One of my most popular articles on this site, as well as one of the articles that brings in the most search engine visitors, is my How to Install WordPress with 1and1 Hosting article. I believe the reason for this is because there are many people who’ve run into the same problem trying to get WordPress to connect to the database on 1and1′s servers. 1and1 doesn’t like to play by the standard rules.
1and1 is not only the most well-known web host, but they’ve also served my website quite well. As my site has grown, not to mention the fact that I now have multiple websites, my needs are changing. This post is not to bash 1and1, because they have provided me with good service. But I believe Hostgator has a set-up that will better meet my needs. Read on to find out why.
Why Hostgator?
I’ve chosen to go with Hostgator for several reasons. At the top of that list, is the great reputation they’ve built for themselves. Unlike 1and1, I’ve found much more praise of Hostgator on the net than bashing. Another reason is that I found their reseller accounts very attractive. These accounts cost a little more than your run of the mill hosting plans, but I think this is the perfect set-up for someone with multiple websites. Having a different account for each site should eliminate all my sites going down if only one site were to take more than it’s share of bandwidth. Unlimited MySQL databases is also a big factor in my decision, as my 1and1 plan limited me to 50 databases. Unlimited databases will allow me to continue building BANS sites, as well as any other type of database-driven sites I want to build in the future.
Hostgator Points to Consider
- Great Reputation
- Great Customer Service
- Affordable Reseller Accounts
- Unlimited Databases
- Uses standard C Panel admin
Support
I’ve seen a lot of 1and1 bashing on the net, and apparently that is due to their “horrible customer service”, which I don’t have any experience with personally. I’ve been with 1and1 for over two years, and have never had to contact their tech support. So, that could either mean that I’ve been lucky, or that there hosting service works like it’s supposed to. As Forrest Gump would say, “that’s all I have to say ’bout that”.
My initial impression of support from Hostgator has been well beyond my expectations. They will move up to 30 websites for you from your previous web host to the Hostgator servers. I understood this to be somewhat automated between web host’s using C Panel. 1and1 has their own non-standard control panel, so I didn’t think this would apply to me. Boy, was I wrong! They manually moved close to twenty websites for me(databases included), and it didn’t cost me any extra! I’m truly impressed with the level of customer service that I’ve received so far. Great communication and great service.
The transition went really smooth. I think I may have lost a couple of new comments between the two servers during the change, so for that I apologize.
Anthony,
I have to agree that 1 & 1′s customer service has been, in the past, awful. The last time I called them, a few months ago, I was pleasantly surprised that they actually were able to help me, and pretty quickly; so maybe that is improving.
Hopefully they are improving. It’s bad when you have these huge companies with poor customer service.
Well, I wish you luck at HostGator, but I will continue to stay with 1and1. THey have always worked out nicely for my site and I have been happy with the support.
I think big guys probably just get trashed more just because they have a lot more customers.
Good luck!
Kate
Thanks Kate. That’s a good point about the big guys getting trashed more…….1&1 having millions of customers would probably generate more unhappy people than a smaller company. Like I said, I wasn’t unhappy with what I was getting from 1&1….as a matter of fact, I was quite pleased. I just think that the package I now have with Hostgator is going to meet my current needs better.
I’ve actually been running Hostgator on some of my sites since last October and I couldn’t be happier with them. I’ve rarely run into any technical issues and when I have support has always answered my questions very quickly. I also love their chat support because I can chat with a support rep at almost anytime as well.
I wish you good luck with them as well.
Hey Clarke,
Yeah, I used the chat support briefly to figure out a couple of things, and it was fast and easy to use. If all the good things I’ve read about Hostgator are true, I look forward to a long working relationship with them.
By the way, how was Florida?
We had a great time in Florida the hotel was on the beach so I spent a lot of time there. We did a lot of other cool things as well.
As soon as I get caught up I’m going to write up a long post on it.
Sounds like fun….look forward to reading about it.
1and1.com is one of the worst hosting companies. My server has been down for over 34 hours and they have not sent any communication at all. I had to talk to 4 people before they would tell me what the problem was. That was about 10 hours ago. No word since then.
That isn’t the first time I’ve had problems with 1and1 either.
