10 things I love about Mosso web hosting

Mosso Logo The following article explains my love for the host that I currently reside with, and why I see myself staying for longer than my previous three hosts in the 4-5 months before joining.

1. The support is excellent, every single time
Human support in a live chat environment, answered in less than 5-10 seconds every time upon opening a new chat. There’s always a friendly manner about the staff and there’s always that personal touch.

2. I don’t have to fiddle with server settings or loads, but I still feel I’m on a dedicated server
There’s no mysql/apache updates to configure, no themes, no 50-60 tools to manage the server. But there’s the speed, the reliability and the raw power of having one. My account has never gone down and never have I seen a ‘out of memory’, ‘too many users connected’ or ‘exceeded max_script_execution time’ errors whilst being on Mosso. (And I’ve executed some looong scripts trust me).

3. I’m not limited like I am with a server
I am not set to a strict amount of memory or CPU – I use as much as I need on their system and it allows me to do so without slowing down the service for anyone else. This is because of their clustering technology which (unlike Media Temple) has been executed incredibly well and works just how a perfect cluster system should.

4. I can host all the sites I want
Their system doesn’t restrict you to a certain amount of accounts. I currently have 20-25 sites hosted (I don’t want to count an exact number right now..).

5. Multiple core technologies all under one roof
Mosso currently supports ASP, PHP4 and PHP5 – not to mention Perl/CGI on PHP accounts. This is setup on an account by account basis. Oh – and I have word Ruby (with Rails) and JSP support are on the way soon :)

6. Multiple database technologies all under one roof
MySQL 4, MySQL 5, MSSQL and ‘SQL Server’ (for ASP users). With more being worked on :) You can also have several types of database on one account – as the technology is defined when creating a database, not when creating an account.

7. They are completely open to suggestions
Mention an idea to a support staff member and they’ll forward it to the founders for consideration. I mentioned they should have a blog and a week later, ‘we are planning a blog’ from a support staff member. This is truly unique when it comes to web hosts – as they usually just put user contributions to the side and go ahead with their own plan. Mosso is different. You can also e-mail founders directly (through a neutral e-mail) with your ideas should you have any.

8. Better than average webmail
Mosso use an altered version of NutsMail for their web based e-mail. Which includes to-do lists, notes, contact management, a calendar, real HTML support and much more. After years of the crappy ordinary SquirrelMail, Horde (that one everyone never used) and NeoMail it’s refreshing to see a real web based e-mail program being included with hosting.

9. They are in touch with their audience
An expansion from number 7 essentially – but when you’ve got live chat support with some of the friendliest people you’ll ever talk to and forums built directly into the control panel where you can talk to any other hostees, support staff and any other Mosso staff – it’s great. Unlike other hosts (how many times have I said that?) staff are actually around in these forums all day long.

10. Everything is under the same FTP account
What do I mean about this? Well if I login now, I can access all 20-25 (no, still haven’t done that count) websites under my account. I can go into files.jhuskisson.com and then back into jhuskisson.com without disconnecting and re-connecting. All I have to do is simply navigate backwards and forwards again.

Honorable mentions

  • All mosso accounts come with billing support so you can bill your customers (credit card’s only though)
  • You can configure welcome e-mails, billing e-mails etc. yourself
  • 1 day free hosting for every hour of downtime – not much but it strengthens their guarantee
  • Custom plans without hassle
  • Very very nice appearance to everything inside the control panel and on their main site
  • 80gb of space and 2000gb of bandwidth for $100 a month? And when you compare it with a normal server $100 isn’t bad at all

Note: This article is followed up by Five things Mosso web hosting can do to improve and isn’t the entire picture of my experience with Mosso as I am no longer with them.

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Comments:

  1. Yea, they seem like a pretty good hosting company, props to them.

  2. Quote = “Mosso use an altered version of RoundCube”

    I thought it was NutsMail http://www.nutsmail.com , i might be wrong.

    How long have you been with Mosso?

    How fast/slow is thier CP as compared to 2 months back.

