IX Web Hosting Finished Migration to Site5

From the very being of year 2018, IX web hosting started migrating customer to site5/Verio/Dotster based the server platform of customer account. After one year processing, the migration is overall finished and IX official website finally closed.

However, just like most other transition handled by endurance group(know as EIG), the IX web hosting migration give their customer lots of headache with numorous complaints. Either web service not functional properly or not familiar with new policies or even support latency etc..

Till present, Endurance purchased over 100 hosting companies(almost all popular well known names) and reached with over 1.4 billion group value! Based the company current size and amount of supported web services, they’re creating more than 10% internet traffic which is unbeatable high comparing to any other IT company.

Following let’s find more about this event, split the case and see what kind of condition we’re working with. And how we can go well by following the right sight.

Is IX Web Hosting Good?

Probably not so many people give positive reply now due to the long time migration. But it was indeed good or perfect choice for hosting service. Not to mention their numorous hosting features and very good price, IX web hosting had been very carefully doing customer support either online or offline. Their people keep updating knowledge base from every case they’re experiencing and communicate fastly on different channels.

For hosting plan, they’re sole company who can give up to 15 dedicated IPs for free while it’s charged $2/mo everywhere else. That’s why IX is always primary choice for SEOer, you can save a big amount if you’re running a web development service with SEO support. That’s also how IX advertised itself.

IX web hosting also provides multiple grade plans including cloud server to support advanced web requirements. Either you need windows or linux platform, we can always find a suitable solution on their website at competitive offer.

Why IX Web Hosting Closed?

Since it’s a simple acquisition by endurance, why they don’t hide the process behind but close IX directly and move customers to other place? From the years finance report of SPS Commerce Inc (Actual company name of IX web hosting) we have found the company year revenue has been going down. That means it does not create too much value if endurance keep the service running as it was.

Why their profit is going down? There’re two reason. First there’re more and more competitors with much lower cost service(regardless the actual quality) which has taken a lot of new customers. If IX web hosting remain unchange it will surely loose and loose. Furthermore, IX still used windows server 2003 for shared windows hosting which is not acceptable nowadays. There’s not any sight showing they’re going to upgrade. If we want to use new windows server system, we must use VPS or cloud server plans.

Secondly, the company provides too much which results in abuse of resource. Let’s say their 15 free dedicated IPs and free 3 domain name registration. Generally if we purchase such service separately the total cost will be $390/yr. But we can get with only $7.95/mo with IX company. Once our hosting account setup, we can claim directly from control panel. That means no matter if we really need or not, it will be given and the resource will be deducted from database. It’s a huge waste.

Is Site5 Good Enough?

Not exactly as announced though it was good from our earlier review. Not to mention the IX transfer process to their platform, the site5 updated terms of use is not fair at all to users. Extremely high restriction to account usage and no explanation account closure, what kind of service it is while it’s not cheap at all? See this AUP page on site5 for details.

Because site5 is just a small part of Endurance group. Either from the current hosting plan design or general web site structure, it seems the main purpose is to serve existing customer and hold new customer migration such as IX web hosting. Comparing to any modern service provider, we don’t see too much company or service introduction, the team behind or network specification etc on site5 web pages. The site content is maximumly simplified comparing to 3 years before when it’s not under endurance control.

Furthermore, site5 can only accept linux server accounts. If you’re windows based customer from IX site, you’re now dealing with Verio who provides very similiar windows server features like IX (also windows server 2003)

Where to go Next?

Well, that depends what you’re going to use exactly from IX side before.

For example if you’re really trying to take advantages of their free IPs, you can not find a better offer on the web. And most probably you can not purchase so many dedicated IP address under shared hosting plan. So it’s highly suggested go with VPS or dedicated server. Currently, most server side configuration can be done quickly via web panel so you don’t really have to be familiar with server setup. But of course it will make things easier if you can manage a server well.

Other specifications such as free domain name is available from most other web hosting providers so it’s easy to find an alternative choice.

Although migration experience of IX is not good at all due to its complex service structure, it doesn’t mean endurance is completely bad. On the other side, endurance is quite powerful in IT especially cloud computing. They’re centrally managing with over 1 million servers in data centers from different locations of the world. Either from financial or technical properties they’re actually the top giant from industry. Endurance did have broken multiple hosting brands like easycgi or globat, however they do have powered more successful names such as hostgator and bluehost. Especially on iPage site, its probably the only place in the world you can get such low cost plan with fruitful features and high performance server.