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Average WebHost

This was my second web hosting service after a bad experience with another one and the experience with this webhost wasn't a pleasant one either. For a start, the people raving about the Customer Service are either too lucky or from the 'inside' as I mostly didn't even get through to them. The couple of times they did reply, it was an 80% automated message which didn't help me at all.

The hosting plans are rather cheap but the quality is not that good. There are frequent bugs, and with the poor customer service, you are left to squash them out on your own. Not recommended.

Not the best

This was the first web hosting site I used and I had a tough time with it. I had problems with server speeds from the start and the site seemed to be down a lot for maintenance. The customer care was poor. When I contacted them with my problems they usually just replied with an automated email that had little to do with the problems I was experiencing.

I would not recommend this site and advise that if you are looking for a web hosting site to look elsewhere as most other sites would provide a better overall service.

IPower works for you when your site gets no traffic..

Well, I hosted our sites, and over 40 client websites with iPowerweb.

Now in the beginning I didn't realize that iPower worked so well only because the majority of our client websites and our sites weren't really getting a significant amount of traffic.

For most of our clients it worked, since the majority of our clients were not search engine marketing clients, and were simply paying us for hosting service.

Once our clients (and our sites) started to get significant amounts of traffic (2,000 - 3,000 users per month), we started to notice major problems with iPower's hosting platform.

The problems surfaced mostly in our database-driven websites, that were e-commerce based, since iPower apparently sets a cap on the amount of queries a database user can make on a specific database.

iPower never made this fact known to us in the beginning, even though we told their sales person that our sites and our clients sites were mostly database-driven websites.

So what ended up happening was our sites/client sites would simply generate an error message saying: "Max_Queries_Exceeded".

Of course, you could imagine our dismay when some of our paying clients called us to ask why their website was "down" (even though it wasn't "down" in theory just being "limited" by iPower's server settings).

So we created a work-around to deal with the problem. (First, I created around 5 users for the same database, and then I created a script that would actually query the database as the existing user to see if the MAX_QUERIES_EXCEEDED error was received, if so, the script would then rewrite the config file to "comment out" the database user that had reached it's "limit" set by iPower, and then replace the user with one of the other 4 created to access the same database.)

The work-around seemed to have worked for awhile -- that is until iPower figured out that their users could easily create other database users, and then "cycle" them the way we did to get around the MAX_QUERIES issue. They then set the limit to occur on the database itself (so that no matter how many users you had, once you exceeded the number of queries on the database itself, you'd have to wait 24 hours for the database to be accessible again), which in effect meant that your site would be inaccessible for 24 hours at a time each time you reached your database limit which was pretty low (like 10,000 queries or something -- a value easily exceeded on any e-commerce site that gets decent traffic).

Of course, after this, we called iPower on the phone and spoke with one of their "Level 1 techs" which is a fancy term they use to describe a "customer service representative", since the level of proficiency that their "Level 1 Technicians" have in regards to server issues and problems is non-existent and all problems are handled by a "Level 2 Tech", who is an actual technician.

The main problem iPower has with their hosting offering is that their "Level 1 Techs" have issues in relaying the problem properly to their "Level 2 Techs" which basically results in you getting "canned" responses from the Level 2 Tech and just increasing your frustration level.

They suggested we move to a dedicated server, but then they didn't have any available, so they suggested a VPS (Virtual Dedicated Server, referred to as a "VDS" or "VPS" -- which is the next best thing to having your own dedicated server), we moved to that to find out low and behold they limit their VPS as well (upper memory limits, as well as IP filters) with numiptent, kemsize, and numproc. NUMIPTENT and NUMPROC are the most important ones since numiptent determines how many IP addresses you can block from accessing your server (very important if you want to prevent hacking attempts), and NUMPROC determines how many processes your server can run.

Now of course these two things prevent you from blocking hack attempts after a certain point, and also more importantly from having a LOT of traffic (httpd -- the main process that serves your web pages opens a new "process" each time a new person visits your site), so iPower essentially paints you into the same corner!

