Rating:
(5/5) 
Currently rated as #1
What This Review Is Looking
At:
Cost Vs. Features & Support, Ecommerce, Servers
and Connectivity, Customer Service.
General Impressions:
Pros:
- A reputable company that has been around for
a while
- Competitive prices with low setup fees
- Tons of resources
- Multiple Websites on one account
- Offers both Linux and Windows
- Limited Time Free Setup on Windows (coupon
code "FSTP09")
- Excellent Customer Service with a live chat
available 24/7
- Miva Merchant (probably the best Ecommerce software
we've seen)
- 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
- Lots of extras like MailBoxCop SPAM/Virus filtering,
Miva Merchant, Site Symphony, Urchin
- Plesk 8 control panel
- Good reseller system
Cons:
- None that we can see so far
Cost
Vs. Features & Support:
Apollo Hosting's features are
one of its greatest strengths. The latest versions
of their shared hosting plans use the advanced
Plesk 8 Control Panel. This is the most recent
release of the popular control panel software and
offers a lot of new features and improvements.
The new plans support hosting multiple websites
on a single account; which means you may end up
paying much less than most company's budget plans.
Apollo now offers its own budget priced plan- "Value".
Priced starting at $6.96 a month with a 2 year
sign-up, it is a good plan for small, personal
/ hobby sites or for a small business who isn't
in the market for a large ecommerce solution.
Apollo provides more extras than
most hosting companies on their larger plans,
such as: SSL, SSH, free merchant account setup,
SPAM/Virus filtering by MailBoxCop. No other
hosting company we have seen offers MailBoxCop
to their customers. With all these features and
multiple plans per account, Apollo Hosting offers
the most bang for the buck. Their support is excellent.
And you get huge discounts if you prepay, up to
30% off.
Apollo recently started offering
Window Hosting plans in addition to it's long running
Linux shared plans. These plans are great deals,
offering unlimited database and multiple websites
starting with the "Plus Plan." For a limited time
you can get free setup on any Windows plan using
the coupon code "FSTP09" when you sign up.
Other improvements at Apollo are in
their reseller plans. Using a unique combination
of Virtual Environment technology and Plesk Reloaded
hosting administration software, Apollo's new reseller
plans offer a lot of choice at a good price. Using
the Plesk system, resellers can now create their
own hosting plans and set their own prices. This
is a big leap forward for Apollo, as their previous
system only allowed resellers to use their old shared
plans at a discount. This new system gives resellers
a lot more options in how they want to run their
business.
Ecommerce:
Apollo Hosting offers the powerful Miva Merchant
shopping cart for a small installation fee
on the Ecommerce Pro plan. Apollo provides Silver
Support from Miva at a significant discount.
With Silver Support, the customer can call
Miva directly with tech support questions. They
continue to provide the latest version of Miva
to new customers (and old who wish to upgrade).
Later versions of Miva are good because they
are compiled and run faster than previous versions.
It also works with Paypal so you can accept
Paypal instead of paying the expense of getting
your own merchant account. Entry level ecommerce
capabilities are available using osCommerce
on the Business Plan, for those who may wish
to start with a more economical hosting plan.
Servers & Connectivity:
Apollo Hosting customers have direct fiber optic
connections with Frontier GlobalCenter, Qwest Communications,
and Genuity, a division of GTE. These tier 1 providers
service such giants as Yahoo!, Netscape®, &
Ebay®. These facilities provide multiple OC12
connections and Qwest provides an OC192 connection,
which is above average.
Customer Service :
Apollo Hosting's customer support is 5 star. We
tried their online chat on different days and
at different times and always got someone. They
have toll free phone support 7 days a week which
is great when you just want to talk to someone
about your question. Overall they are an excellent
host to go with if you want to talk live with
someone day or night. They are very knowledgeable
in Miva Ecommerce software, and they have some
great flash support tutorials.
