diwakergupta
7-18-05, 05:09 PM
Hi everyone,
I think most people will agree that PowWeb has a compelling package and very good value for money. However, lurking around on the forums here and elsewhere, I'm increasing getting this sinking feeling that PowWeb is lagging behind in the hosting services.
Here are some of the issues (in the interest of professionalism, I will not name any specific competitors. But I'm sure that astute readers can use Google to find plenty of good competition)
No shell access (some plans give SSH access)
Only 5 databases (some plans give unlimited)
The look and feel PowWeb is not that vibrant. The colors (the "reddish" theme) have become routine and mundane. The forums and announcements are fine, but it'd be so much cooler to have a like a blog of the sysadmin team. Some providers average under 15 minutes in support email response time. So far PowWeb has averaged more than 1 day for me. The forums have been far more helpful, but that is not something I would like to count on. PowWeb really needs to work harder on its customer support.
Some providers give really cutting edge software for web development -- including Python and Rails. I'm not aware of PowWeb providing these. Sure I can install my own Python/Ruby, but that sucks
The OPS sucks. I mean sure its functional, but I don't like the interface too much. The "red" theme is too much. Many times I can't make out which tab is active and which is not. There are NO icons!!! I'm not being frivolous here -- tons of usability studies have shown that humans are better at interacting with icons than we are with plain text links. I mean its great that PowWeb has its own inhouse control panel, but I think users should have a choice to atleast try something like cPanel or NetAdmin.
Some things that I really don't care about much:
650 email accounts is as good as infinite email accounts for me
Same thing with email address forwarding
I think PowWeb is great, we have a great community here. There's tons of information (help, support, forums, knowledge base) but I think PowWeb needs to work on streamlining all this information, beef up the customer support, some of the software infrastructure, and flashen up the user interface a little bit.
Just my 2c.
I think most people will agree that PowWeb has a compelling package and very good value for money. However, lurking around on the forums here and elsewhere, I'm increasing getting this sinking feeling that PowWeb is lagging behind in the hosting services.
Here are some of the issues (in the interest of professionalism, I will not name any specific competitors. But I'm sure that astute readers can use Google to find plenty of good competition)
No shell access (some plans give SSH access)
Only 5 databases (some plans give unlimited)
The look and feel PowWeb is not that vibrant. The colors (the "reddish" theme) have become routine and mundane. The forums and announcements are fine, but it'd be so much cooler to have a like a blog of the sysadmin team. Some providers average under 15 minutes in support email response time. So far PowWeb has averaged more than 1 day for me. The forums have been far more helpful, but that is not something I would like to count on. PowWeb really needs to work harder on its customer support.
Some providers give really cutting edge software for web development -- including Python and Rails. I'm not aware of PowWeb providing these. Sure I can install my own Python/Ruby, but that sucks
The OPS sucks. I mean sure its functional, but I don't like the interface too much. The "red" theme is too much. Many times I can't make out which tab is active and which is not. There are NO icons!!! I'm not being frivolous here -- tons of usability studies have shown that humans are better at interacting with icons than we are with plain text links. I mean its great that PowWeb has its own inhouse control panel, but I think users should have a choice to atleast try something like cPanel or NetAdmin.
Some things that I really don't care about much:
650 email accounts is as good as infinite email accounts for me
Same thing with email address forwarding
I think PowWeb is great, we have a great community here. There's tons of information (help, support, forums, knowledge base) but I think PowWeb needs to work on streamlining all this information, beef up the customer support, some of the software infrastructure, and flashen up the user interface a little bit.
Just my 2c.