Review of different hosting companies & services side by side with our continous testing/monitoring over website performance, customer feed backs and overall industry reputation. We host sample website and do necessary testing on some crucial features to ensure our recommendation is perfect.

ResellerClub Reviews

resellerclub reviews

If you want to start web hosting business, reseller hosting would be good to start with. But firstly we need to find  a right service provider from thousands of groups. Today let's check one of the most popular name from the industry – Resellerclub. If you're considering them at the moment, let's dig further to their services.

Resellerclub overview

Resellerclub is an India hosting brand which was setup in 1998 under Directi group(a global internet company with various diversified businesses. It has customers in over 20 countries). ResellerClub offers s a full range of web presence products & services to hosting providers, web developers, IT consultants and domain resellers worldwide.

The resellerclub overall stats

Current Resellers: 100,000+
Domains Served: 5 Million+
Countries Served: 230+

Since the resellerclub is mainly focused on reseller hosting solutions, they offer a bunch of great features to help with your business success including

  • cpanel and Plesk for Management
  • Reseller Control Panel for Billing & Provisioning
  • Robust, Scalable Servers at State-of-the-Art Datacenters
  • Redundant Power, HVAC & Fire-Detection Systems
  • Complete Sales and Marketing Automation
  • Integrated Billing Module for Finance Automation
  • 99.9% Uptime Guarantee
  • 30-Day Moneyback Guarantee

Resellerclub is also one of the very few windows reseller hosting providers and comes with lots of leading features there. From their own words, resellerclub is planned to be the LARGEST hosting provider and empowers its resellers by seeking to provide the BEST reseller program in the market through a combination of innovative products and fantastic support.

Is resellerclub good?

Regardless how they award themselves, are their clients satisfied with their services? Well, a simple search from google tells us no, because many people have bad experience with resellerclub support. Although their datacenters are located in U.S.A, their support team is mainly Indian based, it's much like the EIG business model where the leading server system is supported by lazy people.

However, regardless how bad they're in people's opinions, they're growing up fast every day! Just from last year, resellerclub moved to a 200,000 squares new DC because the old one outgrowed and can not accept any new client.

How do we think about?

A overview on the hosting market, reseller hosting plans are generally offered as on-demand conditions where shared & VPS are their main business, it's really hard to find some groups who offer reseller hosting service as their main business. However, resellerclub did it! They even setup officies in multiple countries via local languages/payment choice to offer user frinedly support. Whenever you have reseller hosting needs, resellerclub is always there.

As about user complaints on the web, if we read carefully, they're mostly about control panel design and support related, very few about their actual service problems. Since they're serving over multi millions of websites on the planet, it's always quite normal to find such negative comments. I have to mention the EIG group again on this point, they probably eat half of the web hosting market but you really can't find too many good reviews about their service, why? Because they simply serve too many clients. It's pretty fair to any such huge group. If I want to start a reseller hosting some day, I will not be misguided by the negative reviews because I can't find good ones.

Who's top in reseller hosting offer?

Hostgator is by far the largest reseller hosting provider. If you want alternative solution for resellerclub, HG is highly recommended brand. Unlike all other service, HG got very few negative reviews for their reseller service, it's absolutely a surprise for their huge business.

Does Godaddy Really Suck?

does godaddy suck

Does godaddy really suck? Or what is actually bad with godaddy services? Whenever somebody request hosting recommendations in web forums or discussion boards, godaddy is always suggested to avoid. Also, whenever there's a service problem posted, people will suggest to move. How and why?

Godaddy Cons from professionals review

Godaddy sucks for what? Here're summaries from professionals in various web forums and blogs

Unstable server
There're many restrictions for godaddy servers and always not working properly with your programs. For example it's hard to configure mail server in asp.net coding and it takes forever to load the application sometimes.

Lack of support
You can't always get in time response after submitting your requests. Godaddy can be contacted only via phone & email support but not everybody like the way offered. Most people would prefer live chat support for instant response on sales and tiny issues.

Unfriendly control panel
Godaddy developed their inhouse control panel software other than industry leading choice such as cpanel and plesk. The bad is not everybody could be familiar with it in short time.

