IX Web Hosting Review – Reasons You Might Want To Avoid Them

IX Web Hosting boasts about its hosting services to more than 500,000 users since they started in 1999. They’re proud to display their huge base of clients who has remained loyal to them through the years, but is it worth dealing with them?  True everything looks good in print on the web, but do they live up to these claims?  Find out what webmasters are saying about their experience with them.

One thing you should know about this company is they state that they have exceptional support.  Their goal is to provide a unique personalize experience that webmasters will love.  They have state of the art technology and even back up your data on not two but three servers.

However, I am going to be diving deep into everything that IX Web Hosting offers.  I will take a look at their features, uptime, performance, and then evaluate their customer support.  Then I will either give you the green light and recommend them or recommend other companies over them.  Find out if they are worth your time and money in this full IX Webhosting review.

IX Web Hosting Features

IX Web Hosting offers a ton of different web hosting plans.  They offer both Windows and Linux hosting plans.  Depending on whether or not you need Windows or Linux each type of plan is offer with both operating systems.  The type of plans they offer are shared, VPS, and cloud plans.  Meaning that if you need reseller or dedicated hosting you’re going to have to go with another company ( I recommend InMotion and SiteGround).  Now, lets look at these plans and features to help decide if IX Web Hosting will be a suitable solution for your websites needs.

Shared Plans

Linux

These are the prices of their Linux shared hosting plans:

They are actually reasonably priced.  #3.95/month is great for a shared plan.  The other two are $7.95/month.  One cool thing is you do get 1-3 free domain names when you go with any of these plans.

Windows

These are the prices of their Windows shared hosting plans:

Again, you do get either 2 or 3 free domain names when you sign up for this plan.  They are pretty reasonably priced too.

VPS Plans

Linux

They offer 2 different VPS plans.  The details are down below:

In terms of price these plans are a little high compared to other web hosting companies.  For instance, with InMotion you could get a VPS for $29, 49, or $79 per month.

Windows

IXwebhosting also offers 2 different Windows plans.  The details of these plans are also down below:

Cloud

Linux

They offer 3 different plans for Cloud Linux plans.  The details are down below:

Windows

Just like their Cloud Linux plans they also offer 3 different Windows plans.  The details are down below:

Operating Systems

I do like how with IX Web Hosting you do have options with operating systems.  You’re not just limited to what whatever they are using.  This is a nice feature that I wish a lot of other web hosting companies would start implementing into their business strategy.  You have the option to choose which OS you want to use.  If you choose a Linux plan you have the option between CentOS and Debian.  If you want a Windows plan you can choose between Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008.

Control Panel

There are options for Linux plans.  If you are choosing the Linux plan, you have the option to choose between cPanel or Plesk.  However, if you decide to go with a Windows plan, you will have to use Plesk by default.  You do have the option to use cPanel but only if you specify that you want it installed on your server.

So, basically, their shared plans are pretty reasonably priced with other companies.  VPS servers are a little more expensive with other companies.  Cloud does look like a suitable option for those looking for cloud hosting.  I do like the option to choose your control panel and operating system.  But, now comes the time when I will put IXwebhosting to the performance and uptime test.  Then I will evaluate their customer support and finally either recommend them or point you elsewhere.

IX Web Hosting Performance & Uptime

Performance

Performance really matters when you develop a website.  I have made the mistake of choosing a host in the past that either ran like a snail or had lots of performance issues, 500 errors, etc.  So, what I like to do is test out the performance with every single host that I review.  To do this I go to isitdownrightnow.com.  This is a great site for finding out if a website is down, but that isn’t what I use it for.  Instead, I’m looking for the response times of their servers.  The response time for servers is measured in ms (milliseconds).  This can give us some kind of idea at what to expect if we host with IX Web Hosting.

Great response times are under 20 milliseconds.  While average response times will fall between 21-50 ms.  I consider slow response times to be over 51 ms.  When I checked IX Web Hosting on January 1, 2015, I noticed that their response time was 64.83 ms.  This is slow, and other companies such as InMotion, MDDHosting, WebHostingHub, and SiteGround have much faster response times.

So, if you’re looking for performance and quick loading websites IXwebhosting isn’t going to be your best option.  True, they do support just about any website with any CMS that you could possibly want, but their performance isn’t anything to get to excited about. 

