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Servlets.com | ISP Reviews

Reviews for ISP: pgHoster

The following comments have been recorded for "pgHoster".

Average Overall Score: 1.8
Average Features Score: 3.2
Average Reliability Score: 2.2
Average Support Score: 1.6

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Best features for the price

Date: May 14, 2003
Reviewer: Bruce Lewis
Reviewer site: http://brlewis.com/
Overall: 5 Features: 5 Reliability: 4 Support: 4

It's hard to beat $100/year for an ISP that gives 300Mb disk, Tomcat 4.1.18 (as of 5/2003), and a real database (PostgreSQL). Roj Niyogi is a PostgreSQL guru. In the first two weeks since transferring, my site there has been overall reliable. There was a minute or less of refusing connections that I noticed once. Roj is somewhat new to the servlet side of things, but is getting up to speed.

The worst

Date: June 18, 2003
Reviewer: Marco Lucio
Overall: 1 Features: 1 Reliability: 1 Support: 1

I put my site, and everything work but the jsp. They never worked, and Roj answer just 1 time to my e-mails, and never solved the JSP problem. I ask for my money back yesterday and he doesn't answer, and now the pghoster site is down. I think I lost my money.

They refund the money

Date: June 19, 2003
Reviewer: Marco Lucio
Overall: N/A Features: N/A Reliability: 5 Support: N/A

OK, I send the request to the support email, and after less that 1 hour my money was back. Sorry the JSP didn't work. Thanks!!!!

Lousy service

Date: March 22, 2004
Reviewer: Ken
Overall: 1 Features: 5 Reliability: 2 Support: 1

I had problems similar to those described by the previous poster. Never got Tomcat working, Roj answered one email about the problem and then ignored me. He claimed in January that they would be adding to their support team. Yeah, right. Worst service I have received from an ISP in almost 10 years.

P.S. I give the features a 5 for what they claim to have. If you take into account what works, they get a 3.

Great startup, then a bit hard to get responses

Date: April 8, 2004
Reviewer: John Hamlin (johnh@news.oregonian.com)
Reviewer site: http://harrisusers.org
Overall: 4 Features: 5 Reliability: 5 Support: 3

Whether I write to support@pghoster.com or to Roj Niyogi -- it is always Roj who replies. Seems they have no one else. However, he KNOWS HIS STUFF, and that's comforting. After all, this is not a site for idiots, given its dedication to PostgreSQL and PHP.

I have successfully set up a beginning website for a software users group, and four "mailman" listservs, and an FTP site, to which I successfully added a heavily edited version of "net2ftp." All good, all working fine. This speaks well of the site.

My one complaint is that Roj is very eclectic about answering questions. Sometimes (more true when I was a new customer starting out) he responds fully and quickly. But lately his responses have been 3 or 4 days late, or never. Also, they have trailed off into not answering all my questions (like he hasn’t read the whole e-mail). I'm no genius in this stuff, but I am competent, and at work I run a user support team of four for a major newspaper’s newsroom of 450 people. I'd fire anyone on my team who took this long to answer a problem or query, and I’d be mighty unhappy with anyone whose answers were incomplete.

Bottom line: I think this is a good hosting site. It has excellent pricing (for example: $300 for 800MB, 25GB and a host of features. Roj needs to learn better communication skills or hire someone who can bring that to his company. I think Roj is a sharp linux-savvy guy -- seems very young (I'm 60) and probably will improve with age.

PGHOSTER IS A SCAM!!

Date: June 19, 2004
Reviewer: Dave
Overall: 1 Features: 4 Reliability: 1 Support: 1

It's been over six weeks of sending support emails, and I've never gotten one response. Now, my site has been inaccessible for two days and I still can't get in touch with anyone, and no emails are EVER returned. This guy should be ashamed of himself for being so bad at what he does. 99% guaranteed uptime?? Okay then, return an email so that I can get my money back you SCAM ARTIST!!!!

Don't bother

Date: June 23, 2004
Reviewer: John
Overall: 1 Features: 3 Reliability: 1 Support: 1

I have used cheap ass hosting for years now, this is definitely the worst experience. I'm guessing its entirely one man operation which means that when he's on vacation, there is absolutely NO service. This is not a business but some guy's hobby that he's charging for. With an abundance of staffed low-cost hosting solutions this host is unreliable and a complete waste of time.

Today is 23 Jun 2004. Currently you may notice that their support forums are unavailable. They have been this way for the past 3 days. The trouble ticket system has a lead time of upto 5 days. They have no toll free support.

My site was on a lightly loaded box. However both DNS server addresses were on the same box as the site too. The BIND service stopped working so my domain name hasn't been resolving for over 36 hours now. Of course, it looks like no one is around to fix it.

A few hours later, the box is no longer handling SSH connections. They give ssh access and this box doesn't have a patched kernel for the mremap bug, which leads me to believe its been rooted or some idiot has triggered the SIGFPE bug. So basically my domain is completely fucked until DNS propagates my new provider.

Whatever, I understand that inexpensive web hosting is never perfect, but this is completely unacceptable. I don't see the point in wasting your time on a service with no support staff on call within a 48 hour time frame.

PGHoster sites disappear

Date: September 15, 2004
Reviewer: John Hamlin (johnh@news.oregonian.com)
Reviewer site: http://harrisusers.org
Overall: 1 Features: 4 Reliability: 1 Support: 1

Roj Niyogi, used to run a hosting service called PGHOSTER.Com. That service simply disappeared from the web around the middle of August, 2004, and is still unavailable today, 9/15/04. Hundreds of websites, including four of my domains (harrisusers.org, westcoasting.net, etc.) went blank and hundreds of e-mail lists, including MerlinUsers and HarrisUsers, quit working.

There has been no comment from Mr. Niyogi, although the pghoster.com website is still up and soliciting business.

According to comments on the MiniBB bulletin board at pghoster.com, many of his customers have heard nothing for more than a month, no refunds of hosting fees, no access to data locked up on the pghoster servers, NADA.

The guy appears to be a fly-by-night, with our money.

Avoid anything related to this guy, including pgHoster.com, TriPodSupport.com, TriPodSecurity.com, and any operation with which he is associated.

-- John Hamlin

The worst

Date: October 3, 2004
Reviewer: Chris Calloway
Overall: 1 Features: 1 Reliability: 1 Support: 1

It's hard to get worse than pghoster. Their Tomcat never worked. The uptime was horrible while it was around (all sites would be down for a week at a time every few months). They would hardly ever respond, and then they'd make excuses which would shift around. Then all their hosted sites just vanished one day, never to come back. They still charged my credit card after they folded. They used fake addresses and phone numbers. Now they don't answer email at all. They linked to side business that purported to outsource support (which they can't even provide for themselves). To top it all off, they still have the nerve to advertize for new business while their old customers have been left out in the cold. They sell their business with the most glowing superlatives. I only have one word for them: crooks.

Very Poor/ Bad is the single line comment

Date: November 9, 2006
Reviewer: John
Overall: 1 Features: 1 Reliability: 1 Support: 1

I did signup with pghoster, initial days were not bad. I mean the first sixty days, from day sixty five started the problem, no response from the pghoster support. They are online always, but never in 24 x 7 we gets them to chat atleast. The worst of the service, I would advise people never to depend on them. Inspite of certain negative comments I selected pghoster, which I regrets now.

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