First & Current Impressions Review
Introduction
After numerous free hosts I tried, I must say that Kwix-Host is the best. It is reliable, stable and simply provides quality plans both reasonable for them, providers, and us, users. Kwix-Host, backend up with a tremendous amount of positive reviews and near perfect uptime, I decided to venture into it. At that time I must say I hated post-to-host providers. That is because I have learnt that I am pretty much exchanging my precious time for hosts that were going down the next week or so. However, Kwix-Host did not disappoint me. It has already been a month or two since I had them hosting me and never did a single time it was down nor caused me much problems. All I can say is that I am really glad to have such a provider, and I really hope that it stays that way forever (Until I decide to go into paid hosting).
First Impressions
When I first stepped upon the homepage, I was not too impressed at all. A simple layout filled with some news and links to the various sites and that is about it. Maybe I am the kind of guy who likes complicated things thus not liking it too much. As for minimalists,the design might be quite appealing to you. However, the colours used are rather warm and pleasing to the eye. Navigations were straight forward, and the FAQs etc were rather well done. Since it was a post-to-host provider, I immediately venture into the forums. The forums’ template was not too bad, as again the colours used were really well done. It was simple and clean. Icons, topics and categories were clear. Descriptions that were written clearly describe what the particular categories were and simply leads you to the place where you want to be. Registration for forum membership was the same like many other forums (This forum is powered by the invisions board systems). Validation mail etc. Then come the posting. The board looks not too active, however just needing around 7 posts etc was just a piece of cake. Posting here and there soon got me meeting the requirements for the basic plan. Off I go happily to register my account. Everything was quick and was instant (Yes it is an automated script to create your account, human are not going to help you with it. I am really surprised that this post-to-host provider does not need requesting of account creation.) Everything was smooth, no problems etc. To cut the long story short, I was impressed with the quickness etc, alright with the design, happy with the community. I really wished then the host would live forever. And it did live, for two months since my arrival at least.
The Worth Mentioning
Uptime
Within this two months being hosted by them, I never once faced a downtime. Amazing but true. I am rather impressed with this and yup, they are gaining my trust alright. I guess I might as well stay real loyal to them now.
Server Speed
I must say that from my country to the server’s location, the speed is rather fast. Uploading scripts etc were within minutes or so, loading and refreshing pages were almost blinking fast. Everything were smooth, had no problems with page loading times. Great!
Support
Need help? There is always a staff that will reply to you within 24 hours. Never tried their live chat at all however the support forums were enough for me to resolve my problems. Friendly staff and great community that is eager to help too. Support is really efficient for me.
The Plans
Simply reasonable and fantastic. Great amount of space and bandwidth, satisfying amount of features (They provide cpanel by the way, so what I meant here was that they provided enough email accounts, SQL databases etc) and easy to achieve requirements. And on top of all of that, it is all for free and without forced advertisements
Updates
Members and users gets updated really quickly whenever there is going to be a downtime for maintenance or whatsoever. The server software is frequently upgraded just like how they upgraded their cpanel to the latest version 11. I am rather impressed with that actually. They upgrade their space and servers accordingly to how much stress their current servers have. This results in really stable hosting and making it much more reliable than other hosts.
The Neutral
Design
Website and forums are designed based on simplicity and sleekness. It is warm and colours are really attractive. The design makes me feel real comfortable whenever browsing the forums and reading the posts etc. I would not say that it is extraordinary, but it fits the bill of providing a place where people feel at home and want to return for more. I cannot imagine myself posting in a forum with a disgusting template to it.
The Staff
The staffs so far seem rather active and plentiful. Helpful and kind they are and they seem to speak in a rather friendly way. I like that.
The Unworthy Mentioned
Community
The community really seems to be rather inactive. I will not say that it is all dead as there is still the staff and around 10 to 20 other enthusiasts who posts and reply a lot. I guess it is because once they reached the required amount of posts, they completely stop posting and could not be bothered much about it. Oh well, though the plans require a monthly upkeep of posts, it does not seem to be working as like I said, the whole activity of the board is unseen. Only a few regulars are seen posting at times.
Suggestions
More People Please
I think what will make the host even greater will be the adding of referral campaigns, competitions and games. This is for one purpose, to increase the activity of the board by encouraging members to invite other friends and to keep them posting or thinking in order to participate the contests/competitions. The forum really needs some people if not this hosting is such a waste. Such quality plans, uptime and reliability is going down the drain without an active community. That is the only fault I found with this host. Get more people and this host is simply perfect.
