Category	Score	Stars
Overall	6.5/10
Price	8/10
Features	5/10
Support	5/10
Uptime	8/10

Recently, our shared Linux server hosted at a friend's place blew up, so we decided to go for a web hosted option instead as it would be cheaper and hopefully more reliable. It's pretty hard to go from having full control of a server to making do with what the hosting provider gives you, so we did expect some limitations. However, the number of limitations IX web hosting has, means our experience has not been totally satisfactory. Firstly they don't provide any secure mechanisms to transfer files or read email, ie: they only provide POP3, IMAP and FTP. There's no POP3S, IMAPS or SFTP, FTPS. Worse still, is the way the CGI environment is setup. I put a support call in to ask how to create symbolic links (can't be done via their webshell), and was told I had to create a CGI script to create the links. I asked them how that was possible, as the links I needed were all over my website and was told that the CGI process runs as the same user as the website owner. That means it has write permission to *every* single file in your websites (and if you host multiple websites, they are all vulnerable). Lately, their support has been very slow. One ticket was not even acknowledged for 11 hours. I contacted the CEO and was impressed that he responded quickly. He said they were in the process of training up additional support staff and that response times should improve. He also credited 1 months free use on our account, so full marks for the response. However, if you ask any support question that's vaguely technical, you get the usual dumb responses and big delay before finally getting on to someone who actually knows something. In summary, I think for the average home website, IX Web hosting is just fine, however, if you desire more control, then you'll be beating your head on the wall in frustration.