Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Review: ReliableSite 2 year review

[patja]

I have had a shared hosting account with ReliableSite for over two years. I was drawn to them by the great value they offered, which at the time I signed up was backed up by great service. It seemed that no matter the day or time, you could get a quick response to any issue. More often than not, you could get someone on the live chat support feature to engage with you in real time. They were an early provider of SQL Server support as part of their shared hosting packages as well, and I really liked the ease of adding features to my hosting plan. I could pay for only what I needed.

Availability and performance have remained great throughout my experience with ReliableSite. I use an independent availability monitor and it almost always reports 100% uptime. I’ve never had an outage that I noticed.

I love the DotNetPanel control panel and the ease with which I can manage my files (zip/unzip support) and perform my own SQL Server backups and restores.

One beef I always had with ReliableSite is the aggressiveness with which they would recycle my application pools. I log this event, and I would see my app pool recycle after only a minute or two of inactivity. It was not uncommon to see my app pool recycle 450 times in a day (no that is not a typo, and yes that is a real number I counted on a recent day). This forced me to learn to do without relying on session state, which is probably a good thing overall, but I can’t help but think this is impacting my app performance.

Lately support from ReliableSite has been flat out poor. I never hear back on any support ticket in less than 24 hours, and typically it is around 48 – 72 hours. And when I reply back with more information, again it is often another 48 – 72 hours to hear the response. This can make a typical ticket take a week or so to resolve. And live chat is never available any longer that I have seen.

For me the straw that broke the camel’s back was support for ASP.NET 3.5 SP1. SP1 was released on Nov 18, 2008. ReliableSite applied it to most of their IIS servers in December 2008, but they did not apply it to the server where my web sites reside. I have a dynamic data site that I am deploying that needs SP1 to run, and I had a mojoportal upgrade fail at one point due to the lack of SP1 (thankfully there was a patch in the next mojoportal release that worked around this).

On Sept 9 2009 I opened a support ticket requesting they install SP1 on my server. After a lot of back and forth between then and now (again with typical turnaround from ReliableSite being measured in days not hours), it turns out they can’t figure out how to make it work. Apparently the installation fails and Microsoft has not been able to help them get it resolved (for over 4 months!). On January 7 I agreed to move forward with a plan to move my account to one of their other servers, a request to which I have yet to receive a reply with specific steps and timing for execution. So we have a pretty critical support ticket that has drawn out over 4 months with no resolution, and no reply in the last week.

I finally came to the conclusion that even if they did finally manage to move me to the other server, how much can I rely on them if I have a serious and urgent outage problem in the future? So I went ahead and moved my most critical sites to a new hosting company. SP1 was of course already there, and performance is the same or better (app pool recycling is down to half a dozen times per day at most…compare that to 450 per day).

I am still satisfied with ReliableSite for my low volume web sites that don’t need SP1 so am leaving them there for now. I’m disappointed that they were not able to support a long standing customer and retain my full loyalty. Hopefully the company I switched to will provide better support and will offer services that can grow and scale as my business grows and scales.

[patja]

I guess I am supposed to include my domains in my post to give it more credibility. I moved the domain doulamatch.net off of ReliableSite. I still host other there, including westseattlenaturalmedicine.com reache.info slokell.com and kimjames.net

[MrRadic]

Originally Posted by patja

One beef I always had with ReliableSite is the aggressiveness with which they would recycle my application pools. I log this event, and I would see my app pool recycle after only a minute or two of inactivity. It was not uncommon to see my app pool recycle 450 times in a day (no that is not a typo, and yes that is a real number I counted on a recent day). This forced me to learn to do without relying on session state, which is probably a good thing overall, but I can’t help but think this is impacting my app performance.

We specifically have these settings to support the great performance you receive at the cost you pay. Most providers at the cost of our service can't offer 1/2 the performance we have. If we kept every pool active 24/7 the server would quickly run out of memory and you would notice severe performance loss. An alternative to your issue is to use cookies.

Originally Posted by patja

Lately support from ReliableSite has been flat out poor. I never hear back on any support ticket in less than 24 hours, and typically it is around 48 – 72 hours. And when I reply back with more information, again it is often another 48 – 72 hours to hear the response. This can make a typical ticket take a week or so to resolve. And live chat is never available any longer that I have seen.

Our support system shows an average response time of under 1 hour to customer tickets with many handled in under 5 minutes. We do not advertise or provide any sort of live support. The only live option available is for sales.

Originally Posted by patja

For me the straw that broke the camel’s back was support for ASP.NET 3.5 SP1. SP1 was released on Nov 18, 2008. ReliableSite applied it to most of their IIS servers in December 2008, but they did not apply it to the server where my web sites reside. I have a dynamic data site that I am deploying that needs SP1 to run, and I had a mojoportal upgrade fail at one point due to the lack of SP1 (thankfully there was a patch in the next mojoportal release that worked around this).

We fully support SP1 on all of our servers with the exception of what you're currently on. As explained to you by ticket multiple times, this was an early release of Windows Server 2008 that had a few bugs with updates. There are several updates that cannot be installed that are required by SP1. We have spent time and time again trying to overcome this issue with a total of over 80 hours directed strictly toward your tickets.

