Site5 (Our Review)

Site5 Review (Page 2)

Features

Site5 has a lot of nifty features touted as exclusive. We found most of them to be exclusive by name only, but useful nonetheless. Here's a quick run through:

Flashback - This is a file version tracker which automatically stores copies of changes you make to your website. You can easily revert back to old files or monitor file changes through a web-based interface. Other hosts offer similar functionality in the form of Subversion or CVS, however Flashback is easier to use.

True MultiSite / MultiAdmin - With Site5 you can use a single login to manage multiple websites, and create additional logins to manage single websites. Most other hosts allow you to host multiple websites under a single account, Site5 goes both ways.

NetAdmin4 - Every host gives you a control panel to manage your account. Site5 calls theirs NetAdmin4. Nothing revolutionary here.

Account Jumper – This is really just another term for MultiAdmin, only useful if you have multiple accounts with Site5.

Ruby on Rails - It seems like every hosting company is offering Rails these days. The good news is that Site5 actually knows what they're doing when it comes to Rails. They develop their own Rails applications (ie. Backstage) and sponsor many Rails events.

60-Day Money Back Guarantee - We're not sure why this is listed as an exclusive. Other hosts offer 90-day money back guarantees.

99.9% uptime - Again a guarantee offered by most hosts.

Support Response Time Guarantee - Kind of a cool concept, but if you have a pressing question and don't get an answer within 24 hours will a dollar really ease the pain?

Support

In terms of support Site5 offers an e-mail ticket system via their Backstage account manager and a knowledgebase. There are no telephone support options - not even a local number - and the community forums have a strict no technical support policy.

The ticket system therefore is the only method of contact. It typically takes 3 - 6 hours to get a response (average over the last three months), with answers ranging from not so helpful to helpful. Strangely, the not so helpful answers were given to seemingly simple questions (ie. how to I activate SSH?) while the helpful answers were given to more difficult questions (ie. why do my PHP session files keep disappearing?).

All in all support at Site5 is a little disappointing. Their ticketing system relies on web-based submissions but does not provide any kind of web-based ticket history. The knowledgebase is sparse on useful information and telephone support is non-existent. Site5 has some catching up to do.

Although they have "Live Chat" facility on their site now. This chat is available 24/7

Platform

Site5's shared hosting platform works by loading up single servers with hundreds of websites. This is how most CPanel hosts do it and it works well as long as your server doesn't get too full and you don't get stuck on a server with experimental Rails apps developers.

When we first signed up with Site5 our server was blazing fast, but three months later we started experiencing downtime and sporadic e-mail outages. Funny enough even when our server was offline or running at a snails pace Site5's server uptime reports indicated everything was good to go. This was a deal breaker for us as these reports are also used to validate their 99.9% uptime guarantee, which begs to question if the data is even real.

This is how our server usage screen looks like most of the time. About 5 minutes after we took this screenshot the server went offline for at least 20 minutes. Notice POP mail is down, the /home drive is almost full and CPU usage is through the roof.

Another screenshot detailing the amount free diskspace. We can't even use our alotted 11GB as there's only 8GB total left on the server!! Talk about crowded.

Final Thoughts

So what is Site5 then? We've basically come to the conclusion that Site5 is a work in progress. In the past three months we've seen more homepage revisions, control panel redesigns, Flashback rebuilds and server reboots than we have fingers to count. Of course it's all in the name of innovation and engineering, which should be a good thing - but in Site5's case it isn't. Don't get us wrong … we really wanted to like Site5 … but from a customer standpoint it seems like they are spending more time talking about innovation and engineering than actually doing it. Of course it's easier said than done.

Pros
- Lots of cutting edge features
- Excellent overall value, price

Cons
- Limited support options
- Servers overloaded