(mt) Media Temple (Our Review)

Media Temple Review (Page 2)

Unlike many web hosting companies, Media Temple is very customer focused. Their Account Center (web-based account management tool) presents technical support at the top of the list of things to do. You can open new requests, view a history of all prior support trouble tickets, access an extensive knowledgebase and even chat with a support representative live using their special interactive chat tool.

Response time is very fast and very helpful. Their support team was able to solve a complicated PHP scripting matter within 2 hours of a request being opened. We liked that our answer arrived via email as well as being logged in the Account Center. This certainly beats the complicated email only support offered by most other hosting companies.

Other options in the Account Center include billing balances and statements, domain name management (direct modification of the DNS zone file) and of course website management. Media Temple's Shared Server 4.0 platform uses a customized version of Ensim WEBppliance called WebControl for website management. Website management includes the configuration of email, web-based file access, website statistics (Urchin), log files and databases.

Compared to most hosting companies, Media Temple's control panel only includes a very basic set of tools. Missing are the one-click application installers that make life as a web designer easy. We have gotten so used to installing WordPress, PHPBB, and Zencart with a single click that it would be a chore to do it any other way. For a company that does customer service so well this was a big disappointment.

The good news is the control panel is fast, the backup and restore utilities are good and the web-based file manager is easy to use. And perhaps the best news is that you can host multiple websites with a single account! The (ss) Professional package supports up to five domain names, each of which can run a separate website and email addresses. That means five websites for the price of one. We really like this feature.

We also like their uptime. Our websites (yes multiple websites on a single account) were fast, even from the east coast (Media Temple is based out of Los Angeles, California). In fact our websites were noticeably faster than even their own website. Media Temple's datacenter is capable of withstanding most natural disasters including an earthquake of 8.3 in magnitude, which is reassuring, although we hope this never has to be put to the test.

Media Temple has positioned itself as the web hosting company for web designers. With features such as Urchin website statistics, a dedicated IP address, the ability to host multiple websites with a single account, fast support, uptime and a website turned art gallery we would agree that they deliver (if you are not a web designer look elsewhere). A few more tools in the control panel, free spam filtering and PHP 5 would put them over the top. Recommended.

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