Above points are always mentioned for why to avoid. There are obviously many other stuff being complained for GD services but they're more or less related to the above big topics.

Godaddy Pros

Well, regardless how many people try to avoid the godaddy, we have to accept the trueth they're being the largest and probbly the best domain registrar in the world. Being the industry leading player, godaddy configured top lorch servers and management systems. DNS updates on godaddy end is almost instant while it always takes hours or days from other service providers.

As about their hosting services. I have to say they probably just offered too much via low priced plans. Previously we can get free hosting if we register the domain on their end. It's absolutely a good opportunity for people who just want to practise with hosting and web designs. Via several bucks per year we can test out most features under a regular hosting service. For paid hosting, people might take it as dedicated server for the great amount offers and finally run into problems. It's really not the problem of godaddy.

For now, both windows/linux hosting plans are same priced(for shared and VPS server). No other hosting groups could give out such advantages at the moment.

How do we think about godaddy hosting

Being one of the largest hosting providers in the world, Godaddy serves tons of personal and enterprise websites. To serve the big amount clients, they developed leading management programs to have all services handled properly. From traditional hosting to cloud server, godaddy have everything on hand. It's quite normal to see both negative and positive comments to their service. With our experience, happy customers are always quiet, unhappy clients are more active on the web. Unless it's your real experience, you can't refuse the great offers. Just go ahead and try out yourself since it only costs 2 bucks per month!

Ixwebhosting China

Ixwebhosting China

If you're from China but would like to use US hosting service, you always need to think about the language barrier especially when you need professional support. If English communication is a problem, a Chinese based support would be the best choice for you. Today we're going to discuss about a popular name in web hosting industry "Ixwebhosting" and illustrate if they're good with Chinese support.

Ixwebhosting Chinese support overview

Just some time ago when I check some updates for several of my hosting providers I noticed the Chinese support via Ixwebhosting group. When I digg more there, I found they even prepared the Chinese version hosting site "cn.ixwebhosting.com"! It surprised me a lot as it's already there for over 1 year.

I tried to speak with their Chinese chat support and found they're actual Chinese people, but they refused to answer me where they're located which is very bad impression. However, with my own research I found they're from the same support center in US and they just provide Chinese support in business time in that area. If 24×7 support is essential for your business, you have to deal with English.

What's really improved for Chinese customer? Definitely the payment solution. Alipay, the most popular payment method in China, is added on IX Chinese version website. Since it's not so easy to get a credit card in China, alipay is the most standard payment choice for online business. Chinese people will have zero problem in understanding their services by navigating through their Chinese version site. Since US hosting service is primary consideration for most people, IX group is obviously smart enough to get expansion in that district.

Why Chinese support is important to US hosting company?

As we know, China is the largest potential market for hosting business. However, the China hosting environment is not so impressed as we learnt. Every hosted website in Chinese datacenter needs to be licensed and the process is always not so smooth, many people have considered to host their websites oversea. Most US hosting brands are serving some amount Chinese clients at the moment.

Based above situation, if some US hosting groups could catch the chance and prepare a decent support to Chinese clients, they will earn big business in that country. My best experience with such action was from Webhost4life before they got merged to Endurance group. They even setup a China branch with local employed staff there. I guess if their people still exist there, I'm sure it will be the most popular US hosting brand in China.

Except Ixwbehosting, another service provider called hostease also launched Chinese version site and support on "cn.hostease.com". As I remember, the godaddy also got a CN version before but not sure why it's disappeared. Anyhow, if you feel your business is at a bottleneck in local market, China is a good place to digg. With their huge population and improved internet quality, there will be dreamland for sure.

Do we recommend above host(s) to Chinese visitors? First, you still need to understand what you need exactly as always talked about. A Chinese version site might save your effort in understanding the service, however that's not all with your primary needs. I'm sure what you really needed is a decent service other than a readable site. I'm also Chinese fans and be able to speak a bit. If you're from Chinese, I will be more than happy to answer such questions.

