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  1. #1

    Hostwinds review

    I usually don't bother to talk a webhost down after a bad experience but this one just took the cake. I used to be with Dreamhost but decided to go with a 512MB-ram VPS so my bigger sites would load faster (and they do! ) but, since it's only 512MB I had to save recources. So I decided to take my smaller websites off, and go put them on a cheap shared host. That's how I found hostwinds.

    Initial setup was great, site was online pretty much immediatly and ladida wooptidoo etc. etc.

    Then they got hacked (or something). They moved servers resulting in a 2 or 3 day downtime (don't remember) meaning I had to host all my websites locally until they fixed it. So they moved servers etc. and since then remote acces to mysql databases is no longer permitted. (Why, if I may add? Works fine for hostgator!)

    So I contact their "Technical" support, and they guy ends u asking me if I know what he should do (LOL). Which I didn't, of course. So I get crafty, and make an application that splits my .SQL files in smaller pieces, and uploads then one by one through phpmyadmin. It was a couple of hundred 500kb files or something, uploaded over a period of a few hours to make sure it wouldn't hog all their recources. The complete database of 400 megabytes was uploaded succesfully, but it didn't matter because today I find my account suspended for "using too much recources".

    You know how some hosting companies offer "5GB disk space, 10GB transfer / month for $5/mo" etc. ? Well, that's what this is, except they call it "unlimited"

    Don't get me wrong here, I know that unlimited never means unlimited when it comes to shared webhosting but if your account alread gets closed within 1 week, after having uploaded roughly 1.5GB of data and using about the same amount in bandwidth then such a plan should NOT be allowed to be called "unlimited". Especially since their TOS states "unlimited as long as all files are required by your website" blablabla. You know, so they can prevent you from uploading shtloads of video files or use your storage space as online backup. Well, that's usually the case, anyway, hostwinds just closes your account no matter what it seems because I was well within the normal-usage range >.>


    So yeah, avoid avoid avoid!

  2. #2
    Just got an email and a call from hostwinds and they sorted it all out it seems. Going to give them another chance, if they live up to my expectations this time I'm definitely making them my new go-to shared webhost, because their support is very friendly.

    The reason the techie didn't know what to do was because he did everything he could already, and it turns out all that was required was a mysql restart to make the changes take effect

    So yeah, spoke a little soon maybe. ALl I can say is; be very careful when importing large mysql databases because it will trigger their system!

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    Modesto California
    Posts
    6,858
    Hmm.. personally I think you run a huge risk of running into these types of problems when hosting with a company that claims to offer unlimited diskspace/bandwidth. The problem is those types of companies attract a large amount of users who are looking to abuse the servers by testing those invisible limits, which often times lead to accounts being suspended or the server loading very slowly.
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  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by FernGullyGraphics View Post
    The problem is those types of companies attract a large amount of users who are looking to abuse the servers by testing those invisible limits, which often times lead to accounts being suspended or the server loading very slowly.
    To my experience, with hostwinds it's the latter. The moment someone abuses the system, their accounts are automatically suspended. I found that normal websites load very fast with hostwinds, but when it comes to tranferring files you start to notice it's capacity issues. But that's normal behaviour for any shared webhost, I'd say.

    I really liked them from the moment I signed up with them, it's just the auto-suspension issue that eventually put me off, but that's being taken care off very personally. They just seem to be protecting their resources very "agressively" but as long as you don't mind waiting an hour or two for support, that can all be taken care of. Peter, who I believe is the actual owner of hostwinds, called me to help out so even though I can't be sure yet if it's going to work out this time; their service is top notch.

    Hope it works out now

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    Modesto California
    Posts
    6,858
    Quote Originally Posted by crankyslap View Post

    I really liked them from the moment I signed up with them, it's just the auto-suspension issue that eventually put me off, but that's being taken care off very personally. They just seem to be protecting their resources very "agressively" but as long as you don't mind waiting an hour or two for support, that can all be taken care of. Peter, who I believe is the actual owner of hostwinds, called me to help out so even though I can't be sure yet if it's going to work out this time; their service is top notch.