    Thanks

  3. forrestRain – your right, didn’t notice that! It’s done so well..

    The control panel has vastly improved. On my first day it took me minutes to load a page, so I wrote a forum post complaining angrily at the system. Two or three days later the control panel is lightning fast on every page and everything loads smoothly. Infact I had a support engineer ring me up to tell me that they’ve rolled out a new update and to check if I was still having slow page loads or not.

    Whilst the update clearly wasn’t because of me (they obviously had to be working on it for some time prior) – the timing of the update couldn’t have been better.

  4. Hi Jamie,

    Good to know. And it would be great if u can keep us posted with your experience time to time…

    Thanks

  6. That is an awesome review of Mosso and there are great number of customer insights that other web hosts could use to lift their game. It’s always a great feeling when you can find a host that you can trust to meet and exceed you needs. Well done Mosso!

  7. Hi Jamie,

    I’m looking to move to Mosso when my VPS expires in the Autumn. I’m running around a dozen Joomla sites and was wondering whether Mosso could handle them. There’s only one that would generate much traffic, but they’ll all be accessing MySql databases of course. I realise that it’s a ‘how long is a piece of string’ type of question but if your 20 – 25 sites are database based it would reassure me a little. How many visitors do you get?

    Incidentally your site and other Mosso sites (
    http://www.talkaboutcomics.com
    http://www.jhuskisson.com
    http://www.yayhooray.com)
    I’ve looked at are lightning fast here in the UK.

    Regards,
    Chris

  8. Hey Chris,

    I should think if YayHooray.com is on the Mosso platform (didn’t know they where) then anything you put on it shall work :)

    I’ve found Mosso to be nothing but lightning fast with everything I put onto it.

  9. Jamie,

    Dugg it.

    Great post, mate. I am about to write a Mosso review…

    They’ve had a few problems in the last week… seems their provisioning side of things is struggling.

    But apparently, compared to Media Temple (which gets all the link love and fan frenzy), it’s a lot more solid.

    Cheers,

    - Alister

  10. Thanks Alister :) I don’t mind writing about a company that provides an excellent service.

  11. Do you still feel this way about Mosso after months of problems there?

  12. Inquirer – nothing from this list has changed. The months of ‘problems’ seem to me mostly coming from people demanding over night developments and who can’t stop but complain.

    There’s been some e-mail related problems which have annoyed me, but nothing too drastic just yet.

  13. Are you still at Mosso?

  14. Hi Jamie, any new info on Mosso? I’ve got about 60 sites that i’m hosting on a ded server and really want to move them to Mosso. Mainly because I am sick of trouble shooting everything constantly and not designing websites. Any updates would be great.

    Thanks!

  16. Hi guys – sorry to burst oyu bubble – but as a professionnal website designer and hosting reseller – im unsatisfied with mosso and would recommend not using them for professionnal purposes.

    The hosting system’s philosophy and support is great, but they seem to lack the staff – budget to test their functionalities.

    email changes made my life hell – as they did not notice us of it – and all my email forms stopped working overnight – they did not care to notice us or ask what was up.

    Their billing system need work too as it doesnt allow you to decide on which date to bill…

    the domain transfer function also bugs all the time.

    I have to give my respect to the support crew which is really responsive and kind. And i like the grid system – and all it enables. But they need to be more responsible towards clients like me that have clients depending on the reliability on the functionalities.

    I would advise to wait until the system is more stable to transfer hosting for resellers… for personal and/or small amount of uncomplicated site – the grid is alright.

  17. I agree with Hugues. Mosso’s support team is awesome, but their system is unacceptably buggy. Every single website we’ve setup with them over the past month has has provision problems of some sort. I’m not exaggerating: every single site. (We’ve setup around 50 so far.)

    Sometimes the FTP access isn’t available for several days. Or sometimes we can’t add a database in their control panel. Sometimes the outgoing email just doesn’t work. Their technical team is responsive and friendly and always fixes the problems. But that doesn’t solve the fact that setting up a new website in their control panel takes us hours — if not days — when you include all the calls, emails, and chats we have to make with their support team.