I had a client setup a massive website launch only to have her website buckle under the weight of the visitors she received to her site -- on an iPower VPS at that, which they recommend over their shared hosting platform if you get a lot of traffic!

Another problem with iPower was their reluctance to help when you had server issues (from simple stuff on up to the big stuff). I mean a VPS is a "self-managed" server, meaning that you have to manage it yourself, but they didn't want to help AT ALL, even when their limits caused the problem, and you asked for help in determining possible work-arounds.

To make matters worse, when they first setup our account, they actually didn't install some of the things we requested (SpamAssassin, Dr. Web Anti-Virus, etc collectively known as the "Plesk Power Tools"). When we called and ask that they install them (we had already been billed by this point, and had approximately 1 week's worth of data uploaded onto the server), they gave us a "support ticket" which stated it would be done (as well as the additional IP addresses we requested) within 24-48 hours.

Well, the 48 hour window came and went and nothing had changed, but I got an e-mail from iPower saying that they had setup our server and that we were able to login into it (the same e-mail I had gotten about 1 week earlier when the new server was ready to be used). So I contacted them again explained that nothing had been done, and that I got yet another e-mail from them about the server being setup again.

They simply gave me the same "canned" response (24-48 hours and it'll be done), and I told the CSR (Level 1 Tech) that someone had told me that already and it hadn't been done. She assured me it would be.

48 hours our later, our old VPS was complete destroyed and eradicated, and when I called iPower to ask what the heck was going on (we had almost 2 weeks of data on the server by that time), they told me to refer to the e-mail I had received about the new server setup (they delete the old server, and it's old IP addresses, and all our data and created an entire new VPS with the stuff we asked for WITHOUT all our data!). This of course meant we had to go and modify the DNS entries for all our domains and our client domains (over 60 some websites), as well as restore all the data that was deleted by iPower and their "techs". I asked if they had a backup of the data, since they advertise that on their website, and they said they only backup shared hosting servers NOT VPS or dedicated servers!

We have since switched to hosting our websites, and our clients websites on VPS's and Dedicated Servers with a company called HiVelocity, and I can honestly the differences are like night and day.

They take responsibility to help you figure out server issues (even if it's your fault), and the limits iPower sets on their servers, HiVelocity does not set at all (I mean literally when I checked the VPS limits in the resources area it literally shows "Soft Limit: None, Hard Limit: None").

All in all, if you're going to host a blog or something simple with iPower, then they're pretty good, and very cost-effective for that (that's the plus with them), but if you require enterprise level hosting with e-commerce or any kind of database driven website, you will probably want to shop around for more efficient hosting than what iPower can offer you.

With their shared hosting they will "reel you in" with the promise of massive amounts of space and bandwidth and all the "marketing/website development tools" you can shake a stick at, but in the end their shared service leaves much to be desired if you start getting any level of significant traffic, and their VPS service is hindered to the point that you may as well be on their shared hosting platform.

Mediocre Hosting

I have tried numerous web hosts, including Ipower a few months back. The price is definitely not too bad compared to previous hosts, but the customer support was definitely lacking. Also, Ipower did not have as many features as numerous other hosts and it was not user-friendly. The site was extremely slow and had several long periods of downtime. Overall, I was not satisfied with this product, even though I did not pay too much for it. If you do not have a lot of money to put in to a great host, I would suggest Ipower because the cost partly makes up for the mediocre service.

This is good but not great

I joined Ipower for only a short time and it definitely works, but I am not sure that I would recommend it to people. For me it was just really slow. It wasn’t always slow, but on some days it would lag pretty bad.

What I did like about Ipower was that it was a reasonable website that did what it was supposed to do and all the prices seems to be reasonable (which I liked a lot).

When Ipower is being cooperative (not slow) it can be lots of fun and I would recommend this site to people who have patience.

