My Review Of Tch

[shakes]

I signed up with TCH about a month ago. I was skeptical at first ... i mean what decent hosting company offers hosting plans for as cheap as $4 a month with tha specs these guys have?

 

Here's my experience of the last month:

 

The Pros

Overall, this place is just awesome. The servers are super fast. I used to have problems doing large transfers to and from my old host because the servers were so effing slow. I couldn't believe how fast and responsive the tch servers were.

 

Support is top notch. Before tch, I had never seen a company offer their AIM names for support. What's even better, is that generally about 3-5 of these guys are online. Tickets with my old host used to take 24 hours before I'd hear back. These guys are slacking if it goes 24 minutes!

 

And then there's the forums. Few companies are doing this, and none as well as tch. (although we still don't know who won the free computer!) Not only are the tch staff great about caring to the forums, but the other customers are here all the time. And they do more than just tell you to search for your answer, no matter how redundant your question may be.

 

Options and more options. Man this place has got it all. Anything you need for your site is either at your fingertips, or chances are these guys will install it for you.

 

for once you actually get more than you pay for. tch is where it's at.

 

 

The Cons

It's a short list, but there are a few things that bug me. One is no support for add-on domains. Many people have more than one domain that go to sub sections of the same site that are all about the same topic/company. TCH doesn't allow this (from what I know) because you aren't allowed to host more than one site from your account, and i guess it's not easy to 'police' this and make sure no one is abusing the add-on domains. Still... it's nice to have (even as a 1 time add-on fee) ... so it's a con.

 

The next issue is no shell access. It used to be offered as an add on, but now not at all. I understand the reasoning here ... big security risk, but guys like me just have to have it or we feel naked. I was lucky enough to get in on the shell access about a week before it was disallowed. unfortunately, when requesting to upgrade to a reseller account, i was denied the request to keep the shell access i already had. and such is why I am canceling my account soon. I want a reseller account but need shell. so gotta go elsewhere

 

 

 

Overall, this place rocks. I think 80%+ of the people who are looking for a company to host there site with would be ecstatic about this place.

 

if you're debating signing up ... do it! you won't be sorry! (unless you absolutely require shell access or add-on domains)

 

 

it's been real guys ... take it easy!

[SEO]

It's a short list, but there are a few things that bug me. One is no support for add-on domains. Many people have more than one domain that go to sub sections of the same site that are all about the same topic/company. TCH doesn't allow this (from what I know) because you aren't allowed to host more than one site from your account, and i guess it's not easy to 'police' this and make sure no one is abusing the add-on domains. Still... it's nice to have (even as a 1 time add-on fee) ... so it's a con.

 

Two choices here:

 

1) You can always upgrade to a reseller account and host as many domains as you would like. The price is very reasonable and it is a common choice for many of our family members. Look at reseller accounts here

 

2) Instead of multiple domains, make multiple sub-domains... they are free and you can have an unlimited number!

Edited November 4, 2003 by dsdemmin

[shakes]

yes indeed the reseller account is a great deal! it was going to be especially good for me beacuse just ONE of my other sites was costing me $30 a month. I was going to be able to consolidate all of my sites to one host at $30 a month.

 

definately a good thing for anyone who needs more than one domain per site.

 

but again, the shell access deal killed it for me.

[Deverill]

Simply out of curiousity, what do you desire shell access to do that is not as easy with ftp and/or cpanel? After reading your post I feel like I'm missing something because I don't see a real need for it. (And I'm usually a command line junky!)

[shakes]

stupid things really ... i do a lot of 'playing' with different things and find myself often wanting to do something like a recursive delete fo an entire directory.

 

or i have all my subdomains feed from the same images and include folder so I make symbolic links in their directory so I can still reference the files (especially images) with a relative url. It's handy with images because then I don't have to use full URLs when I code (cause that screws me up on my local dev box)

 

honestly i might could have done without shell ... especially since support here is so darn responsive. but there's another part of the story i left out.

 

I was kinda disapointed with the response I got from my request to keep shell during my account upgrade. In my opinion, if they were going to say I couldn't keep my shell access, I expected them to come back with some sort of offer to win my business regardless of the fact that one of my stipulations couldn't be met. i.e. saying something like "we can't re-grant you access to shell after to server move because of a b and c ... but instead let us offer you blah" ... blah could have been a free month ... a free pizza ... or a smilie that looked like me.

 

I mean, I was wanting to upgrade my plan, and as a result, give TCH more money. So if one of my requests couldn't be met I just expected these guys to put forth some effort to win my business despite my unfilfilled request. Instead, I just got a "sorry we can't do that" e-mail ... twice. It wasn't rude or anything, but there was no attempt to try to get me to upgrade anyway.

 

Just seemed a little out of character for these guys since they generally seem to jump through hoops for their customers.

 

So what was I to do? Say "ok, my request isn't being fulfilled, and you didn't try to show me you still wanted my upgraded business anyway ... so what the heck, let's go for it" ??

 

Anyone who's reading this and thinking about signing up ... by all means please do! don't take this as a "TCH" sucks post. The people here really are great and will do almost anything to make you happy here... I guess I just hit the wrong issue and had bad luck.