written by MrPlodski on 03/10/2019
Following the shocking service that customers experienced 2.5 years ago our loyalty has been rewarded with (in my case) a 192% increase in renewal charges. I expected an increase this year, the service is worth paying a bit extra. But to go from £27.39 to £79.99 is ridiculous! There is no point in contacting them direct as is suggested in their response to other reviewers, as it is obvious by the reply that I received to my email that the intention is to get rid of the customers that remained loyal through thick and thin. Customers with websites down that they ignored for days on end! Customers who they promised great things to, if they stayed with them. They say "we really do care and value our customers" in one breath, whilst adopting an 'If you don't like it then leave us' attitude throughout most of the negative posts. Price is not my core concern, but as I can get better value, the same quality and reliability with more resources, then you will fully understand my reasons for moving to a cheaper provider. YES... I am moving to a provider who is giving me overall better service for less and they have a 5 star rating on Trust Pilot with NO negative reviews. So, shop around folks, you WILL find better for LESS!. I always responded in a positive way to requests by the Manager in the past and always followed his advice and guidance on ways to ensure both security of the server and to ensure that I do not tax resources. For them to penalise people like myself for the situation that they are in stinks! They have never offered true unlimited to people like myself and I never expected that they could. To put limits on accounts has to be the way forward and they have never charged enough for the standard of service, so a price increase was inevitable. But an increase of 192% for the handful of sites that I have! What a way to repay loyal customers. Slap them with 3 fold Increases! I have 5 Sites - out of unlimited. 7 Databases - out of unlimited and use less than 2Gb of Disk Space out of unlimited. Unlimited which they offered me! Is this the statistics of an abuser? Don't forget.... 2.5 years ago they where ignoring support ticket for days on end. Now that they answer 3 x as fast, the want 3 x the money!
written by classequalsarthur on 06/11/2018
Title says it all. The experience and how easy it is to use everything Smart Hosting offer is downright amazing. They have great documentation which cover everything you'll need when starting out and enough for the full-time workers requiring more detailed setups. With that and a truly brilliant support team who clearly put time and effort into their responses... you cannot go wrong. They do everything right and minimalise the pressures that can come with freelancing.
written by glennfreeman on 30/11/2017
I've recently upgraded my account to a master re-seller and encountered some technical problems due to the lack of knowledge I have with WHMCS. Initially, when I first set it up I was thoroughly being guided by live chat support who responded quickly every time I had a problem. The following day I had my first hosting customer but had some new issues which urgently needed fixing. I then raised a support ticket and within minute's a technical support assistant dealt with my issues and soon fixed the problem for me which kept my new web hosting customer happy. I would highly recommend Smart Hosting! They have alway's given me first class support whenever I have needed them and there servers are very fast!!
written by crbr on 22/11/2017
After initial contact and a few hicups mainly on my part being a complete "plank" The support staff at Smarthosting have been exeptional! Their patience with me has been second to none and the service thay have supplied has over and above expectations. I could not reccomend this company more especially if like me you are a complete newbie to servers. The VPS package purchased from them is first class. My biggest fear was getting my sites transfered, again, I need not have worried, seamless, not quite but again not on their part only mine! Thanks Smarthosting for your support and expertise and for turning me from a shivering wreck to well, nearly human again.
written by waynerp on 09/11/2017
Ive been with smart hosting almost since day 1. They have had their ups and downs to be honest, but I would safely say thats long in the past. Customer support is second to none. The overall package I use is fantastic value for money. Great spec servers, great customer support, great up time and server speeds, great value. Whats not to like
written by bgiles.uk on 04/09/2017
Moved to Smart Hosting 18 months ago, as previous hosting company were ceasing to provide e-mail only packages. The decision was based on the reviews on this site, and I was so impressed, that a colleague also switched to them due to the same predicament. They have been excellent, questions always answered promptly, good prices. Yes, all companies go through difficult periods, and the merger was one, but those of us who hung in there until the storm passed are glad we did. I’ve now renewed my hosting package until 2020, with confidence that the service will remain as good as it was when I joined in 2016. Well done Smart & Krystal.