Was not at all impressed

I used to have Ipower Web Hosting up until about 7 months ago. The reason I signed up with them was because of their prices. They are very cheap and to me the service reflected that. I was always having a problem with the site being down. I experienced constant problems with their servers, which just got to be too much. I really disliked that I could never speak to a live person. In the many times I tried, I spoke to a human being twice. The rest of the time were automated messages as well as automated replies. I cannot say that my whole experience with them was bad because it wasn't. It's just that when you need a site to be up and running to make money, this is not the web hosting company to chose.

Ipower Is Not All That Bad For A Hosting Plan

The first time I signed up with them was in 2007 and I feel the problem with ipower is that they have too many errors with their server. Another thing you'll have to watch out for is don't let them try to make you pay extra money when you already know how much you suppose to pay for your plan. They tried to get me last year to pay a little extra money but I'm glad I didn't go for it and called customer service to ask questions to get it correct. One minute you see your website running right, then all of a sudden it goes to a white page or say the server can't be found. I'll say between 2007 and 2008 is the most I've been experiencing these kind of problems to the point where I almost wanted to cancel ipower and change my hosting plan to a different hosting site. Recently I had a glitch that happened to me a week ago. My website wasn't showing and it got redirected to a ipower directory. I had to call customer service for them to fix the problem. They fixed the problem fast this time I didn't have to wait for a week or a few days before the outage was fixed. I feel they're a little bit better this year cause they fix the glitches right away. After all I feel that they can't be too bad or else it would of been time for me to switch to something else.

Good but unreliable

I was having a great time with Ipower Web Hosting. I had been hosting my gaming forums on them. For around 4 months I was really pleased.

But around January this year I started to run into problems. When my forums were hacked, I was left powerless. I tried to get into contact with Ipower Web Hosting, however they only replied after I sent them around a dozen emails. Although after that experience I decided I had to switch hosting services to a more reliable one. While the bandwidth limit and accessibility of the server was great - the support was not. Therefore I have decided to rate Ipower Web Hosting a C.

One of the weaker web hosting sites

You know the phrase "You get what you pay for", that applies here. About a year ago, I was in need of a website and decided to go through Ipower. What initially attracted me was the cheap price but I soon saw why it was so cheap. I am somewhat of a perfectionist so I like to do things a certain way and have things look a certain way because I believe that this is a representation of me. The site does what it says but not as good as other sites that I have found. First the site is very rigid. There isn't much room for creativity and you can't really personalize the site to your liking. After making a site that I wasn't really proud of I decided to take it down and go with a more expensive but less rigid web hosting site. IPower is a decent site but it just didn't appeal to my tastes.

Not for me

I did join Official Ipower Web Hosting for a little while. Since I was new to web hosting, Ipower was very cheap for me so I decided to purchase it without even thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of joining. This web hosting service, I realize now, did not have enough features as other web hosting services contained.

I also got really sick of Ipower Web hosting as it's really slow, and they also have had some down times. I dislike this web hosting service, as it's slow, bad quality, and doesn't really have important features that you need.

The great thing about it is that it's cheap, even though it's a poor web hosting service. I would rather pay that little bit extra for a web hosting service and get better quality!

I wouldn't really recommend this web hosting service.

Very lame hosting service

I used Ipower for about a year when I signed on an affiliate program that required me to use Ipower as my hosting service. I hated it so much as it was so complicated. I couldn't find simple tasks like where the help button was located or how to upload my files onto my website, and it took me literally 14 days to find the cancel button. Every time I logged in the menu buttons were switched to a different position! Worse off, half the time my website was always not available because my hosting was down for maintenance. I couldn't get out of it as hosting fees were non-refundable, so I was stuck with rubbish hosting for a whole year.

The only good thing I like about it was that they reminded you on time that your subscription is up and would you like to cancel. Do not use these guys for your hosting service, you'll regret it just like I did.

Not great, but working

I tried this web hosting site after a very bad experience. It isn’t that great but it did help me a bit. If their customer service was better then I would’ve stuck with them. Every time I had a question, it took them very long to answer and sometimes I would get this message that wasn't related to my issue.