Filed complaint with BBB.
I have been a customer for 2 plus years with 1and1 hosting 5 of my sites. In that 2 years they have had 3 major outages that lasted 24plus hours. The last straw was on 4/29/08 when my site/customers experience intermittent downtime which lasted until 5/13/08 when my sites were COMPLETELY down for 5 days. On 5/19 they came back up but have been experiencing intermittent downtime ever since. On 5/21 I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau since their customer relations department was unwilling to communicate with me. A company should not be allowed to operate this way.
Josh and Steve T – Thanks for sharing your experiences. I know I have read quite a few horror stories about 1and1. That wasn’t my experience, but as stated, I never have contacted them for support. Hopefully, they’ll get their act together.
First off mad props to you from your themes.So 1on1 well 6 months ago I didn’t know anything about a blog.I ordered the two free domains.The backend is awesome the tools easy to use,a few times that I called support for mistakes that I made they answered right away,first ring style.The person in India obviously was polite intelligent in fact they helped me with putting my wordpress blog on it’s own domain name.They didn’t have to do that.The letter the send a while later with suggestions is alot of help.Summiting your blog is easy.Maybe I’m biased cause I make a lot from affiliate orders:)Got another 20 I just noticed.Anyway I just wanted to stop in and let you know that I appreciate your work Peace
Thanks John. I agree, that 1and1′s admin area is nice and easy to use.
While the 1and1 admin pages may be well laid out, I find there performance to be lacking in the extreme. This may be singular to my account, a managed server package, but it generally takes 20-30 seconds for each page load while administrating. Since My account holds 120+ domains, 250+ email addresses, and 60+ live sites, you imagine how tedious it is to work with.
To continue my tirade, a few months ago they upgraded linux on my server. I have had serious and crippling performance issues ever since. On three occasions, all of my PHP sites have simply ceased operating, failing silently and displaying a white screen. I was told that I should “use PHP5 instead of 4″ to alleviate the server load. I am required to use htaccess hacks in every site folder to make this happen, since they have chosen to keep the PHP4 processor the default, defying all logic.
The webmail system is also abysmal, slow, and poorly featured. I have emails dating back to 2005 in which support personnel promise that changes are being made to the webmail system. To date nothing has happened.
In my case, 1and1 was and is a total failure, and I am anxious to be rid of them.
Hi, Anthony. Thanks for writing the article “how to install wordpress on 1&1.” Your article was on top of the page when I googled the topic. I also read the comments below it, and wow, there were lots of gratitude flowing here and there. You’ve helped a lot. I’m gonna write you again after getting my 1&1 account (I’ve just paid a six-month Beginner package), and after applying your instructions to get wordpress.
I also wish you soaring success at Hostgator. Hostgator was previously my final choice after so many days of checking web host reviews, but I had to go back to 1&1 because I figured I’m a newbie and I should spend as little as possible while I’m learning.
1and 1 is a nightmare……..I had a site up for 2 days when I could not get into it, I contacted their support and they said I upgraded it and changed the PW. I told them I did no such thing and that someone hacked the account. They said they would get back to me in24 hours. No contact in 48. After 8 calls to a variety of departments and 16 days they told me that my card was declined for all new site registrations all 26 of them. WOW they allowed a hacker to try to upgrade my account and register a tom of new domains. And that my account was terminated. Fine ok whatever! They then said if I wanted to start again I was welcome to, as all was clear. So I did. Well after 72 hours no registration confirmation email. I called and my account was locked out as assessment was still pending on old account under my name and email. They have refused to refund both registration fees at this point. The source of all my issues from the start has been that all the different departments at 1and1have no idea what the other is doing. I am switching for sure and taking all my accounts with me.
Personally I use Lunarpages for myself as well as for work. I have also recommended Lunarpages to friends and between the accounts I’ve set up and my friend we have 10-15 over the last few years. There have been some issues with customer support, but mostly their hosting just plain works. very little down time and most of it was scheduled server maintenance (so there was notice ahead of time and again the down times have been brief). The amount of storage space/emails/data bases is quite staggering, especially for the price. Also I love cPanel. In fact when I signed up the most recent account there was even an option for which version of Apache you wanted to be hosted on (as well as version of PHP I believe). I’ve heard of 1and1 but have not used them. I had not heard of HostGator prior to this article.
