Rochen Review

Rochen is FANTASTIC. I've been through so many web hosts I can't even think of half of them. A number of years ago, I found Rochen and couldn't be happier. I host several Joomla! Sites and have always had excellent load times and uptime. Their pricing is on the higher side, but unlike all of the other companies I've used, I trust Rochen's reliability. Support is great, too; I don't have to wait long at all for any type of support reply, even though they are usually my fault.

As everyone else has mentioned, customer support is terrible. I'm not even sure they read my emails half the time, I've received answers that are not even on the topic I am questioning. For example, sending me to an article about how to Install Joomla when I'm inquiring about a Staging site. They are short, condescending, and sometimes rude. One more story - when I was unhappy with support and I escalated an issue after marking their answers "Poor", they deleted my tickets pertaining to that issue. Nice. If you are not a Joomla expert don't even bother. By the way, I did get to their head guy, Brad B. and believe me, the attitude comes from the top. I'm not wasting anymore time with Rochen, I'm moving one site over to SiteGround tomorrow and the rest after I find a better host!

I would caution anyone who does not consider themselves an expert in security or server technology against using Rochen. I don't want to say the customer service is horrible, because they do respond very quickly to technical questions. Some don't like that support is only available through email, but if there is a quick response, I don't mind.

They do however come across as very condescending and will not give you any extra support if you have a serious issue. I had the CPU issue that other reviewers mentioned below. I had an idea of what the problem was and asked them about it but they said 'we can't help, review the info we sent and contact your web developer.' I looked at the documentation they sent several times and it did not help. I got it fixed but I missed notifying them one day (they asked to be notified daily when this happens) so they shut my site down - even though the updated stats they sent when they shut me down showed a significant decrease in the CPU usage - they shut my down anyway, without even looking at the improved stats. It seems to be a default to think that if their clients don't know what they are doing, we will punish them!

This was the last straw for me. I actually really appreciate them monitoring CPU usage and security and alerting people to problems and making sure they are fixed. I think it is a great that a shared host does this as it is good for the health of all the sites on the server. But I don't like the way they deal with these issues and it appears I am not alone. If they are asking to be notified on the progress of the issue on a daily basis, why not provide some feedback on the steps you are taking to fix them? Why not improve your documentation? Why not just show a little bit of understanding to the individual needs of your customers?

This was not the first issue I had with customer service. I was also once accidentally charged extra for my hosting service, and when I notified them their response was 'you must have signed up for an extra server account'. I hadn't of course, but that's the default - it's the customer's fault. It was actually their fault, and they figured that out eventually, fixed it and apologized. I got over it and continued paying them for hosting services for another two years, only to be shut down at the drop of a hat when I had issues on my end. I wish I had moved servers two years ago but nothing I can do about it know except post my experience. Thanks Joomla Hosting Reviews for allowing me to do this...

It's too late for me Rochen - but I would hope the owner Chris Adams would read these comments and do something about your service! With the traction you get from being the host for Joomla.org, you could be a great hosting company.

Steer clear. You can't call, can't e-mail, just endless ridiculous scathing technical support by guys that clearly have no concept of customer service. Seriously, not even worth a second look. Save yourself the agony of dealing with these guys.

Okay, here's my horror story. feel free to skip it.

Why I will be a former customer soon - they will shut your account off in 24 hours if they receive ONE SINGLE unsubstantiated claim that your website is cited in a junk mail message. *Not sent thru their servers* - just a message traversing anywhere on the planet that references one of your URL's.

Rochen notified me this morning that one of my URL's would be suspended (part of a reseller account) in 24 hours because the message header of what *they suspected* to be UCE that they included had my customers URL contained within. So, since 1 person on the planet complained that they received 1 message with my customers URL, my customer was violating Rochens AUP, and would be shut down.

I fully support Rochen in their anti-spam efforts. I fully back their right to do so.

I simply asked for a greater than 24 hour period in order to non-disruptively migrate my customers web content to a new host. I asked, since I presumed that it would be impossible for me to provide Rochen required "proof" of this persons' opt-in permission on the part of the complaining individual.

No dice. there would be no additional time. Not 72 hours. not 48 hours. not 25 hours. Nothing but deceitful claims that this policy was dictated by the FTC and other, mystery governing bodies. Poor Rochen can do nothing about it. Seriously - the FTC. I guess I now know who runs the Internet. Its the FTC. The mystery has been solved.

You wanna know how this story ends?
Turns out - the single email message which destroyed my day while I'm at home attempting to care for a 2 year old child with strep throat and a 103 degree fever, it was lodged as a spam complaint by an *industry competitor* of my client. This person opted in to an industry association list 3 years ago, but now just decides to file a spam complaint (by just clicking a single button, paying no attention), and Rochen - poof! All the onus is on their reseller customer (me) to prove a negative. ("the sky isn't blue - prove it")

Had Rochen suspended my account because of violation of terms - no problem, no complaint from me. Good for them. Damn fine job they've done. What was simply outrageous was their patent refusal to extend the simple courtesy of providing a few additional hours for me (there customer) to transition the business they did not want to another host. That's it, I asked for nothing more.

