[dearsina]

I’ve been with eUKhost now for a few months, and the experience has at been a mixed bag. When everything is running ok, they're great host, responsive, inexpensive, and with the latest versions of most software installed (which strangely enough is quite rare in the hosting world).

Some times, as a hosting client, you run into little issues and this is perfectly normal, you want to get a fixed IP, more space, different version of a particular software etc. In these instances, the phone line, chat room feature and this forum work very well and eUKhost act as the responsive and reliable hosts they claim they are.

But then, there are times where you're faced with complex issues, like the innoDB table INI file is missing, mySQL db has been corrupted, the domain which was originally purchased with the account (and later replaced with another domain) is missing (all things that have actually happened to me with eUKhost).

In these cases you find out that in reality, the phone line will deal with level 1 support only (akin to really basic tasks in a traditional helpdesk environment, like resetting account passwords), the chat guys won't do any actual work unless you email in a request, and the guys on the email seem more concerned with closing your issue than to look at it closely, and you'll often have to open at least three tickets before they realise that you have a real issue at hand, and are not just some dumb end user.

It's in moments like these, that you really find out what you're host is made of, unfortunately, it's near impossible to gauge this before you buy and use an account (this goes for any host).

If you're wondering why I'm still a client after all these issues, I will say that I am in the process of finding a suitable host, as most of the big host companies are funny versions of LAMP (Media Temple for instance, runs a version of PHP that is incompatible with parts of my scripts), because I cannot afford to have the levels of downtime and hassles I've had with eUKHost.

In short, if you are looking for an inexpensive webhost to host your simple web site hosting without "always on" service level requirements, eUKhost are the perfect host. If you on the other hand, introduce a sliver of complexity, you should really be looking elsewhere, and perhaps keeping eUKhost as a backup/test environment account. The cost savings are not worth the headaches.

sina
london