I was considering switching to Ubersmith recently until I ran across this post on their forums:
http://forums.ubersmith.com/showthread.php?t=531

They say there:
Over 90% of PHP programs today still use PHP4, and with PHP6 coming soon, it is unlikely Ubersmith - and most apps - will ever support PHP5.

As you will see in my post in that thread (username is Nick), I pointed out that *all* of their competition supports it.

Thoughts?

I would just stick with CE ....Or MB or CE, or MB, or CE...... ;)

I would just stick with CE ....Or MB or CE, or MB, or CE...... ;)
That's exactly my thoughts ;). Ubersmith looked really powerful up until I found out that the developers are too lazy to support PHP5 :P

Well - I think they are simply looking ahead and the idea that PHP6 is going to be a better upgrade that 5 was but I would think you would try to make it compatible with 4/5/6 because many host still have not yet upgraded to 5 simple because of the version issues. I hope it doesn't put Uber out of market until people go from 4 to 5 to 6. - Besides - I just dig CE.

Same here, it looked interesting to me, kinda full featured and not so expensive. When I saw it didnt supported PHP5 I just dropped it right away. We are going to fully support php5 so there is just no sense in getting this software and use old builds just to have a feature packed software :)

I love ubersmith. I'd eat the loss of not being able to use PHP5. Ubersmith is such a great product.

I love ubersmith. I'd eat the loss of not being able to use PHP5. Ubersmith is such a great product.
I can't say I like it that much that I'd support a downfall that big. EVERY OTHER billing system supports PHP5. I'm surprised that "boo" would even say that they are small and have to prioritize -- ClientExec and WHMCS are also small and they managed to get it right.

I love whmautopilot, i use almost every billing system there is, ubersmith is good but a little pricer if you host it with them

We had the privilege to meet the Ubersmith guys at HostingCon and get a little demo of their new Datacenter Edition with the Steadfast and InterWorx crews. It seems like that's where their focus is for the time being - which would be fine with me really, php4 seems to get the job done fine for their billing, and they seem to have plenty on the horizon with DE that no publically available application I've seen even competes with.

In the meantime CE + UbiquityNOC does swell. :)

In my opinion ubersmith is nothing special, after working for it for a year or so, it is definately no match for modernbill. IMO.

PHP6 should be mostly compatible with PHP5 ( unless your using some of the new unicode features that will come out ), so I can't see why they wouldn't put some effort into getting up to spec for PHP5 so they are ready for PHP6

MB hasn't supported PHP5 until very recently with their V5 catastrophe so most of you saying you couldn't support Ubersmith should rethink that. I don't know of many out there willing to convert to V5 of MB either just to get PHP5 support.

I agree with others that with PHP6 coming out so quickly it makes more sense to gear up for it. That and the fact that the most support for PHP still resides in 4.x.

MB hasn't supported PHP5 until very recently with their V5 catastrophe
I ran MBv4 on PHP5 with no issues...

The only reason I can think of for a reason is because they have limited developers and they are heavily trying to get the new Datacenter edition out and rolling.

PHP6 should be mostly compatible with PHP5 ( unless your using some of the new unicode features that will come out ), so I can't see why they wouldn't put some effort into getting up to spec for PHP5 so they are ready for PHP6

MB hasn't supported PHP5 until very recently with their V5 catastrophe so most of you saying you couldn't support Ubersmith should rethink that. I don't know of many out there willing to convert to V5 of MB either just to get PHP5 support.

While I could write things from a biased standpoint, I'm willing to comment that PHP5 is a faster, and more robust language than PHP4 - to those that embrace the design paradigms that it offers. Waiting for a crossover to PHP6, is akin imho to having waited for CD players to come around, having decidedto keep your 8-track player. A properly written PHP4 script will run on PHP5 with very little modification, or none at all. If the developers didn't do things such as self-assign object variables (which is extremely bad practice), or force passing by reference in every single call, the transition should be effortless.

PHP6 will not be here for a long time. PHP 5.2 is currently undergoing its RC stages, RC1 has a great outlook thus far, over 80 bug fixes from its previous release.

Closing, PHP5 is extremely solid, faster than PHP4 (object copy/creation is done _much_ more efficiently) - and has a smaller execution footprint. If a developer refuses to work with PHP5, he'll be in the same boat with PHP 5.2, 5.3, 5.x, 6.x - as they all follow the same new model (with some very small syntactical differences in PHP6) and might even miss out on critical improvements or security fixes once Zend, hopefully, decides to drop PHP4. Certainly a developer's early adoption of new technology, will mean a better conformity with PHP6 once it is released?

Cheers.
Alex

I was thinking Ubersmith, however I didn't like their replies from Sales.


I had asked them about their current $9.95/mo offer and I got a curt reply saying that we dont know if you will be switched to $24.95/mo once the offer is over.

I can't take a risk like that. I might as well go with another provider who has a price lock.

If before they sell it to you they aren't supportive and clear, I really wouldn't want to pay and find out worse!

MB hasn't supported PHP5 until very recently with their V5 catastrophe

That is an incorrect statement.
MB has supported php5 since the day php5 came out. I know, I tried it then ;). There were a FEW problems, but that is to be expected.


I love ubersmith. I'd eat the loss of not being able to use PHP5. Ubersmith is such a great product.

While you may be happy giving up the functionality of php5, this is not a professional response. Php5 has been out for 2 years, and to not support it, as Uber has chosen to do just shows an utter lack of concern for their clients. Why WOULDN'T they support php5, unless their code is written so poorly that it doesn't even think about it?

As a developer myself, I have written applications , countless applications, using php4. When I upgraded to php5, did I have to rewrite anything? Not at all. So, functionality is there. The ability to upgrade an application from 4 to 5 should be seamless. If it's not, someone, somewhere is doing SOMETHING wrong (and it's usually not the customer ;)).

Ubersmith is good, but stating "we will not support php5" is just wrong. Php6 has at LEAST another 2-3 years to go on it, judging by the betas and rc's of php5, so, there's no reason to throw everything into php6, making your customers wait for STABLE releases here.

Even most great aplications are based for php5 with php4 compatibility. Ubesmith is not my option, I cant wait 2 years untill php6 comes out. And when php6 is out, I wouldnt buy it either because if there was a mayor flaw or something, I would have to stay with my current server software because they dont feel like upgrading. HAHA! NOt a good biz