SLHost reviews

Horribly Inept and Don't Care About Customers

First off, I'm a web developer that worked several years as a top level outsourced server admin, including at one point this company before they switched owners/support team. So I'm pretty familiar with web hosting companies and the latest failure I've had from SLHost simply blows my mind - ****9 days downtime at which point they finally admitted the hard drive was dead and they have no backups, while continuing to charge my account for their service. **** One day is horrible, two days is a catastrophe, but nine days is beyond belief.

They have a history of ineptitude, but I've stayed with them because generally the only thing I ever need them for is to perform a hard reset when the server is locked up. Hitting the power button is pretty much the only thing you can depend on them for. At one point, I tried logging in to find out all the configurations on my custom unmanaged server had been changed. At first I thought I had been hacked.. nope, turns out they decided to go into my server unannounced and change all my settings to match their idea of standard (ie ssh ports changed, root passwords changed, firewall modified ). One, this was an unmanaged server they had absolutely no business going in and making those changes. Two, the changes they made were asinine and were obviously made by someone with no security background.

Also, the price point isn't too horrible, but neither is it appealing. $35 for a very basic, and limited Linux vps is no longer competitive. I can't even run simple java scripts because the JVM takes up more memory than the vps has, and too much disk i/o will easily lock it up, requiring a hard reset.

Biggest Pro: nothing
Biggest Con: inept support, unappealing price, 9 DAY DOWNTIME

SL Host VPS

This VPS is like having a dedicated server without being thrown overboard. You get full root access, SSH, the works and you're responsible for setting up and securing the server yourself. Sounds intimidating? It definitely is after moving from shared hosting. At the same time they provide excellent customer support (which was why they were recommended to me in the first place) and are VERY understanding and patient towards beginners. Support comes in either email form or their support forum which has helpful members. They also provide tutorials for using WHM and CPanel. WHM, CPanel, and Virtuozzo are included in the cost, which would ordinarily cost more for these 3 options on a dedicated server than the cost of the VPS hosting itself. They also offer free DNS hosting and additional dedicated IP's for $1/month each. I haven't found any VPS with comparable features for the cost, nor any dedicated server that's worth the additional jump in price from the VPS. The only downside I've seen so far was running over bandwidth allocation. At $1/Gig it's a major ripoff and it's better to upgrade the plan rather than take the risk of overages. After a year I've been very happy with the overall experience.

Biggest Pro: Price, Support
Biggest Con: Going over bandwidth allocation is expensive