Rating:
(3/5) 
Currently rated as #6
What we are looking at:
Price and Cost Effectiveness, Data Center, Connectivity,
Customer Service
General Impressions:
Pros:
- Wide selection of hosting types
- Site builder
- Provides design and programming services
Cons:
- Non-mainstream control panel
- Wide selection is hard on the web newcomer
- "Early cancellation" fees
Price & Cost vs. Features & Support:
StartLogic, like many other hosting providers, has
reduced rates if you sign up for longer time periods,
but their monthly rates are still reasonable. StartLogic
offers many types of plans, so you are sure to find
one that meets your requirements. They also offer
different platforms, such as VPS and dedicated.
One still reasonably unique feature is the presence
of both Windows and Linux hosting, Windows hosting
being the more expensive.
Carefully read StartLogic's User Agreement
(UA). While the ProLogic plan states that disk space
and bandwidth are "unlimited," the UA
states that,"[a]ny activity that results in
excessive usage inconsistent with normal usage patterns
is strictly prohibited." What consitutes "normal"
usage is left undefined. Our experience with "unlimited"
plans is that there is a limit, but you don't know
what it is until you exceed it and have to pay a
hefty overage fee. Also, make sure of the terms
when you decide the billing cycle you want to be
on. They make it very clear in those documents that
you will not get any money back for partial months,
and they charge a $50.00 "early cancellation"
fee, which may mean you owe them money beyond any
refund to which you would otherwise have been entitled.
This has been a sore note to many, but they do explain
this in their Terms of Use. So you might want to
just pay month to month.
The
fully equipped plans supply a very good feature-set,
and they also offer a good amount of bandwidth,
but storage space seems to be a little lacking
in terms of what is common today. The Windows's
plan in particular.
Servers and Connectivity:
StartLogic's datacenter is located in the geographically
calm city of Phoenix, AZ. Not prone to any large
scale disasters, such as earthquakes or hurricanes,
the well maintained facility is connected to multiple
backbone providers, such as UUNET, Broadwing, and
Global Crossing. HVAC, power redundancy, and fire
suppression systems round out the facility.
Ecommerce:
StartLogic offers either osCommerce or Agora Cart
for customers who want to dive into E-commerce.
OsCommerce is a common, GPL cart that many hosts
provide. Though it has some basic display configurations,
once you've seen one osCommerce cart, you've pretty
much seen them all. Still, it is a functional, sturdy
cart with a lot of useful features.
Customer Service:
Their support is the place I had some problems.
Several times I sent emails requesting information,
and I would not hear back from them for quite some
time. Also, some of the information replied had
nothing to do with the question I asked. However,
when I had serious problems they were fairly quick
to come to a solution.
