I'm in the final steps of deciding where to go to host my site (win2k + MSSQL)... after some careful and thorough shopping around, that is.

For me customer support and service are the most important items a provider. I can put up with some extra costs but I can't stand bad performance or slow support.

Here are the 5 ... finalists ;) :
hosting.atlantic.net
uplinkearth.com
rochenhost.com
setupsite.com
gearhost.com

Does anyone have any experience with them and if you do, how was your experience as far as support and quality of service go?

I did some research on this fourm about these hosts... gearhost had people complainin about service and the control panel but that was months ago and I wonder if they got any better lately.
I didn't find much about the others.

Thank you for any feedback you can provide.

PS: this forum has been the most valuable resource I have come by to find info about hosting!!

So... I decided to go for Gearhost in the end.

What convinced me is the positive comments I found about them in this forum and the fact that the sales person replied in 2 hours on a saturday.

I realize that doesn't mean that their tech support is going to be as good but it's a good start.

Besides they had the best price/features I have been able to find :D

hm, they haven't responded to mine yet, i sent it yesterday afternoon... = /

well I have a problem setting up the site and I sent a ticket at 8:15 PM EST on Saturday 6/22

let's see how fast they respond on a weekend.

I would be surprised and pleased if they would answer it and fix it today.

I had dealt with "professional" hosting companies for dedicated high-volume sites (I won't mention their names) and their idea of rebooting the server is to pull the plug and put it back in! I am not joking! they really did it (to the amazement of me and my furious boss :eek: )

anyways... gearhost, here I come.

:D

:)

DownTownHost (http://www.downtownhost.com/) has my vote!

And other members' posts at WHT will confirm this. :) I'm very happy with their service. Very personal, fast and professional.

Jessica

www.hostnexus.com has my vote, and its not likely to change for a while....

They have the best customer service i have had out of any host...

1st.First off they have a community forum where everyone is very helpful.
2nd. They have a trouble ticket system, which usually gets repleid to within 2 hrs.
3rd. They have a live chat facilty so if something is an emergancy you can talk with an admin LIVE
4th. They have a detailed FAQ section
5th. the have a Plesk Knowledge base, for PSA troubles...
6th. They have a special unbranded support site which u can use if u are a reseller...has support, ticket, FAQ etc...
7th. Email support
8th. Phone support

I highly recommend u check them out, or have a look at the support forum http://forum.hostnexus.com/

:cool: :D :cool:

<snip>

well... winds up that the problem I was having was entirely my fault...

So I closed the ticket. as of 12:00 AM they haven't responded yet but it's a Saturday night and I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt... for now :cool:

www.netacore.com :)

I think the poster is only wanting recommendations for Windows hosts.

Originally posted by roly

bah hostnexus has really crappy support Sorry u had bad service and chose to left Roly...:( guess u just must have had a bad experience, i have found there continued support fantastic;)

Thanks for the compliments Nelix. :)

Roly, sorry if we have dropped the ball with you on some occasion. But I'm actually having a hard job remembering if you have ever contacted support directly. Obviously I can't remember every request, but I have a good head for names. Please contact me directly via email or PM, either here or on our own forum if you have some feedback.

Negative feedbck is often more important than positive because only by examing the bad points can we improve our service. Hear from you soon I hope.

Correct... I only wanted Windows hosts, but it's ok... I took a look at hosts on both sides of the trench just out of curiousity and I am amazed at how cheaper unix/mssql is.

I just like Microsoft more... No matter how expensive it is. :D
oh well... tough for me.

I have this problem - I was only the other day discussing this at http://wmhub.net webmaster forums. I know ASP pretty well and am not that great at PHP (...yet) but I find that it is impossible to find a reliable Windows host for a reasonable fee. I am currently using a someone I knows Hsphere hosting which I admin in exchange for a resellers account, it is not bad but I kinda don't know if he will last long and go under again.

From this I am learning more PHP and gonna delve into some MySQL soon I hope. I never though i'd say it but LAMP is the way to go.

... If only MS had a CLI windows im sure it would be so much better!

Someone asked a question along the same lines, so you might be able to find some information in this thread: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56415 :)

Originally posted by Tranceport
Correct... I only wanted Windows hosts, but it's ok... I took a look at hosts on both sides of the trench just out of curiousity and I am amazed at how cheaper unix/mssql is.

I just like Microsoft more... No matter how expensive it is. :D
oh well... tough for me.

Actually I found a pretty good host: gearhost.com

I will hold judgement about them until I hit some serious issues and I spend some months with them. So far I haven't had the need of getting any real support from them. My site just started working without too much trouble. Server performance is good so far ...

As far as other hosting companies with good prices, I suggest rochenhost.com (they have good deals and a good rep) and uplinkearth.com (they are not the cheapest but I heard good things about them).

In the end, once you find those 3-4 good hosts it gets hard choosing one over the other. Only reason why I chose gearhost.com over the other two is that it was the cheapest of the three. I wanted to give it a try. If I find myself in trouble with them and I need to change in a hurry and lose some money/service time, it wouldn't be as bad as in the case of a more expensive host.

If gearhost winds up being no good, I am willing to spend the extra money to go to one of the others, if it means that I get better quality there. And I am sure that if I need to change host, rochen won't mind :D (he's next on my list of good hosts ;) )

Originally posted by Tranceport
I am sure that if I need to change host, rochen won't mind :D (he's next on my list of good hosts ;) )

We would be more than happy to welcome you :D

Anyway good luck with your site :)