I user http://www.SITECUBE.COM and I am quite fascinated with their work. Host Gator looks good however their website builder Sucks. Sitecube’s website builder is amazing.
You should take a look at the way the flash website looks.
GUYS flash is the X Generation tool.. So get started.
That would really depend on what you’re looking for, huh?
I don’t use “site builders”, and I wouldn’t pay $10/month for a website that limits me to 5 pages. I can assure that most people reading my website could care less about Hostgator’s, or any other website builder tool.
Switched to HostGator about a month and a half ago, and am very pleased with the service so far. They are much faster than GoDaddy (where I have previously hosted my own websites), and have not given me the grief that 1&1 has given me at work (my employer’s website). Hostgator, keep up the great work!
I have used 1and1 for over a year now, and im pleased with their service. Everything has just worked and no problems really. Other then one time of getting one of my sites hacked and defaced, but that was more a mistake on my part and a bug in the software i was using. Now Network Solutions is another story. I used them before 1and1 and they were just one big problem, they even shut down all my sites without telling me, because some how someone got on my server and was sending out mass emails with it, all because of netsol’s lack of security. Never going back to them again.
I’ve been with 1and1 for 6 years or so. I’ve never had any mahor issue with them. They have provided me with superb service at a reasonable price. I’m not keen on the FTP access usernames (u56895214563285559658-user) but the rest of the options are fairly reliable. I am growing and appreciate the mild review of hostgator. I’ve tried Hostmonster and was immediately mortified by tier Customer support. I had a package for 3 days before I cancelled. MY only question would be if hostgator allows ssh….. Good article.
Kyle,
Yes, Hostgator does allow SSH, even in their smallest package.
HEllo ,
Can you please explain how to migrate from 1&1 to Hostgator.I really fed up with 1&1 within 1 week.i really want to change it now.Please help me………
Anthony, you are bashing 1&1 whether you admit it or not. It would be like me saying “Everyone else thinks this blog sucks, but I don’t” The overriding sentiment is this blog sucks not that I don’t think so. But anyway…
I switched from GoDaddy after years with them because I had gotten so fed up with their severely cluttered control panel interface all in the name of bashing me over the head with constant advertising. I will say the couple times I needed help they were great and when I called to cancel my hosting account it took less than 60 seconds and I received a full refund to my PayPal account in less than an hour. The amount of time required to wade through their system to get any work done just got too frustrating.
I switched over to 1&1 because of better pricing on domains and hosting, better flexibility with hosting multiple domains on a single host and the fact that once you’re a customer they dont try so hard to keep selling you services.
If you don’t know what you’re doing then definitely go with whomever you think has the best customer service, you’ll need it. So far 1&1 has been fine for me and the ability to efficiently maintain my sites and databases is much more important to me than having my hand held every step of the way. Every question I’ve had has been thoroughly answered in their extensive FAQ. Finally just to keep on topic, I have had exactly zero problems with WordPress installations on 1&1, so far it is working flawlessly.
TK,
Actually, no, I’m not bashing 1&1. As a matter of fact, I still have my account with 1&1, and all of my domains are still through them. I also still have two websites on my 1&1 hosting plan. So, it has nothing to do with whether I admit it or not. This website, and some others that I have are now with Hostgator, for reasons I explained in this post.
As to whether I know what I’m doing is irrelevant, as some people who may read this post and are looking for hosting may not know how to deal with databases, etc.(as I didn’t when I first started). In this case, Hostgator is very easy to get in touch with and get the information needed from.
I agree that 1&1 has an extensive FAQ list, and as I’ve already mentioned, I never had any problem with 1&1. But whether you admit it or not, there are a lot of people across the internet who have posted about their horror stories with 1&1, particularly with their customer service…..a simple Google search for “1&1 hosting reviews” will confirm this. Hopefully, 1&1 is improving in this area. I don’t know because I’ve never had to get in touch with them.
