Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Cloud Hosting : Rackspace CloudSites - Some facts you must know before buying

[tabish]

Hi All,

When I saw rackspace is offering such a great thing, I couldn't stop myself to inquire about it. It's a SitesCloud, starting from $100 per month. Sounds like a GREAT deal to grab, but when you know actually what's behind that, you will be surprised:

1) This CloudSites hosting comes with their own control panel, means no cpanel nothing. Very very limited functions, and you can not ask for any kind of Cpanel or Plesk.

2) No site migration facility. Now this seems to be a real threat for those who have large website. If you have a website with over 5 GB content, you will have to sit at home, use FTP to transfer all the files one by one. If you ask for the site Migration facility (from rackspace), they will charge $250 per hour (nice.. yeahh)

3) No root access, nothing. you will be given an FTP and control panel, that's all. They claim to host large websites and portals on cloudsites, but I am surprised how people use that.

4) This CloudSites seems to be for those who have small websites or blog. That is useless if you have big website or portal. because even if you try to take backup of your large database, they will give you PHPMyadmin or Navcat only.

After chatting up with them for whole day, I knew that they are not really interested for the big portals and big websites, it is just for the static websites having less content and less site files.

What you guys have to say?

Regards

[Vaxination]

Absolutely ridicule.

How they can market it in such a way when your actually getting jack ****.

[sgarbus]

First off, Rackspace never mentions using cPanel or any other type of publicly available control panel -- which is for obvious reasons. They're a huge player in the industry and they're not going to be using cheap control panels like cPanel or Plesk to power their entire setup. Rackspace's CloudSites is NOT a dedicated server, VPS or anything similar. It's basically a shared account powered by multiple servers rather than just having 1 server for web, mail, mysql, etc. If you want full control over your server, purchase their CloudServers plans that advertise root access.

While I don't know this for sure, I would find it hard to believe Rackspace wouldn't offer any type of SSH access to CloudSites. Obviously you're not going to get root access... it's not a dedicated server, VPS or any other type of service where you are managing the server (as is their CloudServers). THEY DO -- THAT'S WHY YOU PAY ALL THAT MONEY!

CloudSites is not just for people with small websites or blogs. If you're not competent enough to migrate your own websites, they will do so for you. Yeah, it's a hefty charge, but for a large business, $250/hr is hardly costly. I've manually moved websites 5GB+ in size with multiple databases over in minutes before... it doesn't take as long as you'd think.

[sailor]

Originally Posted by sgarbus

They're a huge player in the industry and they're not going to be using cheap control panels like cPanel

Cpanel is an excellent panel and I would disagree with your characterization that its "cheap"

I am not sure if you are referring to its price or its functionality or its construction but we have found it to be excellent and a great asset in hosting.

It also runs great in the cloud.

[sgarbus]

Originally Posted by sailor

Cpanel is an excellent panel and I would disagree with your characterization that its "cheap"

I am not sure if you are referring to its price or its functionality or its construction but we have found it to be excellent and a great asset in hosting.

It also runs great in the cloud.

I apologize... you're right, I did choose the wrong word. I wasn't trying to imply it was "cheap" in terms of cost, functionality or construction. Such a player like Rackspace isn't going to be using a control panel used by thousands of other hosts, a target to many exploits and all other associations with being such a large, public control panel. Rackspace probably has much more success when it comes to reliability and customization with their own panel -- just maybe not features.

[sailor]

Originally Posted by sgarbus

I apologize... you're right, I did choose the wrong word. I wasn't trying to imply it was "cheap" in terms of cost, functionality or construction. Such a player like Rackspace isn't going to be using a control panel used by thousands of other hosts, a target to many exploits and all other associations with being such a large, public control panel. Rackspace probably has much more success when it comes to reliability and customization with their own panel -- just maybe not features.

I have found that because it is widely distributed its kept very secure because its tested.

[FastServ]

Originally Posted by sailor

I have found that because it is widely distributed its kept very secure because its tested.

Cpanel blows the pants off of any other control panel both in features AND security.

It allows you to *properly* keep things up to date with easy apache (apache, php, mysql) and lock down user accounts with stuff like suphp and suexec, WITHOUT using some random 'do so at your own risk' instructions needed with other panels.

Other panels are WAY behind in almost every aspect, and usually more expensive too...

On a side note, I heard that the rackspace cloud limits your mysql usage with strange limits like 5 queries per connection, ect. Some (mostly older or maybe a bit sloppy) LAMP software won't even function properly because of this.