IX Web Hosting

This is the first installment of what I feel will be a large series of blog posts regarding the service and support of web hosting companies; including pros, cons, ratings and the ultimate bottom line.

Web designers rely on hosting companies to service and support their website(s). Larger web design companies rely on the “big” web hosting companies service, support, AND infastructur to support DNS servers, ftp servers, testing/production servers, databases and more, in addition to their basic web and email hosting needs.

I’ve developed on average 4-5 websites per month for over 15 years. By that math, I’m closing in on 1,000 websites. Each website requires hosting, so given my experience I believe I am well positioned to offer some credible (and yes, personal) opinions on several website hosting companies.

Most people use the internet as a platform to rant and voice only negative experiences. I’ll try not to be that guy. While I do have negative comments I want to include some positive ones too.

About IX Web Hosting:

What I know of this company is they provide a shared web and email hosting service. The setup for each service is done through a do-it-yourself control panel. You can get setup in minutes with a credit card and be on your way to hosting your website with this company. It’s not a bad process at all. They’re legit, too, I belive a US-owned company operating out of at least Kentucky but likely other States too.

Considering IX? You’ll Want to Read This:

If you ever seek help from IX, you’ll quickly discover that it’s near impossible to reach a certified tech. You’ll find yourself in a 24/7 “support” chat environment with either Anatoli, Vladimir or Sergei. These guys are the bottom-of-the-barrel support types that we all hate – they read from a script, make you jump through hoops with Q&A’s, send you canned responses from their LivePerson chat software, and then ultimately tell you that they cannot help you and must escalate the issue to other techs. The majority of the time, after this is all said and done, they’ll put the onus on you to create the support ticket yourself. This sucks, because you have to start from square one again and reiterate your problem.

The Good Thing About IX Web Hosting:

They’re cheap. From my experience they are one of the cheapest hosts around, and their uptime is pretty good. Cheap hosts, like GoDaddy, set theirselves up for exponential growth. It’s only a matter of time before this business model turns successful enough to become a hosting powerhouse and invest more money into your infastructure. If IX can hold on and make it, they’ll be a serious contender in a few years.

The Worst Part About IX Web Hosting:

When their servers go down, you’re better off switching hosts. This is the most logical action as it’s quicker than waiting for them to resolve the problem. Their support is so bad, that when they go down they’re likely down for days, even a week. My last downtime experience with them was when an email server of theirs got nailed with spam or some time of DOS (Denial of Service) attack and created a massive backlog of email on the server that brought it to a screeching halt. I experienced a similar type of outage with Alentus, who had it fixed within 48hrs, but IX took about a week to fully resolve the issue.

My Advice to You:

If you have one or two low-maintenane websites (such as personal websites) to host, go with IX Web Hosting. If you have many websites (especially client websites) and support is of key concern, do not choose IX.