Fatcow review - PHP/MySQL

I run a PHP/MySQL website, and while at first it was fine, as soon as I got more than two users everything went haywire. I started getting massive lag from the database, the phpMyAdmin would work sometimes and not others, the SFTP would randomly fail... If you just need a cheap host for a basic personal page, and maybe you want to put a little PHP in, they're good and cheap. If you actually need any server power at all(website with users, etc...) they really aren't a good choice.

FatCow is not a good company

Never had a problem with FatCow until our domain address expired. This occurred with other web hosting companies for ther clients and all were quickly resolved.

With FatCow, we have been run around for the last 2 weeks with our website being down the whole time.

The customer support was horrible.

I would advise anyone not to use this company.

Absolutely AWEFUL

I join them in April thinking I had a good deal. My website is basic and I rarely go into my control panel. So two months ago I got calls from customers and friends letting me know that my email was bouncing. I went into my control panel and my email quota was cut down by 90% without my permission. The put it back to "defalut" quota when I called tech support (which were rude). Yesterday was the last straw when once again I tried to log into my control panel and they tell me that I must change my password every other week and it MUST have letters, numbers and punchaution characters. THIS IS INSANE!!!

When I called tech support a rep name "Charles" hung up on me. Then I talked to "Steve" the supervisor who was also rude but was happy to remove my credit card from the renewal form and then hung up without asking if I needed anything else. I called back and canceled my account immediately. This company started off as a nice dream but ended in a nightmare.

Biggest Pro: price
Biggest Con: tech support

MySQL = Lot's of downtime

I am running 5 sites on their system. Actual page serving time is ok. Not great. You get plenty of bandwidth, disk space, and unlimited email addresses.

BUT, you get what you pay for I suppose. It's a 1 in 2 chance that my MySQL database connections will fail. I have a script set up to test the DB connections every 5 minutes. I get at least 5 emails a day about it failing.

And, if you open a support ticket with them, you'll get someone who has no idea what they are talking about. My primary site which is a wiki, just got converted over to PmWiki, which uses no database. Now, I get decent performance.

Two other sites have forums (PHPBB3 and SMF), and I am always getting at least one email a day from each telling me they have database connection issues. Tech support says to check my passwords and user names, even after telling them I changed nothing.

So, if you are technically savvy, and don't need a Database? Fatcow should be fine. Do you need a database for your site, and need a bit of technical hand-holding? Find someone else.

Biggest Pro: Lot's of bandwidth
Biggest Con: MySQL is completely unreliable

Stay away...

This site was praised by alot of affiliated webhost review sites, I think because it pays their affiliates $80/customer or something like that.

The features are just what they promise, but the connectivity is UNRELIABLE!! I get random 500 Internet Errors at times, there seem to be speed lag at times when my site wouldn't load, and their FTP server is horrible, sometimes unusable!!!

I've only used this service for 2 days thought, I'm cancelling now and looking for a new host.

Fatcow is lousy for Joomla website

I use Fatcow for about a month. I have a simple website using Joomla. The website has been down for more than 5 times in 3 weeks and I can't get into the Joomla administrator panel. I got error message

Database Error: Unable to connect to the database:Could not connect to MySQL.

Even when it is up the connection is very slow. I did a lot research online on webhosting reviews. It was list as top 3 for hosting Joomla site. I guess most web hosting reviews are paid to advertise.

Do not sign up with Fatcow if you have Joomla website.