Daddy Issues: How to leave WebFaction?
Just made my last post on the WebFaction support forum. Might as well copy it here since the forum will probably not last and some of the links/info will be useful:
Well after tons and tons of work migrating my sites and a few months to settle, I am ready to push the "cancel account" button on WebFaction.
Below you can find a list of the numerous WebFaction support forum threads about this cluster-fork, some of which contain helpful advice about new ISPs to migrate to, as well as some off-site links for when GoDaddy finally takes down this forum.
For the former staff of WebFaction, I want to join everyone else in thanking you for years of awesome programmer-friendly service, and I hope you can find employment somewhere that is worthy of your talents.
Thank you GoDaddy for destroying yet another good ISP and wasting thousands and thousands of hours on behalf of your customers. And thank you to whoever at WebFaction allowed this travesty to go through without insisting on the right to properly give advance warning and meaningful status updates to your customers, instead just bending over to your Daddy's gag orders---we hope you are enjoying your millions. I'm sure when GoDaddy finally shuts down WebFaction's servers, GoDaddy will care so little, and things will be so disorganized, that despite the good intentions of any remaining WebFaction employees, there will be zero warning for former WebFaction victims who have not yet migrated away on their own. That is how these buyouts generally turn out (I have experience with two now, sigh). GoDaddy, I hope you feel it is worth the extra subscriber count you can show your shareholders to continue your pathetic Ponzi scheme. As your multi-year record humping other companies to death proves, and as your handful of sugar-coated, marketspeak-dripping, utterly meaningless communications since the WebFaction buyout prove, you are just as bad as EIG. You and EIG are the genital warts on the body of capitalism, and whether it be antitrust actions or fraud lawsuits, you both need to be treated immediately.
For the many others still in this process or who have been procrastinating the inevitable, note you have many ISPs to choose from, some of whom offer a hosted model (where OS/server security updates are done automatically for you) and some of whom let you configure a raw VM and give you root access. The most important thing is not to choose one already owned by GoDaddy or EIG (frequently they issue gag orders to prevent the fake small companies from revealing their true ownership, especially in the first months/years after the buyout).
A good general resource for ISP reviews is http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ which has a pretty reasonable policy for separating ads from reviews posted by real users. Always good to do a search for any ISP you are considering there, remembering that the forum members have a huge range of technical skill and so some complaints can reflect more on the poster's unreasonable expectations than on the ISP itself.
A former WebFaction customer created this forum for discussing WebFaction alternatives (kjodle.net goes down now and then but try again later): https://forum.kjodle.net/categories/godaddy-buyout-of-webfaction or https://forum.kjodle.net/discussions
For those who made heavy use of the WebFaction API and are dreading leaving it, note that even the ubiquitous and often-jeered-at cPanel has an API and although it's ugly, it does actually work for almost everything the WebFaction API could do. I provide some sample code and dox to help you get started here: https://forum.kjodle.net/discussion/20/surprise-api-cpanel-shared-hosting-actually-is-a-webfaction-alternative
A notable ISP to consider is this one Opalstack started by former WebFaction employees:
https://mobile.twitter.com/opalstack
https://pages.convertkit.com/2f68231082/0e9456199d
I ended up going with MDDHosting, which I reviewed here: https://forum.kjodle.net/discussion/21/mddhosting-is-a-good-webfaction-shared-hosting-alternative
Here are all the WebFaction support forum threads about the buyout. These threads are peppered with recommendations for other ISPs, mostly (but not all) ISPs where you have root and configure your own VM:
https://community.webfaction.com/questions/22246/godaddy-transition-updates
https://community.webfaction.com/questions/21961/godaddy-buyout
https://community.webfaction.com/questions/22010/is-webfaction-shutting-down
https://community.webfaction.com/questions/22167/refund-option
https://community.webfaction.com/questions/22110/is-webfaction-dead-staff-please-confirm
https://community.webfaction.com/questions/22164/an-other-webfaction
https://community.webfaction.com/questions/22210/webfaction-alternative-godaddy-problem
https://community.webfaction.com/questions/22054/webfaction-moving-forwards-with-godaddy
https://community.webfaction.com/questions/22258/a-note-to-put-your-mind-at-rest
https://community.webfaction.com/questions/22203/timeline-of-webfactiongodaddy-shutdown
Good luck and pray that you won't have to do this again (it's my second time, sigh).
Comments
Wow! Thank you for the very informative post.
I was actually about to close this forum down as it has been so quiet lately, but I can see now that its usefulness has not entirely evaporated.
Oooo, please don't close down this forum! When things really start to change at WebFaction, I'll be there will be many people looking for posts like this one!
@ericxob77 I left there some time ago, so I wasn't aware anybody was still there. I see now that if you don't currently have an account, it redirects you automatically to GoDaddy.
I'll leave the lights on here and wait for the flood.