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HostBill vs. WHMCS
We put allot of work into customizing our WHMCS theme for our setup, but HostBill is coming along nicely and is looking better and better every day. I wanted to ask the community here (those that have had some experience with it) if it would be worth switching. It would be allot of work migrating everyone over, but I'd like to do it rather sooner than later. Thank you in advance for any input.
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hostbill interface is much clean and attractive. but the price and support is a different thing.. not giving trial users support is another thing
HostBill... dat GUI.
Hostbill FTW. Too bad it's near impossible to get a license now that's not owned.
I wonder if HostBill is theme-able like WHMCS?
@lele0108 Actually the fact that they don't have monthly licenses doesn't bother me that much. Come to think of, I'd rather pay once than every month. Lets say you get WHMCS at $12.95 / month, in two years it's like $310.80. Provided one stays in business for the long haul, monthly licenses aren't that attractive.
@vpsnodebox HostBIll uses the same template system (smarty (.tpl)) and is easily customisable, I'm a proud owner of no branding owned HB license :)
I have to say I love the SolusVM module for it, works like a treat! See our homepage screenshots: http://stormvz.com
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@StormVZ Thanks for sharing, that looks really good. Is it Twitter Boostrap based as well?
HostBill has a nice feature set but the support is just so bad that I would stay away from it.
whmcs ftw.
@vpsnode Some order forms use Bootstrap but not sure if it's all based around it. As far as I know the templates are not Bootstrap based however I do use some parts of it :)
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As a customer I find HostBill to be more annoying to use than WHMCS. I also dislike having to log in every single time I visit (but that may just be that site)
We're currently in the proccess of mving from WHMCS to HostBill - well, the initial stages (test how well it migrates, and then see how it works for our customers; then make it the actual billing site).
We've found WHMCS to become cumbersome over time, especially with how it has been handling Orders -> Invoices -> Products over the last while (and thats not a config issue, and Solus say its WHMCS' fault, and WHMCS say the other way :@ )
Either way - I like HostBill, and when I presented it to my team, they thouroughly prefferred the HostBill interface and features. As we're not using it for support (and we've made an integration with our support desk), only for sales/invoicing/provisioning - which in our expereicne it does very well at.
On themeing, its no harder than WHMCS to theme :)
Personally, I'd've liked to take the move toward Blesta - but v3 is far-off, and their current release is lacking (to say the least).
Just my 2 cents'. (or shold that be "pennies")
LR
HostBill wins at end user experience and interface. WHMCS wins at admin interface.
Owned licenses of both are probably worth having. Switching isn't fun, but you just never know what tomorrow will bring.
We've never had a problem with WHMCS so we have no plans of ever switching away from a product that works 100% for us.
I appreciate all the input, but I can see that the opinions are split on the subject.
One annoying thing is the branded/non-branded versions. Why not have a single version without any branding that's priced in the middle?
I don't know how HostBill works with DNS plans, but one annoyance is that with WHMCS doesn't have any support for SolusVM's DNS plans. It's probably the SolusVM module, but regardless it is annoying because I would have liked to offer FREE DNS plans for the community. People signing up via WHMCS for them would have made things easier. It would have been a win - win for everyone as well: community members would have had access to our DNS network for free and we could have advertised a bit. It sometimes kills me how slow these two companies (Solus Labs and WHMCS) move to update features.
@vpsnodebox HostBill includes modules for cPanel DNS / OnApp Anycast & PowerDNS.
You can setup PowerDNS cluster VERY easily using HostBill's automated script: http://hostbillapp.com/features/apps/powerdns.html http://wiki.hostbillapp.com/index.php?title=Install_PowerDNS
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@StormVZ That is what I am looking for :) Thanks allot!
We are using WHMCS. We are really satisfied with it. It has nice features, easy to expand (develop widgets, modules etc). The support is great. There are new versions with new features once in a while.
We vote for WHMCS!
I have to agree that HostBill looks better but WHMCS seems to have better support. HostBill will give you free support the first 30 days. Afterwards you would have to pay for support. Additionally they just removed the free trial and offer only owned licenses. I was just so close to stick with HostBill but I think I am going to use WHMCS now. At least my presales questions become answered on whmcs forums. Got no answer on hb forums.
@vatoloco I guess it's always better to stick with what works. Thanks for the info.
Well, I have found HostBill's support to be pretty good recently, they seem to be taking it much more seriously. We are getting valid and useful responses within 2, and then further follow ups within 30 minutes, which it pretty good and much better than what we have experienced with WHMCS.
@LV_Matt I appreciate your input as well. It seems that so far opinions are split so I feel I must try HostBill, wish they still offered a trial.
I do however use there ticketing support, as I have had the license just under 2 years now so I get the free support which I have paid for.
How is the livechat addon matt?
We didn't particularly care for the built-in LiveChat in HostBill, and went with PHPLive instead.
well. i wanted to know how was it ;-)
Don't use it and haven't tried it. I'm perfectly happy with LiveChatInc for our live chat at the present time.
@KnightSwarm_Phillip I like PHPLive and we purchased an owned license with source code. In the long run it saves a boat load of money.
That's kind of a contradiction in itself, lol.
In my opinion, spring for the license. If you don't use it here, maybe you'll use it later for another project. Then again I have a spending problem :P
not at all, it makes perfect sense