Cheap, but risky to go with (Fasthosts.co.uk)

Member Name: mh42

Product:	Fasthosts.co.uk
Date:	29/01/09 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap reseller account

Disadvantages: Too many to list here

I have a slightly mixed experience with fasthosts, certainly not as bad as many here or elsewhere but not really to my satisfaction.

Last year my company 'inherited' a reseller account with hosting accounts for several websites run under a now closed company. This seemed pretty reasonable for the £50 or so monthly fee and as long as the sites didn't need .NET or a SQL database all was fine. It became apparent however that there are certain 'quirks' to the fasthosts interface that have really peeved me off recently.

1) If the domain is not registered with fasthosts they do not give you full dns information to point the domain! A good example of this is the SSL access (ssl.*)

2) Transferring clients from one reseller account to another is nigh on impossible without deleting the accounts (thereby losing emails etc) and causing downtime for the client.

3) Getting a MSSQL database upgraded is very risky business - fasthosts will bill you the difference for an entire year and then forget to upgrade the database. Once badgered they will but bill you again!

The tech support is somewhat patchy - sometimes I get good responses to my queries and others I get typical firstline moron responses depending seemingly on the time of day or person operating the phone.

In all fasthosts could be a good option for a web company starting out BUT I imagine making the move away or implementing more complex systems will be risky.

Summary: Cheap, but risky to go with