TOP 10 France Web Hosting

top 10 france hosting

U.S is the center of Internet and offers top class web hosting services. But if our main audience is from local area, a decent local service provider would be the best choice. Today we're going to find out the top France hosting providers. In case you're from France and looking for a perfect France hosting service, let's check the following.

In order to get the best web hosting service in France, we need to find out the best datacenter location there. Where is the best datacenter located? Paris and Marseille are definitely the right answer. The two cities are the largest cities of France and actually present of opportunities for businesses in France. Datacenters in the two cities have the best connectivity from France Telecom. So here it goes the top hosting

NO.1 OVH.com
OVH actually owns the hosting business in France and hard to find a competitor. Their major hosting products are dedicated server and cloud computing solutions. Price is as cheap as $39/mo which is quite affordable to either personal or business group. With over 11 years business in hosting, the OVH services are trusted by more than 380000 users with over 2000,000 domains hosted on the global.

NO.2 Gandi.net
GANDI SAS was founded in 1999 by three individuals who were highly regarded in the French internet world (Pierre Beyssac, Laurent Chemla, Valentin Lacambre). Gandi is also one of the first domain name registrars approved by ICANN. There're over 1 million hosted domain names over 200 countries with about 15% market sharing in France. Gandi offers affordable and decent shared/VPS/Reseller hosting plans. Price starts with $5/mo

NO.3 Online.net
Being the hosting specialist since 1999, Online.net offers various hosting solutions with 24×7 quick tech response. The big advantage with Online.net is we can choose to place our content to the nearest million broadband subscribers. By doing this, we can enjoy the best and network availability on websites.

NO.4 Amen.fr
As part of Dada SpA (www.dada.eu, The Dada Group operates in Italy, Spain, the UK and Ireland, France, Portugal and the Netherlands), Amen offers leading hosting services to individuals and business groups. By offering professional hosting to over 500,000 domains, Amen is a respected name in the France IT industry.

NO.5 Hostpapa.com
Yeah hostpapa! Are you aware hostpapa offered France hosting service? If not yet, you should refresh your memory now. Hostpapa.com operates business from USA, Canada, UK and France! If you're looking for super cheap and reliable hosting solution in that area, Hostpapa is probably the only name to pick out. By offering hosting service on multiple continents, hostpapa ensures their service and support is 99.99% online. Only $3.95/mo for unlimited domain hosting and disk space with green power, nowhere else you can find such offer.

Any other good names? Yeah, there're Nordnet, Hosteur.com, Nuxit and IRYSIUS, iMingo etc. Each name might serve us perfectly, but we have to digg further about what we need so we can pick up the right service provider.

Here's the overall domain traffic from top france hosting providers

France Hosting

Best Developer Friendly Hosting

developer friendly hosting

Programmer or Developer friendly hosting refers to some web hosting services that come with a bounch of features for web development and programming purpose. It's not an independent hosting plan but mainly evalued from hosting offers. In order to be developer friendly, there're many factors to check around. Here we're going to discuss the main features we should know about and review some of the quality hosting providers.

The scripting language support

A developer friendly hosting comes with side by side support for various scripting languages such as PHP, Python, Perl including up to date frameworks. Because not every developer is ken on the same language, the hosting server must be prepared to be friendly with at least 4 scripting languages support. Sometimes we might require multiple versions support such as PHP5.2.x or 5.3.x etc, the hosting server should have such pre-installed.

Web server software

Do we need Apache or Nginx or Tomcat or IIS web server? It's really hard to find a service with all those support because it requires both Linux and Windows server. So basically, a developer friendly hosting service must have both platforms selections and be able to offer above softwares in custom configurations.

Database Support

Database is a MUST for almost every web development, different web purpose might requires different database engines. For such cases, the hosting servers must get multiple database softwares pre-installed such as Mysql, Sqlite, Postgresql as well as SQL server database on windows server.

Level of access

In order to debug in quick time, some programmers prefer direct communication to hosting server via some protocols such as SSH or SVN. However, it's dangerous to offer such service for most providers, that's why only few hosting company offered such features with a signed paper. For IIS web server, there's an option called IIS remote manager which does the same work as SSH under Linux.

