Tch -- Great And Less-than-great

[travisc]

Been using TCH for over a year for a number of business and personal sites, and overall, they are great. Solid uptime and speeds, easy configuration options, and a very responsive helpdesk. Both times I have asked a question of the help desk, the reply was swift and accurate.

 

The downside is that the company is a bit too conservative with upgrades. If you need current technologies, you'll have to go elsewhere. Staff members are adamant that they will not be adding the Ruby on Rails platform, despite it's widening acceptance in the development world. Worse, they have dragged their feet on moving to PHP 5, instead settling on a stop-gap version of 4.4. The given rationale for this was that they are afraid of breaking customers scripts, but many have been broken in this upgrade anyway, and some of those will again be broken when they do finally move to 5.0, and the increased functionality and security it brings.

 

The only other place TCH falls short is a customer service issue, which is odd because great customer service is what really sets them apart from other hosts. Staff members become irritated and aggressive when asked about moving forward with current stable technologies, insisting that their customers just don't want that.

 

Other than the upgrade issues, TCH is a great choice for a host. I personally find it rewarding to see a company that really seems to be just a bunch of nice guys doing their thing succeed, and growing steadily. I'm searching for a new host right now, because we are developing our new apps in ruby, and it's really irritating to deal with companies which don't know the meaning of "customer service."

[Deverill]

Thanks for sharing your opinion of TotalChoice Hosting. Sorry to see you go but sometimes if it's not a good match then that's what should happen.

 

As for 'know[ing] the meaning of "customer service."' I submit to you the following:

Customer service - assistance and other resources that a company provides to the people who buy or use its products or services.

(emphasis mine)

 

I personally am glad that the management is so careful trying to keep my (and others) life easy, even at the cost to some of the hardcore bleeding edge developers out there... and I'm a "computer-guy" - I'd really hate to see the trouble some of the people would have if they were beginners and TCH stayed on the forefront of upgrades and "gee whiz" things.

 

Anyway, we all have opinions... best of luck in the search for a new host with Ruby and don't forget to check back here after it becomes "widely adopted". I'm no spokesperson for their offerings, but TCH may actually offer it at that point but it's not there yet, at least according to one proponent - (see the Clearing The Tracks section.)

[Madmanmcp]

Here is an article that gives a little insite into the possible why's.

 

Anytime something new comes down the pike and someone wants it, is not a good reason to jump on the bandwagon and load it up on all the share servers. A lot of us who share our resources will not be happy when we get hit with possible slowdowns. Customer Service also means treating the rest of the customers on the server fairly.

 

From what I read the Ruby on Rails "sounds" great but might not be a good fit on a shared hosting platform and they recommend a dedicated server for best results.

 

h_tp://clickablebliss.com/blog/2005/12/27/php_vs_ruby_on_rails_part_3/

[travisc]

Sorry guys, I wasn't clear -- when I said...

 

"I'm searching for a new host right now, because we are developing our new apps in ruby, and it's really irritating to deal with companies which don't know the meaning of "customer service.""

 

I was referring to the new hosting companies I'm checking out, not TCH. It's irritating that I have to switch to a company that doesn't offer real customer service, after having such a positive experience with customer service at TCH.

[borfast]

Travis, I won't say anythiong about the PHP 5 upgrade, it has been talked about way too many times. I'll just make a correction to what you said: so far I haven't seen anyone (staff or forum members alike) saying that people don't want PHP 5.