1and1.com is HORRIBLE. My site is still down as we speak, going on to the 3rd day. Their down time is so frequent I have their phone number on speed dial. This usually happens at least twice a month. Customer service is helpless, all they can say is they “submitted a ticket to the US office”. No one in the office has any idea what they are talkin about. Its absolutely horrible and I would never recommend 1and1 to anybody. I will be switching hosting once (if ever) my site comes back up again.
I’ve been toying with the idea of switching to hostgator for some of my sites, now I think I really *will* look into it more seriously. Thanks for the info!
I do love hostgator too and happy with them
Hi,
I have registred in this forum only to say that you haft to take care with those of 1and1 because they are very nonprofessionals
and create some nameservers with them its something like impossible task because have a very stupid team support that I have saw in my all
life or what I found in 10 years from when I walk through the internet.
There are people in the support team of 1and1 who not know what is a nameserver itself and give support to the clients.
Bad Bad choice of domain register I made .. I want to transfer the all the domains what I have in 1and1 company because I can not let
some incompetent people to manage my domains.
Don’t hurry like me when you buy a domain and think two times before to buy some thing from 1and1.
http://www.wolf-howl.com/reviews/1and1com-web-hosting-sucks/
In my opinion with 1and1, you get what you pay for. Hostgator is a tried and true reputable web hosting company that has excellent tech support. Other companies that I have had great success with is Bluehost and HostMonster.
Glad many people are getting away from 1and1, buisnesses with great tech support are the ones who always prevail.
So, how does one transfer from 1and1 to Hostgator, anything I should know ?
thanks,
J
My website has been down for a week. According to 1&1, a UPS outage is the cause of it. Next thing you know, the RAID subsystem was defective. Onto data recovery, still nothing. This is utmost ridiculous. Deal with someone local, forget the imposters like 1&1. Customer service sucks. Middle East Indian customer service is horrible. They hire a bunch of teenagers to run their support lines and they read scripted material to you. “I sincerely apologize for the issues you are having sir”. over and over again.
A very angry (ex)customer.
I been a 1and1 customer and the reason why there shared servers are slow because there are thousands of customers per server. Imagine 1 server has 14000 customer. In each customer has 5 website average. So a if one of those customer is using very high bandwith then that server would crash and so those whole customers under this server.
I prefer to have a linux based hosting server rather than windows based server at 1and1.
My experience at 1and1 is greate and had no problem with there support.
Installing wordpress at 1and1 is so easy even if your package is beginner. The only problem is that there MySQL database only limits you to 100MB.
I had no issues with 1and1 webmail – until they switched to 2.0
Since then, I have had nothing but problems.
When I contacted them, asking to be switched back to the old version, I recieved the following response:
“At this time, there is no way for a customer to revert back to webmail 1.0, and I doubt it will ever be an option since 2.0 is quite better.”
But it isn’t better.
It’s slower.
It takes forever to load and often times out.
You can’t just click a box on the left to delete multiple items at once like you used to.
There is more spam.
There is a coding problem causing intermittent problems whereby recipients of an email from me can’t read the email (which has never happened before).
It’s not better.
And the customer service is not so great. Call them — each person will be reading from a script. Ask for a supervisor. He or she will read from a script as well. Try to reach someone in corporate. Try to find the corporate number — it takes some intense research. And when you finally reach corporate, the person you talk to will reroute you to the same IT Department that you spoke with in the first place.
Email them — and wait for a response. See if the response they give you actually addresses the problem you contacted them about in the first place. See if it looks like a canned response, or as if they have made any changes or taken any proactive steps to address the matter.
Good luck with Hostgator. You made the right decision.
This post is years old. But having waded through the comments I feel entitled to make my own.
First off want to thank the author. I’m in the process of researching hosting providers. So input from people with experience in the subject is always welcome.
Main thing that’s putting me off on 1&1, outside of the “horror stories” Im coming across. Is their not using cpanel or similar. Better safe than sorry is my view on it. ESP when there are commercial interests involved. So I’ll keep digging into the subject and withhold final judgment until then. But 1and1′s not using cpanel is enough of a put off to me to shy away from them.
Author is obviously not bashing 1and1 here. He made that plain through-out in my view. Other people are though. Which hey, internet is still free enough that someone can express their opinions. I’m really glad about that.
Just my .02 cents.