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

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:

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 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.

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:

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.

Interviews with 3iX Network customers.