WebFaction thoughts and reviews?

[Niloc]

Hello All,

I have seen WebFaction mentioned around here some by a few users.  I'm looking to move my low usage sites and emails off TextDrive in the near future.  So far looking around WebFaction seems like a decent deal.

For people that are currently with them would you mind sharing your feedback of how things have been and how long you have been with them?

Thanks!

Colin

[David Foltz]

I used them for some client work a couple years back. I was very impressed. That's what lead me to give them a try for my TxD stuff. Enjoying it so far. There was a small hiccup in the first couple hours but their support staff was on it and replied within one hour. I'm currently using WebFaction for most projects and Digital Ocean for another. I'm not sure what your needs are but WebFaction delivers on what their marketing pages promise. You can get started there for free and there are no long term contracts. You should feel pretty comfortable giving them a try.

Good luck.

[wheat]

I'm not a current webfaction user, but I've used them for two or three client projects across several years of hosting. I was happy with their service.

[Niloc]

Thank you for your feedback.  I think I will be giving them a shot.  My needs are fairly low so they seem like they would be a good fit for me.

[lgpiper]

I set up an account last November or December [September, actually] on WebFaction, just so I'd have something in place should the need arise. The year before I had tried out DreamHost. I much prefer WebFaction, the interface, although quirky, is faster and my account there is less prone to spam. I got a nifty 50% off coupon, which might still be good  [http://slickdeals.net/f/5989592-webfaction-hosting-50-off-1yr-65-off-3yrs]. It's worth a shot anyway. 

Figuring out the basics is a bit strange, but once you do, it's not so bad. I moved some static sites without mishap (even my php mail forms worked out of the box), and also one WordPress installation and a couple of TextPattern installations. I found their approach to file structure a bit bizarre, and if I get finished figuring things out in that area tomorrow, I'll post my thoughts. 

Things I didn't so much like were that I had to create email aliases one at a time, and I can only create cron jobs through an SSH interface. In theory that's not too tough, but I've never done it before, and, because of "domestic" issues, I don't have concentrated blocks of time to work things out. 

I'm hoping to move Kaizen Garden eventually, but it was much faster for me to move to WebFaction on short notice.

[walter piovesan]

When my TXD server started acting up on a regular basis a couple of clients told me to move them or they were going to someone else! At that point i could no longer afford to wait for the "alternate" TxD to come on stream >  kaizengarden.co.

So with my  50% off voucher that lgpiper had brought to my attention for WebFaction I decided to give them a try. And after a week of getting familiar with WF's  quirky control panel and their way of doing things... i moved the two sites over in quick order and without any issues. I was so pleased with the process that i moved 5 other sites over. Everyone that was moved enjoys their webmail experiences as they are using Roundcube and it is quite slick from their perspective. 

I then moved two other folks over.  With these sites as they used a home-grown PHP based system proved tricky. But one email to support solved the issue. Apparently in Webfaction you need to have a php.ini at the root of the website/domain. once i had this in place with the appropriate commands ... smooth sailings. 

Cron jobs are submitted via the command line but it's a simple step once you master it. AND my passwordless access to sql backups works like a charm, something that never worked for me on TxD. I can back up ALL my websites to Strongspace via one simple command. I'll be setting up a cron job to that soon.

 

Performance is great. Support is great. Documentation is fairly robust. To date I see no downsides. Backup scripts are awesome and work.  

I know that with a couple of clients they will not want to be moved again. So even if TxD were to improve  they'll want to stay where they are now. 

And for me, i am just wanting a solid worry-free place to have people's sites. i don't want to be yelled at on weekends and late at night because something isn't working. 

The last thing i need to figure out is how to back-up emails. Email is stored on another server and so one can't access a "maildir" per se.

walter

PS this post  was the clincher for me. http://jtmorris.net/2013/08/review-webfaction/

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[Niloc]

@lgpiper

I signed up for a trial account now and I'm looking through things.  I think I'm going to go with Webfaction and give them a shot.

Do you know where I can enter the code to give it a shot?  I'm not seeing anything now when I try to pay.

