Simple helix has been having way too many occurences of downtime (even if the downtime is only 5 minutes) recently. Every downtime usually takes 1 to 3 hours to fix. This last one, I still havent’ gotten a response from them after 1.5 hours.
They’ve been good enough in every other respect except for this. It hasn’t always been like this (I’ve been with them for almost a year). I have a couple other minor gripes too but I can live with those.
I need an alternative to Simple Helix so that I have a Plan B ready incase the situation persists.
I’m on their standard plan....I wonder if their maximo plan is any better.
I tried SimpleHelix for a month earlier this year, right around the time when they were changing hands. It was an absolute disaster. I cannot emphasize that enough. I’ve kept the support tickets as proof and was planning on posting them as a warning to others. However, since they are now under new ownership, I didn’t feel that was appropriate. And I must say that, once they “discovered” (after a couple of days) my billing support ticket asking to cancel my accounts and requesting a refund, they were most apologetic and johnny-on-the-spot with returning all of my money. So, I only cost me a month of wasted time and enough stress to probably take a couple of years off my life. I wish them luck and hope they can pull it back together.
But, in answer to your question, I ended up at Aspiration Hosting and what a difference. They have been, hands down, the best hosting experience I have ever encountered. I am developing two e-commerce sites (both controlled from the same backend) using two of their inexpensive shared hosting accounts and it has been a breeze (knock on wood). In all honesty, both sites are much faster than they were over at SimpleHelix (as fast or faster than most demos I’ve seen elsewhere) and the price is much less. It is very rare that it takes more than two or three seconds for a page to load.
Support tickets have usually been answered within ten minutes and always within no more than an hour. And the answers have been spot on accurate in dealing with whatever issue I have had. Both sites are very highly modified and using Installatron for “one-click” installations and upgrades (I’ve done three upgrades so far on each site) has gone smooth as silk with absolutely no problems (knock on wood again).
I am not one to generally go around hawking someone else’s wares, but when a company is doing it right, I think people should know. I suppose it’s possible that others may have had a different experience with them, but I highly doubt it, and if so, I have not heard about it. These guys are good, extremely conscientious, and very inexpensive. I highly recommend them.
I’m with simplehelix and mine has been down over 20hrs now - I noticed it last night and being it is common occurrence lately i ignored it thinking it will be up within an hour like most of the issues lately. Well this afternoon i tried to log on and still couldn’t so i created a support ticket it took about an hour or so to get a response but they said they had a crash of the raid array and they are in the process of rebuilding. About 1 hr later i got another e-mail saying that the rebuild didn’t work and that the had massive corruption and they needed to restore the server from a backup. A few hours later i got an e-mail saying that it is possible they will not be able to backup the data.
On SimpleHelix’s website they guarantee 100% up time. They must think we are dumb - No one can guarantee 100% up time I don’t care how big you are. Anyways they guarantee it so In my support ticket i asked for a refund because lately i have been seeing less then a 75% uptime. They never responded to that request. I have been with them 3-4 months now and have had nothing but problems.
Now i just got a reply that it will be down for probably another 24-48 hrs while they rebuild the server and try to restore the corrupted data.
EVERYONE STAY AWAY FROM SIMPLEHELIX. It is total over priced Sh*T. Customer service is horrible.
I got a bunch of informative updates about what they’re trying to do to get the site back up.
While it’s nice that they’re trying really hard, it’d be better if they actually rehearsed or tried out their backup systems before things started failing.
I hope their latest effort (which is supposed to take overnight) is successful because they’re running out of things to try that won’t take a long time.
Shamans: You might want to check out the Magento Hosting Wiki page. There’s a nice list of Magento compatible hosting providers. I suggest that you ask for a demo store to see how Magento performs, and also send some presales questions to check their support response time.
I will be checking that out - thank you for the post .... my site has been down for I dont know how long but now that they got it up a few hours ago it takes 1-2 minutes for a page to load..... Im so pissed right now its not even funny. SimpleHelix wont even acknowledge the e-mail i have sent them in regards to getting a refund for their lousy service..... I am changing as soon as i can.....
I am with the customer service department at SimpleHelix and I truly apologize for the delay. If you could please provide me with a domain name or a ticket number, then I can assure you that I will take care of you. Thanks, and once again I am sorry for the delay in response and as soon as you give me a domain and ticket number I will take care of you!
SimpleHelix is very bad response time. My sites down for an hour, and no one response. The mysql server is down.
It’s only a fast webserver, not for commercial use. You will lose many many money and time, because of their downtime.
Just my 2 cents, if anyone is still looking for a host, I can speak highly of nexcess, I have only used them and I have no slow downs, my website is always running, they update magento if you ask (make sure you remember what core files you edit!), and whenever I have a tech support question (about 6 since May) they respond within 20-40 minutes.
I would rate them a 9 out of 10. That’s only because they are in Ann Arbor, Michigan and I am a buckeyes fan! Otherwise they would get a 10 out of 10.
