Webfaction Review
I was looking at my web stats and noticed I was getting a lot of traffic to my limited review of Webfaction. To recap, I tried out there account then decided to cancel, and they were prompt and friendly at delivering a refund.
Since that time, I have set up two Webfaction accounts. When I started developing Inzolo.com, I wanted to set it up faster and keep it separated from my VPS accounts mainly so I could keep cost separate with this business as I was going to be working on it with friends. Setting up Django was ridiculously simple compared to the steps I had to go through with cPanel. I was able to set up the latest version of Django and the latest version of Python with a few clicks of a button. As far as access goes, I still had SSH to go in and work directly on the server, just as I can with my VPS account.
Webfaction has a method of breaking things down by domains, applications, and websites. Once you understand how it works, you will fall in love with the simplicity of the system! You can set up multiple domains. Then you can create various applications, such as:
- Django on WSGI
- Django on mod_python
- Static/CGI/PHP
- Subversion (What?! I just saw this, I’ll have to check it out!)
- Ruby on Rails
- Symbolic links (perfect for Django’s admin media)
- Wordpress
- AWStats
- Drupal
- Joomla
- … and a number of others
Once you have a domain and an application, you specify how you want to access that application on your domain.
Let me give you an example with my latest project – Mini Site Tracker. I originally set this up on my inzolo account, but again, I wanted to keep expenses separate so I ordered another Webfaction account. I set up a domain – minisitetracker.com. I then added two subdomains:
- www – points to minisitetracker.com
- * – wildcard subdomain so I can use any subdomain for accounts in my web application
I then set up the following applications:
- admin_media – points to Django’s admin media for the built in admin control panel
- minisitetracker – Django 1.0.2 running on mod_wsgi 2.0 and Python 2.5
- mst_media – Static/CGI/PHP for storing all my media files associated with my Django application (images, javascript, css)
- osticket – Static/CGI/PHP for installing osTicket on
- wordpress – Wordpress 2.7.1
I then map my application to my website like so:
It’s really that simple. Databases are equally easy to set up – you can set up MySQL or PostgreSQL. I haven’t found that anything missing with Webfaction that I used in cPanel or DirectAdmin VPS accounts.
That about sums it up really. I love Webfaction. Webfaction rocks! Really, for what they do, I don’t think they have any real competitors that I know of.
If you find this review helpful, please sign up using my referral link.
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May 15, 2009
Tags: cpanel, directadmin, django, Ruby on Rails, webfaction, wordpress Posted in: Programming & Internet, Web Sites
39 Responses
+1 Webfaction rocks!
I agree!
Webfaction is great.
I’ve been with them for over 3 years and I absolutely adore them. Best shared host by far!
I’ve had them reply within 5 minutes to big blocking issues and keep replying as they basically taught me things I should probably already have known. They are flexible, responsive and very reasonably priced.
It’s a shame WebFaction has no servers in (eastern/northern) Europe, most sites that I deploy require pings that a far below the ones I get now with WebFaction. I wonder how much effort would it take for them to set up a small server park in, say, Germany or some other central European location.
Yeah, Webfaction rocks!
We also like the simplicity of Webfaction! Unfortunately we also experience the slow response from out of the Netherlands (Like Erik) so we have to look for a closer server.
Does anyone know similar providers in or around the Netherlands that provide the same simplicity in installing django, managing domains and stuff?
Thanks! Greetings Wouter.
Nice review I think I should try webfaction again because I had bad experience with it before.
THanks.
Webfaction rocks!
Webfaction is a nice little hosting company. I personally like them and Hostgator.
sometimes small companies are better than the bigger as they are striving to be the best. heheheh…
I’m now connected to the largest web hosting.
Webfaction has a very easy setup which is impressive and the best thing about them is their responsiveness towards their user community.
Great post I should try webfaction never try it before.
Django cron on Webfaction | Nerdy Dork - July 31, 2009
[...] using Webfaction to host my site, so I turned to their forum for assistance and found this topic. Still the examples [...]
+1 WebFaction are the best hosts around! (esp. so if you use Django)
Webfaction rocks!
Yes, right you are – I’m in love with them for 2 years already by now!
Webfaction is awesome!
Webfaction is great, I have been using them for a few months now
I’ve tried “WebFactions sux”, “webfaction sucks”, “web faction really sucks”, “WebFaction complaints” and other variance of misspells, just in case some someone can’t even spell the hosting-name right or trying to avoid being quickly sued by WebFaction. Funny nothing is found.