    That said, their control panel is so simple and intuitive compared to Dreamhost, 1and1, and Media Temple. We love being able to put websites inside of individual client accounts so that we don’t have to deal with a huge list of emails or databases.

    I understand that they’re working on fixing their provisioning issues, and I really look forward to being able to use the system effectively.

    One thing that I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned is their complete lack of shell access. It makes it difficult to migrate a website, but the benefits of working with Mosso outweigh the lack of SSH. Also looking forward to having that in the future.

  18. I am glad to have read these comments, I now don’t feel so bad about not going with Mosso.

    I was looking at hosting customer sites, but their service provision for the UK isn’t really there – lots of the things I wanted didn’t apply to the UK. Toll free support – I don’t want my customers calling me after all – that was half the point. Client billing – only if you have US bank account in the US, no API for auto-client hosting signup, . . . .

    If anyone knows where I can get all of that plus smart, alway on, support staff and pre-installed accounts (MySQL, PHP etc), please let me know.

  19. Jamie,

    Are you sure you don’t work for Mosso? This list reads like a sales pitch.

  21. I would like to add 7 things I hate about Mosso.
    In my opinion Mosso is all hype and no substance.
    1)First of all you have no idea what their cloud architecture is comprised off.
    When they say load-balancing, do they mean the files are stored in a fault
    tolerant raid device, shared by multiple web servers. So if the raid machine
    goes down you would be screwed. So it is really not load balancing
    2)The app deployment process is patchy. You have a web interface to define
    the site, then you must FTP the site. Why not have the ability to upload the
    app via the same web interface.
    3)Oh wanna know how sophisticated the account cancellation process is,
    First you have to find out the right email address. Then email that address
    requesting the cancellation – and better include your login information,
    because about 2 weeks later they will email you back requesting that information
    for verification. That is fanatical support for you. There are mom-and-pop
    operations with more sophisticated CRM support than that!
    4)Lets face it Mosso, is run by Rackspace, an IT infrastructure company. It has no
    experiencing at the application level.
    5)Moss is designed for hosting rather simple applications. If you have
    a very simple application, do you really want to pay extra for hosting it in a cloud
    or would it be better to just host it at say – godaddy?
    6)Mosso is doing a dis-service to the Cloud initiative by under-delivering.
    This leads to disappointment and skepticism about the whole notion of hosting cloud.
    7)Finally I discovered what I considered a true hosting cloud with the folks at
    cloudAPPy.com. BTW you are able to try their service for free without having to
    submit your credit card like at Mosso.

    LE

  22. I have to say I have been working with Mosso for about a month now. I’m slowly migrating sites over 1 by 1 from a dedicated Plesk CP server. The migration process is very much a pain but I like the support I get from Mosso. I was a customer of Rackspace years ago but had to leave due to the increased fees. I was perfectly happy with what Rackspace had to offer but my server was aged and had to go elsewhere and then well I found Mosso years later. This is honestly EXACTLY what I have been looking for in a hosting environment. They really do cater to developer needs. I don’t get paid to be a server admin. I get paid to develop addons and host great sites. I have high hopes for this service and recommend to anyone hosting 25 to 50 sites that range from brochure based to moderate dynamic database driven sites.

  23. I can’t understand how any hosting company justifies a lack of ssh. it’s bizarre. It’s one thing to cater to people who can’t use ssh or don’t understand it’s power. It’s another to deny the ability to developers that know how to use it. Plus, it’s huge security flaw to support universal ftp for all accounts but no ssh. clear text passwords? with ssh you can do everything securely including file transfer. Ok, it’s doesn’t make your site invulnerable but it helps!

  24. Good to know. And it would be great if u can keep us posted with your experience time to time…

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  1. 1st of February 2007

    [...] I wrote about 10 things I love about Mosso Web Hosting. This article is about things Mosso can implement to make me love them even [...]
  2. 20th of January 2009

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