Originally Posted by patja

On Sept 9 2009 I opened a support ticket requesting they install SP1 on my server. After a lot of back and forth between then and now (again with typical turnaround from ReliableSite being measured in days not hours), it turns out they can’t figure out how to make it work. Apparently the installation fails and Microsoft has not been able to help them get it resolved (for over 4 months!). On January 7 I agreed to move forward with a plan to move my account to one of their other servers, a request to which I have yet to receive a reply with specific steps and timing for execution. So we have a pretty critical support ticket that has drawn out over 4 months with no resolution, and no reply in the last week.

You have requested your sites to be moved with "live support" available throughout the entire move. This ticket has been escalated to a specific senior staff. We're planning to move you over, but no live support will be provided. This is a holiday week/weekend in the US so there is limited staff. This isn't considered an "urgent issue" by any means.

Originally Posted by patja

I finally came to the conclusion that even if they did finally manage to move me to the other server, how much can I rely on them if I have a serious and urgent outage problem in the future? So I went ahead and moved my most critical sites to a new hosting company. SP1 was of course already there, and performance is the same or better (app pool recycling is down to half a dozen times per day at most…compare that to 450 per day).

We have maintained an average uptime of over 99.994% (outside of planned maintenance) in almost the 4 years we have been in business. We have grown over 300% in the last year, are now located in 2 data centers.

I am truly disappointed that you have taken such a small issue (lack of SP1 support on a single server) and escalated it to lack of reliability, support, and claiming that we are a poor company.

If you would like to contact me directly, send an e-mail to sales@reliablesite.net with ATTN: Radic in the subject. I will be more than glad to speak with you directly and personally make sure your issues are resolved.

[XeHSean]

Originally Posted by patja

I guess I am supposed to include my domains in my post to give it more credibility. I moved the domain doulamatch.net off of ReliableSite. I still host other there, including westseattlenaturalmedicine.com reache.info slokell.com and kimjames.net

Yep, just to confirm the validity of the review - thanks!

[HostLeet]

Glad to a see a ReliableSite representative post here and explain their side of the story. Are these problems recent, or have you had them the whole 2 years? If they're recent, I find it a bit unfair on your part that after 2 years of being a happy client, you never left them a review. Until you had problems..?

[iHubNet-Matt]

Thanks for the detailed review. Use the opportunity provided by Radic to solve your problems.

[DashingHost]

Hope your issues are solved soon. I would try and contact Radic; it seems like he is willing to do whatever it takes to make you happy.

[patja]

Here is an update of where things stand now. If you don't care to read all of the details below, the summary is that despite contacting Radic, my issue remains unresolved and multiple emails to ReliableSite support and Radic have gone unanswered for several days now.

I contacted Radic per his suggestion in his reply above. I pointed out several inaccuracies in his reply. I was never told the reason for the failure of ReliableSite to update their server to ASP.NET 3.5 SP1, only that that server was "a bit different" and when they tried updating it, it had to be rolled back. I also pointed out that I don't expect live support as a general rule, particularly for the low price paid for shared hosting, but that given my experience that ReliableSite support often takes days to respond, I don't want my account being moved to a different server without some assurance I can get in touch with someone should a problem occur requiring intervention from support. I had not been told that my ticket was escalated nor that there was any plan being worked up to resolve it. Prior to the above post, the last communication from ReliableSite on this issue was Jan 7, with multiple unanswered emails from me requesting followup between Jan 7 and posting the above review.

I told Radic that I was glad to hear that their average support response time is so low, but that has definitely not been my experience, and I pointed out examples in my recent tickets where days or weeks go by with no response or resolution.

I also told Radic that in the grand scheme of things, the SP1 issue wasn't a barn-burning urgent issue (I worked around it for months), but that my overall concern was really the inconsistent response times from support, and wondering if they would really be there should there be a real urgent "site down" type of situation. With that said, ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 is becoming more and more the norm or standard expectation for a lot of sites. I just saw that the latest DotNetNuke release requires it. And .NET 4.0 is coming up for release in just a few months.

So Radic got back to me on the 20th and said someone was ready to move my account to a server with SP1 "before the weekend" and they would contact me at least 24 hours before it happens.

Nothing actually happened "before the weekend". I hear from support on Saturday morning that the move is planned for late Sunday evening and they will get back to me with more details. I figure OK things are moving in the right direction. I just mention the timing "before the weekend" not so much because the timing was super-critical, but it is yet another example of ReliableSite not doing what they say or saying what they do.

Unfortunately, this is the last I have heard from them. My account wasn't moved, and I received no "further details". On Sunday I sent 3 emails requesting the status and timing of the account move. No replies. On Monday I sent another email asking what happened and when can we reschedule. No replies. Monday afternoon I send an urgent email to sales@reliablesite.net with subject ATTN: Radic informing him of what happened, asking why I haven't heard anything from Support, and when can we reschedule the account move. Again...you guessed it...no reply. I checked the support ticketing system and all of my emails are logged there against the ticket.

[patja]

Originally Posted by HostLeet

Glad to a see a ReliableSite representative post here and explain their side of the story. Are these problems recent, or have you had them the whole 2 years? If they're recent, I find it a bit unfair on your part that after 2 years of being a happy client, you never left them a review. Until you had problems..?

I would say the problems in responsiveness from support have emerged over the last year or so (give or take). I had posted a favorable testimonial on the ReliableSite forums based on my earlier positive experience.

Sorry I didn't post anything here...I really don't spend a lot of time here.

[patja]

I've now received an email indicating the server move for my account will happen tonight.