400
86400s

Yes, look at the line 2, the point is email contact in the DNS records.
I think it will invisible when you change it to another one.

That will great.

Please in the future contact our support department. You can easily change that to your email address by:

1) Login to your WHM account.

2) Under "DNS Functions" select "Edit DNS Zone"

3) Select your main domain and click edit.

4) Then the next box over you will see sysadmin.sjrhosting.com. change that to your email address. Replace the @ in your email to a . Example hosting@yourdomain.com ---> hosting.yourdomain.com. (Make sure to include the ending .

5) Click "Save" and your done.

ah, now I understand. Thank you. I will contact with you by email for more.

To everybody: as you can see the quality of SJRHosting, I get support event here :D