I was going to cheat on the gator...and I got bitten!

[jspierre]

I just wanted to share this for anyone that's contemplating a "better deal" out there.

I currently have a Level 3 VPS (with cPanel) through Hostgator.

Over the weekend, I saw an ad for a dedicated box at another hosting provider. It looked fantastic: Dual Core CPU, 2 GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, Unmetered Bandwidth, cPanel, Fantastico, and 8 IP Addresses for $80 a month! I started to salivate, signed up and was completely up and running in 6 hours. I know, a dream right?

Exactly. Just a dream. Logging in to WHM, the whole thing felt... really LAGGY. Screens took forever to load in cPanel and WHM. I thought this was just a temporary matter though, so I went ahead and copied all of my cPanel accounts to the new server. What did I find? My websites took about twice as long, on average, to load as the Hostgator VPS did, even with load averages being damn near zero across the board. Then, the attacks started. CSF firewall sent me alerts nearly every hour that someone was trying to hack the server. WTF? I tried to deal with the slow and laggy dedicated box for a full 24 hours, then, just to check, went back and logged into WHM on my Hostgator VPS. I actually had to check twice to make sure I was right - cPanel runs so much smoother, so much quicker on Hostgator VPS than on a dedicated box?!?!

I'm sure the problem was with the datacenter or the dedicated host themselves. I'm almost positive that a Hostgator dedicated box would have to beat out a Hostgator VPS any day, so what DOES matter is WHO is hosting your box and the environment its hosted in. In any case, I asked that my account with this other subpar host be cancelled and for their "30 day guaranteed" refund. Here's where it gets really funny- they refused, at first, to refund my money and said they never guaranteed a refund. LO AND BEHOLD, when I went back to their website a few minutes later, the guarantee was missing! LOL - So they changed their policy just for me?!?! So, I just pulled up Google's cache of their site with the guarantee language and sent it to them. They refunded my money (so they said - I guess I'll have to wait and see) and terminated the account. What kind of people were running the place!?!? Geez.

The point of the story is, HOSTGATOR HAS THEIR SH*T TOGETHER. Yes, they may cost a little more, GB for GB, than other services, but THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Their servers are fast and reliable and their customer service is top-notch (for those who say otherwise, just read the polite responses the HG Staff posts to some of the belittling rants in this forum- they really try to please the customer when it's possible)!

This is the third time I've tried to "cheat" on Hostgator, and I keep crawling back (the last time, I tried another VPS with a cheaper price tag - HORRIBLE). The grass may look greener at another provider, but trust me, I've tried it - it isn't.

Just wanted to give my two cents to anyone whose contemplating leaving HG for a "better deal" or for someone who is fed up with their current host and looking at HG as a replacement. Hostgator is the real deal - I've tried the other choices out there!