3iX Network Review - Find Out The Truth?

Name: 3iX Network
Plans: Shared.
Website: www.3ix.org
Summary: 3ix is a host I would avoid. Could have problems. There are better host. This 3ix network review shows why.

ReviewResearchInterviews

3iX has been providing web hosting services for Linux users since 2004. Their service is backed by an infrastructure connected to the eight backbones of the Internet. They own and run their data centers. 3iX server’s having full control of the administration.

Whenever I review any host, I am looking at features, performance, uptime, customer service, and their customer support. In this 3iX review, I am going to show you why I do not recommend you do business with them.

3iX Features

3ix appeals to those webmasters that are looking for a cheap shared plan. At a glance, when you see their prices your going to be blown away by how insanely cheap they are. Lets now take a look at the plans 3iX offers.

Shared Plan

Excite

This plan is their lowest plan they offer. It comes with a modest price tag of $1/month. With this plan, your server can support 40 GB of disk space, 100 GB monthly bandwidth, one website, unlimited FTP, 2 MySQL databases, and up to 50 email accounts (POP3 IMAP, & SMTP ). Not a bad option for those on a tight budget, huh?

Extra

Their “Extra” plan is a step up from the “Excite” plan. It comes with a price tag of $3/month. When you take advantage of this plan it will support 150 GB of disk space, unlimited monthly bandwidth, up to 3 websites, unlimited FTP, 10 MySQL databases, and up to 100 email accounts (POP3 IMAP, & SMTP ).

Expert

Their “Expert” plan is their mid-ranged hosting plan. It comes with a price tag of $5/month. When you sign up for this plan your service will be able to handle 300 GB of disk space, unlimited monthly bandwidth, up to 5 websites, unlimited FTP, 20 MySQL databases, and up to 200 email accounts (POP3 IMAP, & SMTP ).

Extreme

Their highest shared hosting plan is called “Extreme.” It cost $8/month. When you purchase this plan you can get 700 GB of space, unlimited monthly bandwidth, unlimited websites, unlimited FTP, unlimited MySQL databases, and unlimited email accounts (POP3 IMAP, & SMTP ). I hate the word “unlimited.” I know it’s unrealistic to think I can develop a website and get 50,000 hits per day. And expect a low-end server to be able to support it. See this article on unlimited hosting offers. One company I do like that does not use this tactic is WireNine.com.

Control Panel

3iX does use cPanel for their control panel. Over the years I have heavily favored companies that use cPanel because it’s just the industry standard. They even have a demo where you can test drive it for yourself before using their service. I have tested it and was the same old cPanel that we have grown to love over the years. Within minutes I could easily install 300+ scripts.

But, now it’s time to give 3iX a test drive and see what webmasters are saying about them.

3iX Uptime & Performance

Uptime

3iX promises their clients that their website will be up 99.991% of the time. Like a lot of other hosts they make these bold claims. But, do they deliver with these numbers? For the most part yes. You can pretty much trust that your website will be up 99%. From the research I have collected I have found a screenshot to back up these claims. Here is a look at what I have found:

Performance

3iX has decent performance. Meaning your website will load quickly. I say because there is a lot of mixed responses from past 3iX clients. Meaning people are either stating that they love 3iX or hate them. Whenever I see mixed reviews on a web hosting company it always raises red flags for me (much like GoDaddy). True, you could choose to use them to save a couple of bucks a month. But, how much of your time is worth a couple of dollars each month? I have run a test on 3iX’s site to check their response times. I have found that they are pretty good. Here is a screenshot of what I have found:

3ix Response Times — As you can see the response times are .254 which is pretty good.

However, the test is all good and well. But I have taken about an hour to do some extra research. The feedback was bad! Here are some screenshots I have found about their performance:

3iX slow servers — This screenshot is from frenchforfood.com which shows at times their server is very slow.

3ix Slow Loading Servers

3iX Customer Service

How good is 3iX customer support? Average at best.

They do offer US-based customer support.

3iX has some vital flaws with their customer support. For instance, I was interested in chatting with them when I reviewed their company. When you click on their “live chat” you can talk with them, for technical and pre-sales questions. I had some pre-sales questions and asked them about VPS and dedicated plans. Which they don’t offer and they were fairly quick to reply. Took about 1-2 minutes between questions. Also, I wanted to know if they offer Windows and Linux.

But, with their “Excite” plan which is only $1 per month. Does not come with live chat support. In fact, it’s only ticket based.