written by EchoKnight on 14/06/2017
SmartHosting used to be a great service but since the join with crystal this has all gone down hill with servers being more laggy than ever (hopefully shouldn't be problem after server upgrades), support has gone so bad that i might actually consider changing. Due to the newly added system of priority tickets and the fact that u can view your place in line means that your are continuously being back tracked up the waiting list. went from 11th to 16 place in line after hours of waiting and then had to wait even longer for a review. The to add to this if you submit a priority ticket which you consider to be a big concern or is interfering with deadline or work to the extent that you cannot continue with out support you are and i feel quite rudely told not to use the urgent tickets unless it really matters, which it obviously did to me. I am now finding more that talking to support staff is little to no use if you need a response within 24hours due to the wait times of around 3-8 hours for a first reply only to wait 3-8 for a second and so on generally requiring multiple replies to get what you needed. However there are a few greatly appreciated additions like the Lets Encrypt SSL module and stuff for in the control panel but these do seem considerably slow. I use the premium reseller service.
written by Bardrock on 26/05/2017
I moved to Smart Hosting for a number of reasons, but found many more reasons why I should have done it a long time ago. The pricing structure is excellent, that was my first fear, usually cheap means substandard support and services. that is certainly not the case here. The service is proving to be robust, no issues as far as that goes. I have also tested their support staff out and been very impressed. My knowledge in the area of hosting and domain transfers is average at best, but every enquiry made has been answered within an hour and I mean answered not just an auto response. The support people are extremely patient, with a rare skill in that they can explain things simply without coming over as condescending. Smart Hosting also employs the cPanel interface, so self management is a dream. Just wish I had move over years ago.
written by Whalen1979 on 17/05/2017
This company used to be great. Support used to reply in minutes and nothing was took much trouble. However they were taken over (or merged) with Krystal hosting a few months back. Ever since then their service has been terrible. Support tickets (even ones marked Urgent) take over 24 hours to receive a reply. I have tried to contact them today about an issue but on submitting the ticket I am met with a "Problem Loading Page" error and the ticket is not sent. I have tried this on three different devices and through two different connections so I know the problem is not my end. This is the final straw with this company. I am now looking to move my custom elsewhere.
Written on: 20/05/2017
I agree they are complete rubbish now looking for another supplier more than 24 hours and all my websites are still down they are very bad now real shame they want to screw up their loyal users...they will loose for sure.
Written on: 30/10/2018
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review back in 2017, we have been working back on older reviews so thought we would drop you a reply.
The points raised in your review are 100% valid, during our merger back in 2017 we did lose several staff members, this caused a backlog within our ticket desk, in turn, slowing down our ticket response times, we are sorry that this temporary blip to our usually fast service caused inconvenience at the time.
Over the past 20 months, we have built a far larger support team, improved our service offering and migrated to a new platform, improving the overall service substantially.
If you would like to try our new platform and see for yourself the service improvements, do make contact with us, we are happy to offer £100 service credit so you can try without any commitment.
Kind Regards
Dave Kimberley - Smart Hosting COO
Written on: 23/05/2017
The worst hosts ever. They used to be the best. I pulled all my business away from them and will never return!
AVOID them at all costs.
written by Ryderr446 on 09/05/2017
I've been a VPS customer for a number of years now and in the beginning the service and support was amazing (I've written a five star review elsewhere) however that experience has change big-time. Ticket response quality and response times are not great, the first response unless it's a simple Yes/No question has a tendency to be incomplete or inaccurate. In my time their Disaster Recovery capabilities failed miserably resulting in restoration of websites that were outdated and required rework. While they apologised and provided a credit they were not proactive in contacting affected customers... as above I had to query a support response before they acknowledged that I was affected by their outage. In their business that kind of failure is completely unacceptable but I stuck with them however as I've said the service has gone downhill. A further almost unforgivable failing was a year later when they couldn't restore a VPS (partial or complete). It took over six weeks to get a straight answer forcing for development rework. At the end the explanation was the same... "we've implemented a new solution so this doesn't happen again" In fairness their pricing plans on VPS have been very reasonable however since their merger / purchase earlier this year their pricing will increase by 75% for my hosting plan as they now charge extra for managing the VPS... something that has always been part of their plans previously. Something they haven't communicated to their existing customers yet! I won't be remaining a customer as my experience is they don't actively monitored the VPS and now are planning to charge additionally for a service that is woefully unacceptable.
written by on 08/05/2017
I've been a customer of Smart Hosting for almost two years and so far I have had a lot of very positive experiences with them. I have seen the very negative comments from others here and I find it hard to believe that they are with the same hosting company as I am. It's true, they had some difficulties a few months back but as far as I can tell from the support I have received lately, they are back on track and provide the same level of support as they always did. Keep up the good work guys!