I tried making it by myself but the speed was slow, some of the features were not working properly, and more traffic I got the more problems I encountered.

I guess it could be good for hosting a personal blog, but if you want to promote something and bring a lot of traffic then IPower is not for you.

Poor web host

In this site, I was really attracted by the cheap price and I joined them when I was a beginner to building a website. From my experience, I can say that it’s a low quality web host which is not so reliable. Their services are quite poor and I have experienced lot of downtimes, and their support system is also bad. They never respond to our questions. Downtime is the worst thing that can drive away our patience.

Conclusion:

I never recommend this web host to anyone who doesn’t want to switch from one host to other. Don’t waste your money and time.

The website was down most of the time

Last year I used Ipower Web Hosting for my websites. I was attracted by their low prices. Unfortunately their service is also low quality. The website was down most of the time. I could never get any feedback from their support. I also had problems with server speeds.

I don’t like that they are using automatic messages instead of live support. If you send them an email you will get back an automatic response. I gave up after a few months. If you want to make money from your websites I would not recommend Ipower for hosting. I lost money because of them.

Terrible hosting

I used them to host for two of my sites. I wanted to try it out because their prices were so low. Of course when it comes to online hosting and stuff like that I paid a low price so I got low quality hosting. Almost every week the site would be down or running really slow. Every time I would contact support I would get some stupid auto response messages that would not help me at all. Their server speeds are just terrible and run extremely slow. After about two months of dealing with this hassle I canceled and took my sites off. So if you want good support and quality hosting stay away from here, because that is not what you'll get.

Too complicated

I use IPOWER about 2 years. I like that they have pretty big capacity for affordable price. Very important for me is that I can have a lot of different email addresses. But I send them to my gmail main email address.

First, I did not have a lot of time to build a web site, but I wanted to be present online. So, I use their sitebulder software. It is absolutely non flexible, it does not let you to make your own edits, cannot place your text where you want. And extremely slow... I have a good internet connection.

And, like I said before, I receive email to one of the addresses on IPOWER, and don't use it, I redirect to my gmail main email.

Better start with a host who has better evaluation.

Server can't be found!

Ipower was the first company I had my first blog site hosted on. This hosting site is suitable for those who want to build a simple website or a normal blog with low visitors! Because the more traffic I got the more problems I faced!

I took this hosting site for it's low price. I don't think you can find any hosting site with only 3.95$ per month! And really I got what I paid for.

Their customer service is terrible, they are using automatic message machines instead of a live person! And I think it's really important for a hosting site to make it's customer care as smooth as possible. But their biggest problem is my website was down most of the time. When I tried to visit my site, the only thing I saw was Server can't be found?

I will recommend this hosting site if price is your main concern, but there are many better hosts out there with plenty of features. So just pay some extra bucks and keep rocking with your site!

There are better hosts out there

This was the very first company I had my first domain hosted on. I loved all the details and it seemed like the perfect place, well, for me at least. After the first 2 months I wanted out. Their customer service was mostly automated, and to talk to someone that wasn't a robot took awhile to reach. Their servers are slow, and I gather it's the possibility that they have an overload on the amount of people hosted with them.

There are better hosts out there. Not that this host is actually bad, but I would not recommend it. Perhaps my experience was not to my satisfaction. Again, I still would not recommend this host, reason being that it will take you awhile to talk to an actual person.

It Works For Me

I never had a problem with them hosting my site. Everything worked properly every time I checked. I just had the starter plan, but it was reliable. I enjoyed using it. Updating my site was easy. The only problem I had is that newbies might have more difficulty than me. Some of the site-building processes can be confusing at first. So, make sure you have someone to help you if you've never done it before.

Ipower Web Hosting does work

I've used Ipower for a year, it’s good and reliable. Their staff is very supportive and I also recommend you to use this web hosting provider. It not only provides hosting packages, but also a server with many choices to choose from. Maybe it's too expensive for some, but they do give good service.