    Hope it works out now
    Well glad to hear things are being sorted out for you, wish you the best of luck, be sure to check back and let us know how things are progressing for you.
    Looking for an awesome VPS Offer? CLICK HERE

    "Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do." – Bruce Lee

  6. #6
    Ya, will do. What he did for me during the call was take me off the resource-monitor completely so I could import any big database file I still need in there. I will be re-added tomorrow morning so that's plenty of time. Also, he noted that their business plan ($10/mo) does not have this aggressive monitoring and auto-suspending so if this works out okay I'll upgrade there to avoid future database imports from suspending my account.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Chicago, IL USA
    Posts
    1,430
    CrankySlap,

    First, welcome to WHT!

    Glad to hear that you and HostWinds worked things out. That is always so much better in the long run and shows some professionalism on all parties involved.
    ||| Mike Bowers - Marketing Director
    ||| atOmicVPS LTD
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  8. #8

    Thumbs up Hostwinds review - I recommend them

    It can be hard to pick a shared host, since they all (usually) offer the same thing; Unlimited this, unlimited that, etc. etc. with generally only the obvious differences; price and contract length, and the less obvious difference; quality of support!

    The latter you usually only find out out after you already buy a hosting package, so in hopes of making that part a little easier for you; Hostwinds support RULES. I usually get a response within 30minutes even late at night (GMT+2 here).

    I used to be with Dreamhost, I was very satisfied with their service but I do feel they cram their servers a little bit too full, and once your website starts growing; you'll notice. I also didn't like I had to buy a full year worth of hosting rather then paying monthly, which *is* possible with Hostwinds.

    After my dreamhost account expired I decided to try Hostgator, which are too expensive for what they offer (imo). Hostwinds really takes the cake between those 3.

    The only negative thing I have to say about Hostwinds is that they don't support remote mysql acces the way other companies do. When you want remote acces you need to contact their support with your IP number so they can whitelist it, you cannot whitelist it yourself and you can also not whitelist everyone with a wildcard. So if your website/application requires remote acces (very rare btw), Hostwinds is not for you. If you don't require remote acces and you are looking for a shared webhost; pick this one, you seriously won't regret it.

    If you *do* regret it; they have a refund policy (30 days I believe) and their "contract" is monthly. So you'll never lose more than a couple of bucks for trying them out, and if you make use of their refund policy you won't lose anything at all. But I guarantee you it won't come that far because they're awesome!

  9. #9
    Great review! I am glad you are happy with them.
    What is the domain name you have hosted with them?
    Tiger Host | Shared Hosting - Reseller Hosting - Domain Registration
    ---> 24/7/365 Live Chat & Help Desk Support.
    ---> cPanel 11,Softaculous,Fantastico & more.
    ---> http://www.tiger-host.net

  10. #10
    I have like 6 with them I believe. Here's 1 if you want to try out the speed; http://www.ukalilo.com/blog

    It's an autoblog with a 400mb database (~60k posts) and as you can see it loads really really fast. I am superhappy with them!

  11. #11
    Yes,it loads quite fast here from my end.

    Make sure you report your domain name to moderators for the verification of this review.

    Thanks
    Tiger Host | Shared Hosting - Reseller Hosting - Domain Registration
    ---> 24/7/365 Live Chat & Help Desk Support.
    ---> cPanel 11,Softaculous,Fantastico & more.
    ---> http://www.tiger-host.net

  12. #12
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia
    Posts
    10,629
    So what happened in the event of you posting to avoid them like the plague and now recommending them as awesome?!

    l Dedigeeks Shared Wordpress Dedicated Established 2006
    l Leading AUSTRALIAN Hosting Provider Sydney & Melbourne Datacentres
    l cPanel/WHM R1Soft Backups 24/7/365 Support SMS Hosting Alerts*
    l www.dedigeeks.com Managing Director Service Superstars

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Sparrow-Sean View Post
    So what happened in the event of you posting to avoid them like the plague and now recommending them as awesome?!
    Please read that entire thread. I made this new one because now *that* thread name shows up in google when you search for hostwinds review so I hope this one balances it out because they really did verything they could to help me and I've never been so happy with customer support ever 0.o I was just a little impatient with them because I was moving all my websites around yet *again* and they deserve better.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia
    Posts
    10,629
    So then why did you post it in the first place, being impatient is not going to help the company much by opening a new thread to praise them, I mean IMHO it is still going to show up in Google listings irregardless to writing this new review or another 10 months later
    l Dedigeeks Shared Wordpress Dedicated Established 2006
    l Leading AUSTRALIAN Hosting Provider Sydney & Melbourne Datacentres
    l cPanel/WHM R1Soft Backups 24/7/365 Support SMS Hosting Alerts*
    l www.dedigeeks.com Managing Director Service Superstars

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Sparrow-Sean View Post
    So then why did you post it in the first place, being impatient is not going to help the company much by opening a new thread to praise them, I mean IMHO it is still going to show up in Google listings irregardless to writing this new review or another 10 months later
    Errr I don't get it. You are saying that if this thread was to show side by side in google with my previous thread, that will not increase hostwinds credibility? Or am I misunderstanding?