written by Jeff2017 on 08/05/2017
Super fast technical support responded within 30 mins and fixed my issue with slow cache issues on the server I had with them. The price of there hosting is very good as well which I am pleased with and you can also host unlimited domains as well. highly recommend this company to any one for excellent after sales service and value for money.
written by mikeleonhart on 07/05/2017
I used to get a response within a few hours for urgent queries. I am pulling my hair out at their responses for my urgent query over the last 3 days. My VPS went down (without reason) it took them 24 hours to respond, and whatever they did to put it back online has knocked off capability for me to log in. I've sent detailed Cron Job reports over with what the fault is, and explained that their resolution has taken the ability away for me to continue with my day to day use. I've just waited 48 hours to have a response which someone has clearly not bothered to read my detailed information. I'm now back in the queue probably for another day or two and in the meantime I can't continue with half the stuff I need to for my businesses
Written on: 09/05/2017
Couldn't agree more... I've just written a similar review having previously considered them 5 stars (a few years ago!)
Written on: 30/10/2018
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review back in 2017, we have been working back on older reviews so thought we would drop you a reply.
Firstly do accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused at the time, during our merger back in 2017 we did lose several staff members, this caused a backlog within our ticket desk, in turn, slowing down our ticket response times, we are sorry that this temporary blip to our usually fast service caused inconvenience at the time.
We do fully appreciate that at the time 24hr / 48hr ticket responses were not acceptable, especially when the service is used for business purposes.
Over the past 20 months, we have built a larger support team, improved our service offering and migrated to a new platform, improving the overall service substantially.
If you would like to try our new platform and see for yourself the service improvements, do make contact with us, we are happy to offer £100 service credit so you can try without any commitment.
Kind Regards
Dave Kimberley - Smart Hosting COO
Written on: 12/05/2017
They are absolutely rubbish.. Steer clear of them
written by vqLeslie168 on 29/04/2017
We have been using smarthosting since 2015 and they were excellent, the problems started when they merged with Krystal and now it is unbelievably terrible. Website goes down all of the time, emails constantly go down and they take days to fix it meaning you will loose financially if you are running a business. If you are thinking of using these guys then I would seriously consider going elsewhere as the service cant be as bad as this with other companies. Emails are down for us again so we are now going to have to bite the bullet and change providers as they have let us down far too often and it makes us look very unprofessional as a company. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!
Written on: 02/05/2017
They are the worst ever. AVOID at all costs folks. I have moved my business elsewhere.
Written on: 30/10/2018
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review back in 2017, we have been working back on older reviews so thought we would drop you a reply.
Support issues were present prior to the merger, however during the merger, the underlying support issues were highlighted more due to the loss of several staff members, this caused a backlog within our ticket desk, in turn, slowing down our ticket response times.
As you mentioned within your review, using our service since 2015 you would have experienced exceptional value and support leading up to the issues in 2017, the issues that then took place in 2017 were only temporary.
Over the past 20 months, we have built a larger support team, improved our service offering and migrated to a new platform, improving the overall service substantially.
If you would like to try our new platform and see for yourself the service improvements, do make contact with us, we are happy to offer £100 service credit so you can try without any commitment.
Kind Regards
Dave Kimberley - Smart Hosting COO
written by Mr_V on 15/04/2017
Been a customer for a while, had a great start, very helpful, even wrote on their website AT THE TIME that all services were fully supported. Long story short, I HAD a reseller account and a VPS as well as a ssl certificate, NONE OF THESE ARE SUPPORTED ANYMORE FOR THE EVEN THE MOST BASIC OF HELP. Average response is 1+ days for the most minor responses (a conversation usually has 2 people replying approximately 3-4 responses each, each response of this takes close to a day...... absolutely ridiculous). Not sure how the new guys that took over this company set up new customers, but if their service is anything to go by. I would look elsewhere, I am currently moving all my sites elsewhere.