Been using Webfaction for a while now and have several different accounts with one. On one I host 4 simultaneous Django sites (Shared 2). Webfaction is the best out there, hands down.
I hope I don’t appear to be rude by barging in but I would like to get everyone’s opinion. I plan to have my Plone site hosted, is Webfaction the best hosting service for this?
I have been a huge fan of Webfraction mysef and this is really great!
Thank you for your comments. I now have 1 account with Webfaction.
I never heard of Webfaction before reading this post. There seems to be a lot of positive responses to them – especially customer service issues. I will have to look into them and possibly give them a try. A good reasonably priced web hosting company is a major plus.
Interesting review. I have heard about Webfaction but this is the first time I came across such a detailed review. Thanks. Cheers
Webfaction is the best hosting I have found. Not only from the tecnical point and the great uptimes. The best part of Webfaction is their staff. They are really interested in helping their clients.
My friend loves Webfaction, and says he will never change, but somehow I just can’t get myself to leave hostgator. We always go back and forth over it.
Ive been a user of webfaction for a while now, seems to be doing more than I expected. Great stuff!
Webfaction has good support. Yet, I’ve had MORE problems with them than ANY other host. From the site going down for 10 minutes to a few hours (just today, 15 minutes down), to EXTREMELY long page load times (20 – 30 seconds), to proxy errors, etc. it’s been harrowing.
And always, its the same excuse — somebody else misusing resources on the server. I’m currently looking for a new host. Here’s the last 4 excuses from them:
“there was a small spike in the load on the server for about 15 minutes, directly around when you were having the problem. The load has decreased and your server is functioning normally.”
“Sorry for the trouble here! It looks like some heavy MySQL usage is causing high load on your server. We’ll find the culprit and put a stop to it ASAP.”
“A MySQL query had locked, causing subsequent requests to queue up, which was causing your timeouts. I killed this query and now the server is back to normal
”
“It appears another user was using excessive resources on your server. We have resolved the issue for you now, and will keep an eye on it.”
Interesting review. I have heard about Webfaction but this is the first time I came across such a detailed review. Thanks. Cheers
I have three Drupal sites with WebFaction and, whilst it’s easy-to-use, they are friendly and reasonably quick in getting back to you, I’m currently having problems. The server I’m on keeps getting heavily loaded and this results in “500 Internal Server” error frequently.
WebFaction have investigated each time but not come up with any real cause. The latest finding was that it might be their backup process which runs every 12 hours, loading the hard disk (not the CPU). I would’ve thought a backup process would be at least-intrusive on the server as possible, but there we are.
In any case, I now have to move my data across to the new server. If that doesn’t resolve the issue, I’m afraid I’ll have to look for another webhost.
(
I just read the comment from Gary above – I’ve had similar reasons put to me. The last one was “a couple of corrupt MySQL tables were causing the problem”. I don’t see how that would overload the server?
I really want to use them and I really want to continue liking them. At the moment, they’re losing me.
That’s one of the benefits of checking your stats, see what is bringing traffic to your site and then craft a more in depth or updated post to match those needs.
I have to feedback here. After a few days of working with their tech support, I’ve now successfully moved my websites to the new server and the web sites are *flying* along, like they should’ve done in the first place.
WebFaction always got back to my support tickets within an hour or two, which is great given that I only rated them ‘medium’ urgency.
I’m impressed and I’ll stick with WebFaction now. The only server applications were still running dog-slow though – a shame for anyone on that machine.
Basic Authentication on mod_wsgi | Nerdy Dork - January 12, 2010
[...] runserver". Once I pushed it live, the basic authentication would not work. I'm hosting with Webfaction so I posted to the forum for help and continued to [...]
I am a happy client of Webfaction, and that is just true.
I feel like I know these guys personally when I send them an email. They alway answer fast, and they don’t just give you an out of the book answer.
Their tools are great and professional
I only started using Webfaction after your post and looking through the positive comments on this post. Thanks for the recommendation.
Ive just been taking a closer look at Webfaction – they seem great value for just $5.50/month. Im currently using Host Monster and Host Gator – both work find but I really like the sound of Webfaction – I’ll definitely give it a go next time I need to add another host…
“Webfaction has a method of breaking things down by domains, applications, and websites. Once you understand how it works, you will fall in love with the simplicity of the system!”
Cannot agree more. This kind of thing is rare on other webhosts that try to be user-friendly.
i love Webfaction. It’s so easy to host anything that is cool like Django or RoR. I hope that more webhosts will become like WebFaction.
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