This is just a quick update on my first year with WebHost4Life. Overall, they get a passing grade. Availability is by far the best of any shared host I’ve used. Only on rare occasions have I noticed a “Service Unavailable” or any other non-application related 500 errors. The control panel continues to be the most usable with which I’ve worked, thought it has a sort of 1998 feel to it (OK, maybe 2001).
The 24×7 live help is truly a great feature, and I would never again sign up with a host that didn’t offer this support option. I’ve been able to get answers to virtually any questions, whether sales or technical, in minutes. The tech support has gotten much better too. Ticket replies seem to be coming in within the hour (sometimes a few minutes). A request for a CSR and corresponding SSL certificate was completed almost instantly. My only complaint was when I signed a client of for a VPS plan, they were slow with the request (signed up early on a Friday was completed on late Monday). I canceled that plan and instead signed that client up for a shared plan (which was setup quickly).
That same client had previously been running at Ultima Hosts. If you read previous posts on that company, you’ll know I am no fan. Ultima is just plain horrible. Avoid them at all costs. The only reason this client was running there was I didn’t have time to switch before their last annual renewal. A few months ago, Ultima switched data centers, which was supposed to be transparent to customers. Yeah right. I spent days fighting broken SQL connections, missing mail accounts and incorrectly setup websites. It was a disaster. Ultima charges $50/month for a service with virtually no reliability. WebHost4Life charges $20/month (add ons are reasonably priced extras) for a similar plan.
Mark Schiavetta, who runs Ultima, broke with his business partners and hijacked the business as I understand. At one point, I received an email from his former partners trying to get customers to pay them and use their service. It was quite a soap opera. Needless to say do NOT sign up for Ultima. If you are with Ultima, WebHost4Life is a MUCH better alternative.
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