3iX ticket Support

For billing, you can not get in contact with them via live chat. In fact, it states right on their site that all billing issues must be used by their ticket system:

3ix Billing Questions

Good customer support is as important. I strongly believe that a host of lesser features can make up with superior quality customer support. I don’t understand why you have to fill out a support ticket for billing issues.

Research shows that there have been problems with support.

3iX Network Review Summary

Do I recommend 3iX network? No. Lots of complaints with them. Cheap price tag. But, you get what you pay for. Support is lacking.

3iX does have slower servers than some host. Some report that performance is drastically worse than my test. They are not bad, but nothing that stands out to me. Am I not a fan of the ticket system only for billing? I would use another host.

Cheap does not always mean inferior but with 3iX cheap is inferior. Go with InMotion or WebHostingHub if you want a good host.

Research on 3iX Network.

“Positive”

“Negative”

WebHostingJury.com

WebHostingJury.com is another web hosting review. They are all user generated reviews. Meaning there is no editor review. At the time of writing this, there were 20 reviews left for 3iX. They get bad reviews.

Is one of the best-valued services out there on the internet. However, with the low price point of less than a dollar a month. 3iX comes with a lot of flaws. A large feature that 3iX implements is their 24/7 support staff. The average customer lifetime for 3iX varies around 6 to 12 months. While other users stick around for 1 to 3 years.

Positive reviews stem are for 1-3 years. These customers praised the low price point. But along with the price they say that their servers experienced problems. This issue is on 3iX’s end. Also, they give high marks to 3iX on all accounts of pricing, support, and reliability.

The negative reviews come from customers who left in 6 to 12 months. These customers only praise the price point. But complain about the servers coming down for maintenance. Claiming that customer support was not personalized. Instead was just copy and paste messages which left users in the dark. Users also address security flaws in the firewall. 3iX which made FTP requests painstaking. Lots of security flaws.

Users rated 3iX as a 1.75/5. Support 1.9/5. Pricing 3.2/5. Overall 1.4/5.

HostSearch.com

HostSearch.com is a hosting review site just like tbwhs.com. All the content on their hosting review site is user generated content. At the time of writing this, 97 reviews were left from webmasters.

The reviews for 3iX web hosting company were overwhelmingly negative. Many users felt that the hosting service was not run by a competent company. Users stated that they tried 3iX as an alternative to another host. Because of the price. Since 3iX is cheaper than some other services, users try. However, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

The positive reviews always had a negative side to them. Most customers who used them stuck it out during 3iX’s flawed times. All positive reviews praise the speed of the support staff. However, people note that the support staff supports the customers when their servers fail. Customers who were happy with their experience only praised the price.

The negative reviews greatly undermined the positive reviews. Some large negatives that were consistent with reviews were that the 24/7 support was a lie. The servers were constantly down for maintenance while other hosts have close to 99.9% up-time. Pricing can be subjective to change depending on your subscription. There are a lot of security flaws with their servers. Overall 3iX’s positives were so little.

WebHostingReviews.com

WebHostingReviews.com is a web hosting review site. The only difference is there is there is no editor review. Instead, all of the reviews are left by site owners. So far it looks like about 30 site owners have left a review about 3iX. Sadly, it doesn’t look like webmasters are ranting and raving about their experience with 3iX. Here are some of the things that were addressed in their reviews:

3iX Cons

Data has been deleted on reseller accounts.
It is frequent downtime which lasts for days.
Websites fun very slow and even time out from time to time.
After you sign up with them. It seems 3iX don’t help you much with live support. People have reported that you just get cut and pasted responses.
IP addresses have been blocked.
Hacked frequently.
Connecting with FTP takes a long time.
Emails go down from time to time.
Change DNS settings without the customer knowing.
Your account gets suspended fast.
Do not honor their money-back policy.

3iX Pros

Affordable.
Do reply to support tickets fast.
3iX does use cPanel.
Lots of resources for the money.

Overall, 3iX does not get very good reviews from webmasters on WebHostingReviews.com. For uptime and reliability, they get 2.75/10. For technical support and knowledge, they get 3.05/10. For server and connection speed they get 3.27/10. For customer service and billing, they get 3.97/10. Lastly, for price value for money, they get 2.15/10. Obviously, these are some very low ratings. They average 3/10 which puts an enormous red flag to their name.

“Neutral”

Interviews with 3iX Network customers.

All content on tbwhs.com are opinions and not facts. I have thoroughly reviewed each company and then provide my personal opinions on them. It’s up to you as the consumer to do your due diligence and do more research if you feel something might be inaccurate.

3iX Network Review – Cheaper Hosting Isn’t Always Better