Lonex Review

There are several things as annoying in the Internet as the spam messages and having to remember all your usernames and passwords for different sites, and one of them surely are the reviews for online services. They are often bogus, written by company-paid copywriters and are more often written for search engines, so even if try reading one of them, you will see that it's simply a text, full of keywords.

This is why, I wanted to write this review - I was so impressed by the services rendered to me, that I felt that the company deserves a good, honest review of very satisfied customer, who knows what he's talking about.

So, I'm going to tell you about Lonex.com and their web hosting services.

I signed with Lonex after a friend recommended me their services. I didn't really studied their offers, since I trusted my friend, and got their cheapest package - the Personal web hosting plan - for just under $4 USD a month. At the time I also had a web hosting account with another provider with whom I was pretty satisfied and I wanted to compare how would Lonex fare against my provider.

And just a month earlier, Lonex.com was my main web hosting provider.

Why did I go for Lonex.com?

Reason number one, they don't use cPanel as a Control Panel. While it's right that cPanel is the most popular Control Panel out there, it has some major flaws, which are not being address for years. Fore one thing, it requires you to have a minimum of two Control Panels - the cPanel for your website, and the billing account for your domain names and billing. And if you are a hosting reseller, you also have to log in to the WHM. And different Control Panels means different passwords and usernames. And if you like to get things done fast, this whole setup is quite inconvenient.

Also, at least for me, cPanel was quite complicated, at least when I started dealing with it - I had to specially adapt to the Control Panel. Now, if you are used to the way cPanel works, you will not see this as a big problem, but the moment I saw a better solution, I felt that the cPanel Control Panel was simply getting in the way of me getting work done.

The Control Panel Lonex.com uses is called Hepsia and, according to the sales rep I spoke with, is built by them. If that is true, then they have done an excellent job. Here is why I prefer the Hepsia over the cPanel:

- A working demo account. On their website, Lonex.com asks us to try the demo before signing up. Even though I didn't go that way, I have tried it after that and was pleased to find that the demo was actually a real, working web hosting account, which you can control. This way, you can get a very good idea on what the Control Panel is like and what you can do with it. You can decide if you like the Hepsia or if it's too complex for you. And with the demo link present almost everywhere on their website, it's hard to miss it. Try before you buy at it's best

- It combines domain, billing and website management. Now, when you see it it sounds logical, right? Everything that you need is just a click away in single Control Panel. Well, no one else has done it before and I can't understand why. With the Hepsia Control Panel I was able to do things much, much faster than with the cPanel Control Panel, just because I could do everything from a single place. This is not just convenient, this is super convenient. Right now, I can't even imagine going back to cPanel.

- Drag and drop file uploads. I can honestly say I'm never using FTP, except for a large files, sized 20 MB and over. I just have to drop the files I want in the folder I want them in - and they will be uploaded there. Simple and effective. I can but wonder how no one else has come up with this - form me it's a must have from now on.

- Right click context menus - just like on my desktop, in the Control Panel I can use right-click context menus to see all available actions. This option is present not just in the file manager, but in almost every section of the Hepsia Control Panel.

- The interface is simple and elegant. It's also very easy to use - I never felt lost, wondering where should I go to do something.

- Lots of free bonuses are available - free bonuses can be the reason why someone signs up for web hosting in the first place. And with the Hepsia Control Panel there are loads of free bonuses: 1-click hosting app installer (just like the Fantastico, but really free), website installer, free website templates, free site map generator, free php frameworks installer, custom website builder - SiteStuido and 300+ free Joomla templates. These bonuses are an integral part of the Control Panel, so it won't matter which package you choose, you will still be able to use each and every one of them.

Reason number two I signed with them is the fact that they a free domain name registration or transfer with their web hosting packages. This a great deal, since you can reserve a domain name right from the start, for free. Unfortunately, at the moment, this offer applies only to their shared web hosting packages and is not available for VPS, dedicated or semi-dedicated servers.

Speaking of web hosting offers, as you would have already deduced, with Lonex.com you will find not only regular web hosting accounts, but also VPS, dedicated or semi-dedicated servers. Here is some more info about these services, if you are new to the web hosting scene:

VPS - Virtual Private Servers or VPS are a popular web hosting solution for several reasons - they are cheaper than dedicated servers, but offer a similar amount of power. The VPS servers offered by Lonex come with full root access over SSH and offer a choice of both operating systems and Control Panels. The Hepsia Control Panel is available for free with all servers and all operating systems, which is a big plus in my book, since it brings a lot of free bonuses to the VPS server. Other than that, the VPS servers also come with a free Enom domain reseller account and in the case of the Zenith VPS - with a free billing account.

I've had a VPS server with Lonex for just a month by now, but it seems very stable, plus their support team is excellent.

Dedicated Servers - Dedicated servers are the ultimate web hosting solution - as the name suggests, with a dedicated server, you get a whole server machine just for yourself. This is perfect if you want to run a really heavy website, like a large community portal with streaming videos and audio. Just like the the VPS servers, the dedicated servers provided by Lonex come with a choice of operating systems and Control Panels. Free bonuses consist of a free Enom domain reseller account and a ClientExec billing software with each server.

While I haven't tried the dedicated servers myself, if their quality matches the one of the VPS, then they will be a great web hosting offer.

Semi-Dedicated Servers - to be honest, I had no idea what semi-dedicated servers were before I landed on Lonex.com. According to their website and their sales reps, it's a web hosting solution, intended for those, who want something more powerful than a regular web hosting account, but don't want to deal with server management. The semi-dedicated servers come with the Hepsia Control Panel and all of the free bonuses associated with it.

And now, some words about the customer care service. If you've been with a shared web hosting provider, who offers poor customer care, then you know how important the support team is. On their website, Lonex state that they offer a 1-hour response time guarantee, and surprisingly enough, I have found that to be true. The not only kept well under their 1-hour limit, they usually answered within 20 minutes, which is something I have seldom seen from a web hosting company. Both the shared web hosting support and the VPS support teams were very helpful with their replies and I'm very happy with the overall support quality.

Overall server stability was never an issue, too. During my time with them, both for my shared web hosting account and my VPS, I never had a serious outage and my websites were always there when I checked. On their website, Lonex promises a 99.9% server uptime, but such promise is now a de-facto standard for web hosting companies.

Final words

I have been with Lonex.com for more than 2 years now and I can honestly say, I can't imagine switching to another web hosting provider at the moment. With Lonex I get very low prices for a very high quality of the hosting service, I get a dedicated support staff, ready to answer all of my questions, a stable web hosting service and an awesome Control Panel. For all of my time I've been with, I have always recommended Lonex to all my friends, who were looking for a web hosting provider and I still haven't received a negative feedback. This is why I can honestly say that if you are looking for a website hosting provider, Lonex.com is the right choice for you.