Zone.net - Two Month Review

I have been with Zone.net for a couple months, now, so I thought that I'd post a review about their services for other members here to consider as they wish.

For the record, I have two VPSs, one through Zone.net and another one through another hosting company that gets high reviews through these forums, so I can directly compare them both pretty easily. I moved to Zone.net for one of my web sites because I was quickly outgrowing what I had available, and I also wanted to implement some redundancy within my web environment. If one VPS fails for whatever reason, I can quickly switch to the other.

I signed up for service after asking a few pre-sales questions, which were all answered surprisingly well, which does not seem to be typical in the web hosting industry (this was before their new forum system opened up at zone.net/forums). I was quickly convinced that Zone.net was a company to try, so I signed up for their VM200 server, which is a managed VPS. My web site is important enough to pay for the managed support, and I'm glad that I did.

The account was setup pretty quickly and I was off and running with no problems. The servers are still awfully fast, faster than the other VPS that I have. Cpanel loads so quickly with Zone, and PHPMyAdmin whips through the pages at an impressive speed, much faster than my other VPS provider. That is what immediately impressed me with Zone.net.

I've put in 4 different trouble tickets since I signed up, all of which were solved to my satisfaction. My VPS wasn't compiled with Postgres support, so I opened a ticket with their support team and it was taken care of quickly. I then couldn't send email with PHP. Again, I put in a ticket and it was done. Regardless of what provider you choose, you'll always have problems. What I value most is how the web hosting provider deals with those problems and the service their technical support team provides to their customers. Both VPS providers are exceptional in terms of technical support.

But back to the speed – that is what really impresses me. My other VPS isn't exactly slow, but this one is just damn fast. I immediately noticed a huge difference in speed, like I alluded to earlier, with Cpanel and WHM. I'm definitely digging the speed. It's like driving a Honda S2000 with my other VPS, and a supercharged Corvette with Zone.net. I have a supercharged Corvette sitting in my garage, so you can probably guess which car (host) I prefer.

And Sean, the General Manager, is one of a kind. It's nice to be able to chat with the ones who run the web hosting service directly, rather than their hired help. I'm not disparaging their hired help, because they are quite good, but...just imagine being able to call up Bill Gates every time your Windows desktop “Blue Screens”.

Anyway, there you have it. Zone.net is a great service and I would recommend them to anyone looking for a good, fast VPS provider. Their technical support appears able and willing to help, and with their new forum system, I honestly believe that they want to build a good, solid community among their customers, getting them chatting with each other, asking questions, getting help, relaxing and just enjoying the service.