Rating:
(3/5) 
Currently rated as #7
What This Review Is Looking At:
Reviewed Items: Price Vs. Features & Support, Ecommerce, Servers & Connectivity, & Customer
Service.
General Impressions:
Pros:
- Low price with 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
- Good SiteBuilder
- Website Starter Kit
- Phone Support
Cons:
- Proprietary Control Panel
- No chat support.
- Lacks multiple domain availability on most economical plan
Cost Vs. Features & Support:
NetFirms follows an emerging pattern
in the hosting industry of providing
both Linux and Windows platforms
for their customers.
Though confined to their largest
shared plans, it's certainly
indicative of the direction of
the industry as a whole, thanks
to Microsoft's increasing visibility
as a stable hosting platform
provider. Unlike many providers,
NetFirms does not provide additional
charges for using Windows. This
is certainly a plus for anyone
looking for Windows hosting who
has noticed the common additional
charge for Windows based hosting
most hosts add on. This is primarily
due to licensing costs Microsoft
charges for the software.
NetFirms features a variety of common open source
apps, including the popular WordPress
blog engine. Interested potential
bloggers can even have WordPress
installed as their default homepage
right from the ordering system,
getting them up and blogging much
faster than waiting for a separate,
post sign-up install.
Ecommerce:
NetFirms Commerce Pro shopping cart
appears to be a customized version
of osCommerce. That is a solid,
well known open source cart,
so it's a good choice. Though
having some choice in the kind
of carts available would have
been nice, we admit there are
some pros to offering only one
ecommerce shopping cart. Primarily
it reduces the support burden
and allows their techs to specialize
in a single cart, instead of
having to support multiple different
ones.
Servers and Connectivity:
Netfirms isn't all that forthcoming
about the nature of its datacenter
and their connectivity. We would
have preferred having some idea
of the security and backup capabilities
than are running our website,
it seems many companies are forgoing
this kind of information. Granted,
the "average" customer will,
most likely, be completely unaware
of the importance of these "background
details", but it could impact
their chances with customers
are looking for some assurances
in this area.
Customer Service:
Focused on phone and tickets, NetFirms
support is reliable. We always
like to see a chat option, but
if the phone service is prompt
and effective, it can make up
for the elimination of chat altogether.
