Coldfusion Hosting with Network Solutions

Posted At : November 20, 2007 1:17 PM
Related Categories: Web Dev

Did you know Network Solutions offers coldfusion web hosting? I didn't either. A client of ours wanted us to try it to see if our CMS could run on it. Sure, why not.

I never got direct access to the control panel, so I can't speak to how it is for controlling aspects of your site. You can set up a db with it, but you can't set up a datasource. To set up a datasource you must call tech support and request it. They respond that it will take 1 to 3 business days to set up the data source.

They don't support all tags. CFFTP, CFExecute and CFSchedule are just some of the tags they don't support. Not a big deal for most basic CF apps.

They are hosting on windows servers and only offer CFMX 7.

After a few days back and forth to get the datasource correctly set up I got a chance to actually test a cfm page. The server is incredibly overloaded. Running any cfml that would typically take under a second to process on other hosts took many seconds, or timed out. While I got our cms running on the host, it is very slow. Maybe we are just on a very slow server?

On the plus side their tech support was exceedingly nice on every call. They may not have been able to actually do the datasource themselves and they may not have been knowledgeable on CF, but they sure were nice about saying so.

Bottom line, I can't recommend this as an option for any CF site. Maybe static HTML or content that is all cached. But at $35.95/Month for CFMX it is more expensive than other hosts such as hostmysite.com who offers great CF hosting.

If anyone has had any other CF experiences with Network Solutions please comment.

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We had several clients that were using them for CF hosting as well. After 3 months of dealing with it, we finally convinced them to move away from them and it was been a blessing!

# Posted By Russ Johnson | 11/20/07 1:13 PM

I had a client who was having his site hosted with NS but they were too costly and I was not happy with the level of support they were providing so I convinced him to move his site from NS to my fav. host - http://www.hostingatoz.com and have been happy since than :)

# Posted By Mitul | 11/20/07 1:22 PM

If you are looking for great support for CF try us how. We were the first to offer CF78 and and 24x7 phone support that picks up on average of 3 rings. See what others are saying below:

“My new home is at HostMySite. They have been incredibly helpful and dedicated, and went the extra step to make the transition, well, painless.”
Ben Forta

# Posted By Tim Dodd | 11/21/07 10:18 AM

Hi Joshua,

I chanced upon your blog as I was checking out Newsgator's services for keywords.
I work for Network Solutions and as much as i want to give you some immediate feedback, this subject is not my specialty. I am going to circulate this blog post at work and see what we can do to make your experience better. The team will be happy with the feedback and suggestions.
You can use the email on this post to send me more info.

# Posted By Shashi Bellamkonda | 11/22/07 12:18 AM

Shashi,

Thanks very much for making this important to you and your company. Not sure what more to say that wasn't already listed here. Creating a datasource is usually the first task of starting a web site, and being told 1-3 days is a big put off. Further the speed of the server we were on is not acceptable. Bottom line I feel comfortable having my customers hosting with people that are familiar with the technology. While you do offer CF it was clear to me via several conversations that wasn't the case.

Another suggestion. Upgrade to CF8 (much faster, so it should help your load) and make sure its Enterprise. then have someone familiar with the sandbox settings configure it so we can have cfschedule and other tags available. Your web site doesn't say so, but you don't offer full CF support, your company disables many tags for security reasons. With CF8 properly configured you shouldn't have to do that.

# Posted By Joshua | 11/22/07 8:37 AM

If you are looking for great service you should try hostmysite.com. I have 20+ coldfusion sites with them. Their customer service makes all of the other hosts look pathetic. Try calling their support number. You'll get a real person with real answers usually on the first ring. They've been pretty accomidating for custom setups/tags/etc. I can't say enough good things. They do cost a little more ($20/mo for win/CF or $30 with MS SQL) but the amount of time and headaches that it saves are worth it.

# Posted By Matt Hunnell | 3/14/08 1:53 PM

NSI has go to be even worse than GoDaddy for CF support. Many tags are disabled (cfobject, createObject) and the techs there are worse than useless. My client insists on hosting there and paying a premium for development because we developed and tested the site on a standard CFMX7 server at a different host (where everything worked fine). We've now had to recode the site down to CF5 (even though NSI does run MX7) level to get them the functionality they want.

# Posted By Steve | 8/2/10 3:55 PM

Ugh. I have a client who insists on hosting with them and two weeks after first contact, a very simple CF app is still not working properly. The wait for DSN setup, then an issue with CFFile permissions (it's enabled,they say, but not working). I've spent more time dealing with the techs (who are very friendly but know nothing about CF) than I did writing the application. A nightmare, I'd never recommend them for CF Hosting.