Host Monster Review

Okay, unlimited is not infinite! I understand that now. I obtained a Hostmonster account about a year and a half ago. I built my first html site on there. Then, someone introduced me to Joomla! AWESOME. I put up my first one without a hitch. It was so easy I put up another and another. Hey, I got unlimited space, right?

I got a nice email from them that said I had exceeded the number of files I could have on the account and that I had 14 days to get the file count down under 100,000. I was at 206,000. Joomla! and all of its extensions are pretty file rich. I bought another account from them and the transfer of half of the Joomla sites were a piece of cake. So, on that day I would have rated them a 10 in customer service and the nice rep explained everything to me in detail about the file "LIMIT" and where it appears in their agreement.

So, now I have one account with 100,000 files and one with 60,000 files. Everything is fine. Then I noticed that on the first account the sites were getting really slow. It took 4 hours to upload 25 100k pics. Sheesh! And, Joomlapack wouldn't work on it anymore. Did some digging around in the cPanel. Looks like they put in "Throttling" technology. So, the one account I have has been "Throttled" to the point where any browser I use to open any of the sites on that account times out before it will load. When I try to log in the backend to manage the account, it is sooooo slow or times out. Forget about trying to zip up your site to move it somewhere else. The tech said that JoomlaPack was not very efficiently written so it won't work under there new throttling technology.

I wan't to move the sites, but I can't. They won't lift the throttle long enough for me to move them. I called tech support 5 times yesterday and got no where. They had no suggestions except for a few references to some articles about making mysql database queries more efficient. Well, unless I rewrite Joomla!, they ain't gonna get any more efficient at indexing the database.

Bottom line... They are great for one or two Joomla! sites and the rest html, I guess. Don't use lots of CPU intensive extensions or they will Throttle you! Don't exceed your 100k file quota and you'll be fine. If you are new at the whole "unlimited" domain accounts, I have a secret.... shhhhh don't tell anyone... the limit is 100,000 single html file domains. And, don't use more than about 7 of the 100 mysql data bases they say you can have with your account or you'll be "throttled" (aka shut down).

As for my other 60k account that has 7 Joomla! sites on it... still works fine... hasn't been Throttled yet. But, after reading this, I'm sure they will.

:D