# Review - Webfaction shared hosting



## hzr (Mar 10, 2014)

tl;dr this is probably the only shared hosting that i haven't despised. it's been *years* and this is the longest i have ever stayed with a shared host.

great for hosting some small sites, etc. i mostly dump friends' ghost and wordpress and etc installs on it.

webfaction.com

here is a list of pros! i heard the internet likes lists.


users can run persistent processes, own nginx/apache/puma/flask/etc
users can request a port to be reverse-proxied, automatically
SNI is supported by default, for free
dedicated IPv6 address by default for every subdomain, automatically
actually uses *sane* versions of libs/languages, like php 5.5.10
in-house, bespoke panel
this one actually knows what things like SRV, TXT, SPF, AAAA are unlike cPanel
can run rails, python/django/flask/whatever without hating yourself (seriously try doing rails on cPanel)
notifications instead of terrible throttling:
● if you have an absurdly long inefficient slow mysql query, the query itself will be killed after a while and *the system will automatically open a ticket with you* containing details like the full query, run time after kill, etc that you can reply + acknowledge
● same thing for persistent excessive cpu and memory abuse, comes with process details and stuff

dns uses proper nameservers, not the standard ns1/ns2/maybe even on the same ip
mail is supported by a cluster too, not the standard 'mx runs on whatever the cpanel box is'
can use own apache config, can use own php.ini, can use own nginx config, etc
very good postgresql support. better than mysql.
mongodb, redis support
can host in singapore for the same price
one click installer doesn't suck like softaculous/fantastico, it actually installs *UP TO DATE versions*, with build scripts and all that (like wget wp.latest; generate-config-php; etc)
have a terrible, forgotten wordpress install that gets compromised? its virtualhost gets disabled and doesn't affect your other sites, and you get an automatic notification to resolve it.
each individual site can run as a separate user account; you can share with ACLs or groups
there is no terrible remotens crap like cPanel; you can just point an A+AAAA record over no matter what nameservers you use
your server neighbours are generally developers, not "SUPER AFFILIATE SPAM BLOG WORDPRESS AUTO POST"

now here's a list of cons


adding new domains and subdomains is downright awful, though you only have to do it once for a site -- you have to take 3 steps to add it.
1. add a domain (example.com and www.example.com are separately added, this is the A/AAAA records)
2. add a "application" (this is a folder/webroot/whatever)
3. add a "website" (this is the actual virtualhost or reverse-proxy)
it's not cheap
softlayer singapore does not have the best bandwidth locally
dedicated ips are really expensive if you want non-SNI ssl
i wish i could take a one-click full backup of all of my mysql db's and postgres db's and etc, but unfortunately not possible. this makes backing up a lot of separate db+users really annoying.
your server neighbours are generally developers, not "SUPER AFFILIATE SPAM BLOG WORDPRESS AUTO POST"


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