written by Harlequn on 12/04/2017
I've waited, bit my lip, stubbed my toe, walked the dog and done just about everything I can think of to be patient during the transition but when tickets are consistently taking days, sometimes weeks to get resolved it's time to move on. Sorry Smart, business is business and I know you understand. I can put my finger on how much revenue I lost due to Smart's changes and I had to bite the bullet and migrate everything out. That included the closure of: • 1 x VPS 7 • 1 x VPS 1 • 1 x Reseller I'd like to echo the sentiments of another reviewer here about the staff, one or two in particular (they know who they are) as I was a bit curt with them from time to time but when I was losing over £100 a month in revenue because I couldn't service clients quickly enough I simply had to drop the axe and move on. As I write this review their ticket queue stands at (I think) around the 300 mark and the last tickets I had open took well over a week to get a final solution. In-fact I recall closing 2-3 tickets as I eventually had the accounts migrated out anyway. Absolutely not acceptable and right now, their main site is offline too. Their response when I requested the closure of all my services listed above...? “OK, we'll deal with that for you.” (or words to that effect). And I hadn't been with them for a few weeks or months, I think around 2 years, maybe longer. I'm not going to draw any conclusions, you're free to do that yourself. However, FWIW I would recommend steering away (for now at least). We're quite happy where we are, sites are loading blisteringly fast (in some cases less than 1.5 – 2 seconds) and hopefully it'll continue that way.
Written on: 18/04/2017
Where did you move to?
I'm trying to make a decision to move away as well, specially for the reseller point of view
Written on: 18/04/2017
We now run our own dedicated server so we're offering our own reseller options. Just look up "WhatNoWebsite" dot net.
Written on: 18/04/2017
Cheers will search now
Written on: 30/10/2018
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review back in 2017, we have been working back on older reviews so thought we would drop you a reply.
We are sorry that back in 2017 you felt that moving was the only option, we do however fully understand your decision.
During the merger, we lost several staff members, this caused a backlog within our ticket desk, in turn, slowing down our ticket response times, while not an excuse we took away many improvements from this and have used the past 20 months to build a larger support team, improved our service offering and migrated to a new platform, improving the overall service substantially.
If you would like to try our new platform and see for yourself the service improvements, do make contact with us, we are happy to offer £100 service credit so you can try without any commitment, if not, we totally understand and do honestly wish you the best for the future.
Kind Regards
Dave Kimberley - Smart Hosting COO
Written on: 20/04/2017
They are the worst ever. AVOID at all costs folks. I have moved my business elsewhere.
written by Weberfj280 on 27/03/2017
They started great and now they are terrible, it seems like they have got far worse after being taken over by krystal. Only this morning our last VPS went down for some unknown reason (We are urgently moving away from them) at roughly 10:15am, we raised an emergency ticket at 10:30am as we could not access the VPS at all. The VPS is now working again (by 11:50am ish) but we still haven't had a reply almost 4 hours later. To list some of the other issues we are having: Disc keeps randomly reporting full, knocking all websites offline, this has happened 4/5 times in 4 months. Support recently taking up to 2/3 days to respond at medium level ticket (which states you'll get a response in a few hours). Websites on reseller system extremely slow (we have had to move reseller systems 3 times now). We've had more issues then this but I think this is enough to show anyone that these people are amateurs. If you value your business, stay away.
written by stephenknott on 02/03/2017
We requested a simple upgrade to our VPS server in August 2016. To cut a long story short we still didn't have our upgrade by January 2017 so we moved to Digital Ocean who I'm pleased to say have been a pleasure to work with. I printed a PDF of our support ticket as its the longest I've ever had to endure, 59 pages long! No customer should ever have to wait this long for what was a simple upgrade from their cheapest VPS plan to the next plan up. My advice, stay well clear of this company, they simply don't appear to have got their act together.
written by DannyReed107 on 02/03/2017
This company has been great with supporting their customers since I went to them for hosting.
However
they were completely overwhelmed after a merger. Days to reply to
tickets and then when you need further dialogue back at 588 in the
list!
It would be fair to say they have now made efforts to get on
top of the issues and things have improved somewhat. I am still a
customer to their credit.
written by 400Miller on 23/02/2017
Hello to all! Today they switch me to other server witch is great. New apps, all working to fast, phpmyadmin was great fast and my page too. The product was really great now, great support, and price is very cheep. I can tell you if you choice smarthost you will greatfull for my review. Thanks Smart, today beryllium make my day better.
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As rated by our community of reviewers
Liljonp's Response to EchoKnight's Review
Written on: 20/07/2017
I would agree with this review , especially re support. I used to find the support staff couldn't do enough to help. I now seem to get either rude or sarcastic responses from support.