HostNine Review
Posted on August 14, 2007
Filed Under Personal, Web Development |
A day in the life of a HostNine Client ain’t all bad..
(But it wasn’t 100% what I wanted)
19 Hours ago (last night), I decided to take the plunge and sign up with HostNine as a Reseller.
I’d spent an hour looking around the site, which I was very impressed by. I logged into the LiveSupport Sales section and asked when the RC brief userguide would be available, and was told it’d be ready within the hour for me. I thought, “ay up! guess I won’t be signing up with these guys”.. I was more than shocked to come back an hour later and the guide was on the KB. [+1 H9]
So I signed up, and sent the PayPal payment straight through. 10 Minutes later, I had all the login details and the domain name I had requested had been registered. [+1 H9]
So, I cleared the schedule for the evening and printed out all the login details.
I logged in, and was impressed with what I saw - it looks like a lot of effort has gone into this. It had all the familiarity of WHM, but super easy to use. It would be later that I learned how super easy to use is would be a trade-off (at the moment) for the functionality that I’d become accustomed to on my VPS.
I was bitten once with a previous host, PowerVPS - they assured me when I signed up that everything would be 100% safe and that they had all the failsafe stuff in place to keep my data secure. 1 day in (yeah, just my luck), the node dissapeared into a cloud of smoke, along with all my data. It turned out that the failsafe stuff had failed on me.. luckily the people I was coming from hadn’t destroyed the data I had and I had to transfer it all back again.. a 1 day job took 2 days, and client’s sites were offline for hours.
Then it happened again not long ago. Luckily, I was prepared. I’d setup WHM to FTP every account on the server off-site to another hosting account I’ve got. It does it every night, and then weekly and monthly. So my clients data was safe, but it was a PITA to set back up. Anyway, this is why I was skeptical when I realized I couldn’t get to WHM with RC. Remember all this for later.
Anyway, I rely on automation. It soon dawned on me that I couldn’t have it.
I logged onto LiveChat and got the more than helpful Ben (Sorry I kept you tied up for so long).
He told me:-
- ModernBill integration wasn’t done - it was coming very soon.
- Backups aren’t possible yet - it’s coming soon (he offered to create me a custom script though).
- Skeleton Directories aren’t possible - it’s on the cards.
- RVSkin Admin isn’t possible - they’ve hit issues.
- I don’t want all the options in cPanel for my clients - there’s more for them to mess with. And some of them don’t even work. I can’t remove them yet - it’s coming soon.
- rDNS isn’t completely working on the UK node - it’s waiting to be fixed.
- Fantastico doesn’t work on the UK node - it’s waiting to be fixed.
I’ve also hit some issues since:-
- I had setup the main hosting account, lets call it domain.tld. I then created another hosting account, lets call it secure.domain.tld. RC completely messed up the main DNS entry. Now when querying the DNS Server, sometimes it sends the correct requests, other times it sends incorrect data (like ignoring my nameservers stuff). Because I didn’t have access to WHM, I couldn’t add manual entries to the record incase I knackered it completely.
- I tried adding new subdomain DNS zones in the RC - it accepted it, but then they sort of disappeared into the RC mix; never for me to see them again. I tried adding subdomains via cPanel, but it complained they already existed and I wasn’t the owner.
- Modernbill - Firstly, I went round and round in circles looking how to get my hands on it; maybe you should add to your welcome e-Mail how people should get their hands on the free stuff. Then when I did get it installed, it refuses to work; I’ve checked on the MB forums, and it’s because we don’t have Globals on?
- SW SiteBuilder isn’t working right from the outset - it’s the SQLite issue(s).
- The submit support request link doesn’t work in client’s cPanels.
Some things you guys need to address (taken from your site):-
- Site Builder - Y [If everyone's having issues, and it isn't working right, you shouldn't really be advertising it]
- Web Host Manager - Y [If RC has replaced it, and we can't get to them, then you shouldn't really be advertising it]
- Automatic Sign up - Y [Again, it's not complete and available, advertising again]
- Automatic Creation - Y [Same as above]
- RVSkin - Y [Same as above]
- Client Backup/Restore - Y [Same as above]
- A lot of http://future.hostnine.com/ is not available, yet it gives the impression it’s already complete and ready for me to use.
Ok, now for some bugs in RC:-
- It says at the top it’s secure, even though it’s not - maybe you should switch to https only? or make it first choice.
- Viewing a long domain name on the list of accounts in IE7 results in a scrollbar instead of the domain name
- The Add DNS thing didn’t assign the subdomain A entries to me
- There’s an exclamation mark constantly next to Suspended Accounts
- The Open Tickets has nowhere to be configured, or is it in progress?
I’ve read other threads on the board, and they all seem to be having similar issues as me (across the board) - have you guys contemplated setting up a dedicated Bug Tracker (what about the Free Arctic by Olate?), so that others can quickly scan if there’s any bugs that are affecting them already listed, and it’s good for client collaboration.
I like the features that you have in place, but for me they aren’t quite polished yet enough, and therefore aren’t ready for Prime Time. Some of the offered stuff just isn’t working, or if it does, it’s giving me issues.
I hope that you can learn from my experiences, and they aren’t all negative.
I like the ideas that you’ve come up with, and once completely finished, it really will be a true reseller platform to be proud of. Once you’ve implemented a few more things, then you will almost be completely transparent from the End User’s point of view - which is what we all want.
I found the support from you absolutely brilliant; you helped me get things clear in my head when most people would have told me to bog off.
What I’m looking for is something that is 110% perfect for me to really promote as shared Etomite hosting, that can be completely automated.. I don’t think I ever did mention to Ben via LiveChat that I’m one half of the OpenSource CMS Etomite owner (I know I mentioned that I needed the skeleton stuff before I could transfer some on).. I usually tell the prospective host and they do everything they can to help me and get me on board promoting them, and then when it comes to the new clients, they don’t live up to what I’ve been promoting. Ben was different - he wanted to help me even without knowing what I do; he wasn’t thinking with the company wallet in mind.
Ultimately, it’s been a learning curve for me. And I’ve enjoyed taking part in the HostNine experience. I wish you guys all the best with what you have - I can see a lot of other hosts jumping on the bandwagon soon. You should try and protect what you have. What you have, when completed, has huge potential.
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