Conclusion
I really hope this host last as long as it can. It is simply a great host with great staff, plans, and is just absolutely made of quality material. The potential for great heights is there and I wish it will grow and improve along the way. For people out there who are still finding a host, Kwix-Host is the one for you. Happy webbing people!
WEBHOST IS CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE. REVIEW IS BASED ON THE SERVICE I RECEIVED AT 05/08/2007
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Signed up for free account a few days ago – nothing was mentioned about posting in the forums so hopefully they’ve changed that.
I assigned my own, paid domain and Kwix’ DNS servers to that. After a while I could log in to my account – but I couldn’t upload, neither with FTP or their file browser. Hence I decided to go with another free provider and changed my DNS servers to theirs. However for some reason it’s like Kwix Host still “have hold” on my domain – I waited more than 48 hours after I changed but still nothing – and even worse they’ve been all offline since a few days!!!
Never ever again Kwix Host, that’s for sure. I’ll now write them an e-mail and ask them to terminate my account, let’s hope it doesn’t bounce back.
Did you send them an email or something? My post on them is around last year or so. They might have changed management and whatsnot. I really don’t know and its horrifying and sad to hear that they became like that. Not sure though but they were really good back then.
Hello,
Nice review but rather dated, they’re not good anymore. Here is what has happened:
My site was undergoing a major redesigning and redevelopment in preparation for the big re-launch next month, but two days ago while I was having a whole development team consisting of 3 web developers and 2 designers working on my website at the very final stages, I noticed that my account got suspended! What a pleasant surprise, no email no warning, nothing!
So I went to their so-called support forums asking them to un-suspend my account so my team can carry on with what they were doing, and I explained to them that the team is charging me per hour, and they need to access the site to finish their job, and told them that we can discuss the issue while the site is un-suspended since there was no serious problem or threat of any kind. But they refused and started arguing instead of helping and working with me on solving the situation.
They said that they suspended my account because they want me first to create a free account for them on my site so they can check my content because it “might” contain some non-English content which is against their TOS. I explained to them that my site contains exclusive content that’s only available to paying subscribers and I can’t give them access to such content for free.
I also told them that hosting my website doesn’t grant them the right to access such exclusive, owned and copyrighted materials. Additionally, there are private personal and financial data stored on the site database that no one should be allowed to access, I’m not obliged by any means to disclose such personal and sensitive financial data to anyone just because they’re hosting my website! But regardless of everything, they should have contacted me via email with their requests and concerns instead of suspending my account just like that.
Long story short, I told them that I’m no longer interested in their service, and asked them to give me a way to backup my files and cancel my account. But till this moment they’re still insanely arguing with me, and therefore causing me more damages and financial losses.
I told them clearly and in a bold font, I don’t want your service anymore, all I want is to backup my files and leave, but they’re still neglecting, and telling me how much I should appreciate their free service! What this has to do with the issue at hand!? I have no idea. I told them again and again, I don’t want your great FREE service anymore, yet I get the same answers over and over, what kind of host is that!?
It’s also worth telling that the estimated financial losses because of their unreasonable actions and their bad management of the situation is around $375 US Dollars in direct damages, and this figure is still increasing dramatically because till this moment they’re refusing to un-suspend the account, and at the very same time they’re not giving me a way to cancel it with them and get my files off their servers!!
I know that since I’m serious about my web business I should have moved to a decent paid hosting – It was planned actually – but that’s a different story. I just thought it would be useful to share this info here with everybody, so you all can make an informed decision regarding this host. It seemed to be a good host that is run by nice professional people, but obviously I was mistaken. I also have to mention that they were much better back in 2007 but their overall attitude kept changing to the worse by time passing. It’s really sad to see a good-free-host has gone bad.
Their service technical-wise is not that bad for a free host, but their way of handling issues and the way they deal with their users isn’t anywhere near good, but rather unprofessional and awfully bad in critical situations when you really need support.
Cheers.
I see. Thanks for your comment on the host. Glad you know that the review is kind of outdated. Indeed I have been hearing more bad remarks than positive ones recently on their host. Not sure what has gotten to them but they were fantastic before.
Anyways, like you said since you are serious in your web business, you ought to go into paid hosting. Nevertheless I hope your loss won’t affect you too much nor stop you from archiving your future endeavors.