Of course, my business will be going elsewhere soon. Not because of their terms - I like the terms. I appreciate their stance in the fight againt spam. But honestly, who is that heartless to treat a customer like that? To clearly put me in a position where I will take the heat from my customer for their lack of flexibility on something that doesn't hurt them?

I think I could find a service provider in Myanmar or Algeria with customer service skills.
Be warned.

Rochen isn't a bad host. They're very qualified to run Joomla, but there servers are not very fast, their customer service is less than helpful and they're priced high. Over the course of this year I'll be exploring alternatives.

I had a reseller plan and once one of my sites(Joomla) became a bit large, they said I was exceeding CPU resources (2 - 6% on average for 24 hours) and threatened to shut the site down if I didn't correct the issue. I could not find an issue and they would assist in troubleshooting. I had a clean site with minimal extensions. The next step would of been the Virtual Hosting $$$$. I moved all my sites elsewhere.

Don't use them ! they suck !!!!!!!!!!

Can't understand or believe some of the negative reviews here, especially regarding their "rude" support?? OK, so their support team doesn't waste time asking you how your day is going or other stupid bubbly questions...they get straight to the point and answer the question you ask. That's not rude. That's professional and very efficient. And furthermore, the answers they supply are always CORRECT and helpful (unlike some other hosts)...plus I always get a response in no more than an hour (for a more complex problem), but usually within a few minutes. Their support is top-notch.

We switched our website over to Rochen and everything has worked great. Fast load times, full compatibility with any extension, the correct versions of MySQL and PHP to run Joomla optimally, etc. Any problems were corrected instantly with the help of their support...and were usually caused because we didn't something wrong.

Couldn't be happier with Rochen. Great company and service!

The technical support people are completely disrespectful. They will suspend your account with little notice. Often on holidays and weekends, when you may miss an **email**. They do not offer any phone support either. Suspending someone's website is extreme, and can damage the websites reputation among SEO.
Rochen is HYPER-SENSITIVE to anyone using CPU cycles on their servers. Obviously, its ok to have some limit, but it seems their limit is so low, that having any module that can do anything interesting will affect it.

What they don't tell you, is that on a shared plan that costs $8.95 (which is a few bucks higher than most) is that you'll still be on a server with more than 300 other websites. This is not far off from the bigger discount companies.

What good is it to pay for the performance they offer if they will just turn off your website when it catches some steam - which I think is the goal for anyone building a site. STAY AWAY! The overly positive reviews and obviously company written.

I used MediaLayer (http://www.medialayer.com) for about 1.5 years with no issues. They had rock solid performance and great customer support. When my close friend died and I took over his websites, I wanted to consolidate them under one host. MediaLayer is a relatively expensive host, so I chose Rochen because it was cheaper and the hype behind them hosting Joomla.org.

The first sign of trouble came when I tried to migrate a Joomla site to Rochen. It failed five times before I was able to get it to work, but the database had several errors that required me to manually fix them with phpmyadmin.

The final straw came Thanksgiving morning when I received a note that my sites were using to much CPU power. This is the same site that was on MediaLayer for over 1.5 years without a single issue. They sent me some generic links about problems with Joomla sites and said fix it. When I asked for help narrowing down the issue, they said that was my job and not theirs - even though all the server tools are at their disposal and not mine!

Even worse, they want daily updates across the holiday weekend or my account would be suspended. I get my highest traffic on weekends, so this was a particularly egregious. So, forget family! Because of Rochen, I lost my Thanksgiving weekend trying to fix an issue for which I had no data to help me isolate the issue.

As it often happens, I started searching the internet for this issue and found multiple Rochen customers who suffered the same fate.

Rochen customer support is criminal. I highly recommend you look at MediaLayer, because you get what you pay for.

Avoid Rochen!!!!

Customer Support SUCKS! I mean really, it is a joke. I inherited Rochen and a few other hosting providers and can honestly say that I just can't get our sites off of there fast enough. First of all, how to you maintain a business practice of "no e-mail, phone or IM" just chat. If I had 10 pages to post the thread of tickets that have gone back and forth, it would be entertaining reading.

If you read through most of these reviews, you'll see I'm not the only one that has problems with their customer service.

I went with Rochen because Joomla.org were hosting with them - what could be better than that I thought.

After having a great experience with my other host (Host Monster) I wanted a more "grown up" host that specialized in Joomla.

All was fine until I needed tech support, they were very rude and unhelpful, I know IT techies are supposed to be rude, but someone in a customer service roll should have customer service skills.

Their hosting is very stable but be prepared for some uncaring, rude customer support! They certainly need lessons in professional etiquette and understanding what a customer is! I'm already looking elsewhere!

I came here from GoDaddy and FatCow, and not only am I going to be hosting multiple sites with Rochen, I've converted other users, who have been more than happy.