Uptime

Uptime is a very important factor when choosing a web hosting provider.  Let’s face it if your website is always down then it’s pretty much like tossing money into the waste basket.  Nothing is more frustrating than dealing with downtime.  It states right on IX Web Hosting site that uptime is one of the things they are the proudest of.  Meaning, they have a 99.9% policy.  To back up these claims they have their tier 3 redundant data center.

Typically, hosting companies will have your sites data on two servers.  This means one is a backup and the other is the active server.  With IX Web Hosting they give you, extra added piece of mind by backing up your data on 3 servers.  This means that you have an extra added piece of mind when hosting with them.

For the most part, you can trust that your site is going to be up pretty close to 99.9%.  From the test that was run on besthostingratings.com they monitored their uptime in 2014.  They didn’t have one lick of downtime.  This is quite impressive!  See the screenshot up above.

IX Web Hosting Customer Service

Customer support is one thing you really need in the technology era that we currently live in.  I just want to burn this into your brain.  Forgive me if I go a little crazy right now, but a lot of business owners sign up for web hosting because they do a lot of their business online.  They need to have a support staff that is competent and takes care of any problems or issues that might arise.

True, it’s not as big of a deal when you have a Playstation 4 or Time Warner Cable account and need to reach out to an agent to take care of your technical problems.  Video gaming and cable T.V. are a luxury, but your hosting is a business.  You have to be able to rely on customer support otherwise, you are setting yourself up for a complete failure. 

So, you can get ahold of IX web Hosting through telephone support, email, or through live chat.  One thing I always like to test with any hosting company is their customer support.  It’s just my preferred way to get ahold of them.  Well, I went to their “support center” page on their website.  There is a green button that says “we’re online now”.  Great!  I had a couple questions I wanted to ask them.  I click on the button to contact to live chat.  There is then a box that pops up asking you which department you would like to connect with:

You then click the “sale channel” and then “proceed”.  This is supposed to take you to live chat.  I did that and filled out my question.   Had a question about reseller hosting (which I know they don’t offer).  I just wanted to see how long it takes them to respond to me.  Well, guess what it isn’t really “live chat” because it just closes out.  I thought it might have been an error so I tried it again.  It just closed out again.  Then my Google Mail dinged.  I had a new message from IX Web Hosting.

Basically, this email states “Thanks for contacting us; there is no account with your email that is associated with this account”.  They want me to create an account and then fill out a support ticket.  As I am reading this I am thinking to myself “this is just a sales inquiry”.   I just want to speak to someone before I purchase their service.  Most people taking to sales don’t have an account.  They are probably considering the company.  It states they are online now, but really it just goes to their email account.  What the hell!  It’s like saying we have support and they are online now, but when you contact them it really goes to their email address.  Seems like this is going to be a hassle.  So I wait for 8 hours and never get an email back from them.

I’m really starting to have doubts about IX Web Hosting customer support.  They state live chat but really goes to an email account.  I really wonder what their customers are saying about their experience with them.  So, I Google “IX Web Hosting review”.  The first thing that shows up on Google is a review from whoishostingthis.com.  To my surprise the people that have used IX Web Hosting weren’t exactly ranting and raving about their customer support.  In fact here are some screenshots:

 

IX Web Hosting Summary

I don’t recommend IX Web Hosting to anyone looking for web hosting. From my attempts to get in touch with their customer support I found them to be the least bit helpful.  Webmasters are also reporting that customer support seems to be non-existent at times.  You could give them a try but could be setting yourself up for a lot of headaches later on down the road if you do need to rely on customer support.  Plus, this company doesn’t have the greatest performance.  Servers don’t seem to run quickly.  I would like to hear from past and present IX Web Hosting clients.  If you could, would you leave a comment up above.  Please feel free to share this IX Web Hosting review anywhere you see fit.

I have a couple recommendations for better alternatives to web hosting that actually have excellent performance and customer support.  Not to mention they are cheaper too. Instead, go to another company such as InMotion Hosting, A2 Hosting, or GreenGeeks. Thanks for reading.

IX Web Hosting research.

Interviews with IX Web Hosting customers.