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    5,178
    Threads merged. One thread per review, good or bad, please
    If you have to operate your company behind the scenes or under a fake name, maybe it's time to leave the industry and start something fresh.

  17. #17

    Thanks

    Thanks for the review,

    We try very hard to keep our customers happy and around the time of that hack ,that we are very sorry ever occurred, we were very busy fixing many accounts.
    I guess I am just saying thanks for giving us the time to sort out the problems and for your patience.

    Sincerely,
    The Hostwinds Staff

  18. #18

    Hostwinds Solid Host Company

    I recently moved my VPS hosting to Hostwinds. There were a few issues but miscommunication on my part and theirs caused the issues. The bottomline is there wasn't any finger pointing but true professionalism from them. The bottomline was to fix the problem. Peter stayed with the problems until they were resolved. I felt that my business was important to him.

    I have been hosting for over 10 years and have experienced good and bad hosting. The proof of a good reliable company is in their tech support when something goes wrong. As a system engineer, no matter how hard you try to plan things, something always pops up. It is how you deal with it that gives customers a warm fuzzy feeling. Hostwinds provided the warm fuzzy feelings.

    Hostwinds provides fast reliable VPS hosting (haven't tried Shared hosting as I have outgrown it). Their support is excellent and responsive. You actually can talk to a real person who is really interested in what you have to say. This is a good company. I look forward to a long hosting relationship.

    Fetchzilla

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by crankyslap View Post
    I usually don't bother to talk a webhost down after a bad experience but this one just took the cake. I used to be with Dreamhost but decided to go with a 512MB-ram VPS so my bigger sites would load faster (and they do! ) but, since it's only 512MB I had to save recources. So I decided to take my smaller websites off, and go put them on a cheap shared host. That's how I found hostwinds.

    Initial setup was great, site was online pretty much immediatly and ladida wooptidoo etc. etc.

    Then they got hacked (or something). They moved servers resulting in a 2 or 3 day downtime (don't remember) meaning I had to host all my websites locally until they fixed it. So they moved servers etc. and since then remote acces to mysql databases is no longer permitted. (Why, if I may add? Works fine for hostgator!)

    So I contact their "Technical" support, and they guy ends u asking me if I know what he should do (LOL). Which I didn't, of course. So I get crafty, and make an application that splits my .SQL files in smaller pieces, and uploads then one by one through phpmyadmin. It was a couple of hundred 500kb files or something, uploaded over a period of a few hours to make sure it wouldn't hog all their recources. The complete database of 400 megabytes was uploaded succesfully, but it didn't matter because today I find my account suspended for "using too much recources".

    You know how some hosting companies offer "5GB disk space, 10GB transfer / month for $5/mo" etc. ? Well, that's what this is, except they call it "unlimited"

    Don't get me wrong here, I know that unlimited never means unlimited when it comes to shared webhosting but if your account alread gets closed within 1 week, after having uploaded roughly 1.5GB of data and using about the same amount in bandwidth then such a plan should NOT be allowed to be called "unlimited". Especially since their TOS states "unlimited as long as all files are required by your website" blablabla. You know, so they can prevent you from uploading shtloads of video files or use your storage space as online backup. Well, that's usually the case, anyway, hostwinds just closes your account no matter what it seems because I was well within the normal-usage range >.>


    So yeah, avoid avoid avoid!
    i agree hostwinds are crap? i signed up with them? and from day 1 had nothing but trouble,,decided to cancel with them and they refused to refund me the extra funds i added to my account, bigtime ripp off merchants..
    stay well away from these guys

  20. #20
    That's odd, they refunded me immediatly. They're US based so lawfully required to, even. I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with them. Why are you ending your sentences in questionmarks btw?

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