Support from hosting company

Support is considered the most important feature from hosting company. No matter if you're developer or user, you always wish instant response from customer care center. A developer friendly hosting must have 24/7/365 live support even on holidays! Because uptime requirements don't take vacations. Fast response and quick fixing is mostly desired for developers!

Above is a basic requirements list for developer friendly service. We might find sometimes it's hard to get all from a shared hosting environment, especially the web server softwares and SSH options. Sometimes, we really should look into higher hosting solutions other than regular shared plans. If we don't want to manage a server by ourselves, the advanced business plan or enterprise hosting is mostly recommended since the overall resource is shared by less people and further customization can be done there.

Best Developer Friendly Hosting

As we learnt from above basic rules, VPS or dedicated server is absolutely the best choice since we can fully customize it via our requirements. However, not everybody would like to manage server by themselves. A developer friendly hosting service must come with choice over multiple hosting solutions.

Arvixe (http://www.arvixe.com) is awarded the best developer friendly hosting provider by it's ease of use, affordable price and cross platform support! The Arivxe hosting is configured on both windows and linux platforms with leading offers. Their windows servers are all IIS remote manager enabled as default for windows users. Arvixe now place all windows accounts on windows server 2012 and people be able to take advantages of all available features. Like linux server hosting? Tomcat server can be offered via custom configurations for all linux hosting accounts. No matter if you choose their windows or linux hosting service, you will get free domain name opportunity and unlimited databases support!

Go to arvixe for developer hosting plans http://www.arvixe.com

Best PHPFox Hosting

PHPFox Hosting

Facebook is currently the largest social networking site and its overal traffic has conquered google's several times. Because of the leading effect, many people start to build their own social network community by following the facebook style. Well, I can't say there will be another successful facebook but it will definitely help lots of people for related business or hobbies. If you're going to develop such web site, we'll introduce one of the best software called PHPFox. We'll also discuss the best PHPFox hosting service for reference.

PHPFox Introduction

PHPFox is a social network software that gives us the ability to create a unique community that includes many of the features found on sites like Facebook and MySpace. It's a pure PHP & Mysql based application which works with all popular web servers. For quick view, here's a short list of the outstanding features with PHPFox

  • No Encryption – we get all source codes and fully customizable.
  • We can add apps located on third party server without touching our own server.
  • Fully mobile device compatible.
  • Lots of addon modules like blog/forum/video/chat and more!
  • Ability to sign in our site using Facebook, Twitter, Google, OpenID and more!
  • Scalability – Memcached technology and mysql replication ready for higher server systems.
  • Further details & features can be found at this page.

PhpFox Hosting Requirements

From the PHPFox official site, in order to get PHPFox running properly, the server has to be prepared with PHP/Mysql and GD library. PHP memory limit has to be 64M at least. These're basic requirements for running a PHPFox site, if we need to add more features to our site such as video/music etc, we need to have FFmpeg configured or else it will not work.

Any other good software like PHPFox? From this social network hosting article we introduced another App called Facebook Like Script. However, that script is limited for facebook clone and has very limited features comparing to PHPFox. Although we can get it with much less money, it's only good for small community purpose. For further requirements, we should use PHPFox such softwares.

Best PhpFox Hosting Provider

To start with our PHPFox site, a quality shared linux hosting is recommended. We can easily override some system settings via .htaccess and use the leading control panel to setup everything!

Arvixe hosting is absolutely the primary choice for phpfox. Except for their expert support over this app, they will offer FREE installation while it cost people $49 from PHPFox official. Only $4/mo to start with and 20% discount available if we sign up yearly!

Arvixe PHPFox hosting features including:

  • Unlimited Space / Unlimited Data Transfer
  • Host up to 6 Domains or go Unlimited!
  • One FREE domain registration for life
  • 24/7 world-class qualified and experienced support:
  • Technical support staff with years of in-depth hosting experience!
  • cpanel Control Panel – Unlimited email, databases and subdomains.
  • 99.9% uptime and 60 day money back guarantee
  • Fully adheres to all phpfox hosting system requirements

Check arvixe phpfox hosting plan details @ http://www.arvixe.com/

best phpfox hosting