[lgpiper]

Well, the code was an old one, even when I used it, so perhaps it's disappeared. I believe, however, that when I signed up, back in September, that there was a field for entering the code when I went through the check-out process. 

[Jan Isley]

Pair has been in business since 1996.

Think about it.

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[Niloc]

Jan, thanks for the suggestion about Pair hosting as well.  I'll look into both and try to decide in the next couple of days as the clock is ticking down.

[Jan Isley]

I have no interest in Pair. If you want to dance on the edge of the very latest beta whatever, Pair is not for you. If you want long-term stability, IMO Pair is it. When I ran the servers at Mindspring, I paid for a Pair account because their product was better. Had I not gotten a VC200 account, I probably would still be a Pair customer. At this point in my life, stable sounds like a really good idea. So yea, I will be opening a Pair account this week unless something too good to pass up comes along in the next few days. I have had enough drama and too good to be true, if you know what I mean.

On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 11:38 PM, Niloc <cwhit...@gmail.com> wrote:

Jan, thanks for the suggestion about Pair hosting as well.  I'll look into both and try to decide in the next couple of days as the clock is ticking down.

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[walter piovesan]

fair comments. i likewise look towards boring and stable. just like me. I enjoy sleeping through the night ...  

[Ian Reilly]

After lots of looking I ended up with Pair as well. It was easy to setup and get started and is running ~65/yr for what I need.

[Philip Johnson]

I also just upped with pair Networks this morning. Looking forward to the stability it provides. I'm very appreciative of Jacques for being the only one who ever seemed to respond about txd 2.0 issues, but I like the idea of being with a big fish host now.

[Niloc]

I figured I should post an update as well.  Thank you all for your input.

I ended up going with Pair Networks as well.  The idea of Jacques alternative sounded really nice.  However my current situation didn't require such an expensive plan.

I have only been with Pair Networks for a brief time and have found things to be going well.  Easy to setup, etc.  I really liked what I saw at WebFaction too and heard a lot of great things about them.  I just found that their control panel was more confusing than Pair Networks.

[6sigma]

Before TextDrive and after a terrible experience with Hosting Matters, I was close to signing with Pair.

With the unpredictability and ultimate failure of TextDrive, Pair was an easy choice.

See everyone down the road...

6sigma

[Scott Murray]

I just migrated four sites to WebFaction, having decided it was the best value for the money.  Enjoying it so far, and no problems.  Everything is up and running quickly, and it's super easy to add more sites.  Way better than the clunky Virtualmin interface.

Also, you have to love a company that sends you a confirmation email with your username and password:

Password: As IF we would send your password in cleartext!

Cheers,

Scott

[walter piovesan]

I am just in the process of “cleaning up” my old TxD server and i am using my iPhone to login and delete my virtual servers. the mobile interface is very nice. i haven’t tried using webfaction’s on my phone yet.

anyways i kind of liked using Virtualmin … i will miss it. i found it’s unified interface a breeze to use. 

But i have also come to like WF interface as well. 

Moving on… 

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[Cary Blanco]

So does this mean we're really not getting the teeshirts?

I switched to webfaction as well. Not bad at all once you get a hang of how they do things.

My big issue was I had A LOT of email (in sub-folders) on mariposa that didn't get migrated over. Some of which I legally need (an estate issue). My fault for not having a backup. But really never expect to be dropped like this. Lesson learned.

- Cary (jumpserve on the old forums VC 142 )

On Thursday, February 27, 2014 4:47:24 PM UTC-5, Niloc wrote:

[Kevo X Thomson]

I've just moved the last of my domains over and deleted virtual servers after I'd copied the data.

I've got a cocktail of DigitalOcean and Webfaction going on, using Webfaction's mail hosting for domains on DigitalOcean (as they don't provide mail hosting by default). 

As for interfaces, I really much prefered VirtualMin. What I don't like about Webfaction's control panel is that the first click on the top row only updates the second row of navigation - sometimes it's difficult to tell that the page has 'refreshed'. It's only when you make a selection on the second row that body of the page truly refreshes.