How fantastic is Fantistico?
July 1, 2005 2:45 PM   Subscribe

Looking for a new host. Am intrigued by Fantistico. Seems like it includes everything. Any recommendations for hosts that offer Fantistico?

I currently manage sites hosted on Dreamhost, TextDrive (which would be my first non-Fantistico choice), iPowerWeb, and HostMySite. I like the idea of saving time using Fantistico to install blogs, wikis, and CMS, but not at the expense of flexibility and reliability.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)
 
My ISP is 1host.com.
They trumpet the fact that they offer Fantastico but they don't explain what it is on their site at all, and frankly my Google experiments didn't help explain it either.
I am not very happy with 1host for lots of reasons which may impact how happy you would be with them.
And, it'd be cool to learn what Fantastico is.
posted by stevil at 3:07 PM on July 1, 2005


Verve Hosting offers Fantastico.

Fantastico is just this web software that installs other pieces of software, like Blog programs/CMS/etc.

I can recommend Verve: I've never had any problems with them and my site downtime over the years has probably been a couple of hours.
posted by selfnoise at 3:10 PM on July 1, 2005


A2 are inexpensive and I’ve found them responsive. Their low-end account is $4.95/month and I'm pretty sure it includes Fantastico (appears to from that page).

BTW, Fantastico is extremely cool and easy to use—takes the drudgery out of installing a metric buttload of useful open source apps.
posted by merlinmann at 3:11 PM on July 1, 2005


I'd second Verve. Been using them for years and recommending them to everyone. Good prices and excellent customer service.

One of the possible downsides to Fantastico is that some of the software sites will not support installations done by Fantastico. However, that's never been a problem for me and it's definitely nice to have the one-click installation.
posted by undertone at 3:23 PM on July 1, 2005


Fantastico is a great way to install complicated (and not so complicated) scripts. New forums or CMSes or blogs will appear in it every so often and it's only a couple of clicks to have an installation up and running that I can try out.

I've been with Myacen for a couple of years now and can't say enough good things about them. The people who run it are Australian, but I've never actually noticed any improvement that could have been made if they were closer. The forum is filled with helpful people. Once, I asked for a few extra MySQL databases and they increased my total to "unlimited". Soon after, everyone had that perk. Downtime is virtually non-existent. (I monitor the site with a tracker and receive an email so infrequently that I can't find any.)

Myacen offers full support, but they also run SolidInternet which is much cheaper, assumes you know what you are doing, and offers forum-only support. Both Myacen and Solidinternet have Fantastico. Most of us there have a Myacen account and a SolidInternet account or two. They also have a registry service at LiveRegistry.
posted by ontic at 3:42 PM on July 1, 2005


stevil: Fantastico is an application that appears to be part of your cPanel. Just log into your cPanel (http://www.portigal.com:2082/) and scroll down till you see Fantastico. That's the one.
posted by evariste at 4:27 PM on July 1, 2005


I use and am happy with hostgator where I have a reseller account. All of my domains include fantastico. They are available online 24 hours a day for support and often will help even if it isn't exactly related. They even updated fantastico to support WordPress 1.5 at my request. Great service.
posted by geekyguy at 6:40 PM on July 1, 2005


Fantastico is not as fantastic as it might sound if you're on a host that limits the number of databases you can have. Each time Fantastico installs something, it creates a new MySQL user and database. It cannot install two apps into one database.

And if you install something like Wordpress that has frequent security updates, you won't be able to use Fantastico to update that app when those security updates are released -- unless your host updates Fantastico to include the new version of the app, which they likely won't do until enough people complain/request it each time. Sometimes the software Fantastico offers to install is a couple versions old. It depends on how diligent the host is about keeping everything cutting edge.
posted by katieinshoes at 7:40 PM on July 1, 2005


Another recommendation for Verve, generally speaking as a hosting company for they are supersplendiferablyamazingly great. I cannot possibly say enough good things about them. In fact, I wrote this extensive blog entry in praise of Verve about six weeks ago, I am so very pleased with them.

However, I second katieinshoes's caveat about Fantastico. It's okay, but it really isn't all that. Installing most programs is as simple as setting up a database via cPanel then uploading and expanding a file tarball. That's considerably better than waiting for security updates to make it into Fantastico, or wasting space with optional (but included) files that you don't need (because Fantastico programs always include everything in the default version of a program: phpBB, for instance, has about 20 language packs and if you're running an all-English board, you're wasting nearly a meg of space for files that will never be used) and the general lack of independence of action that you get when you lock yourself into a site management tool that is so inflexible.
posted by Dreama at 8:00 PM on July 1, 2005


Not only will Fantastico not necessarily update scripts like WordPress, but the host might send you poison-pen messages about how crucial it is to update WordPress right away, and if you don't do it within 24 hours, they'll disable your installation. Like the one I got this week.

So Fantastico is cool, but don't get too dependent on it.
posted by caitlinb at 9:18 PM on July 1, 2005


Fantastico is fantastic. My host is pretty good to:
24HostingNow. Very responsive support, reasonable rates. The servers are in New Jersey.
posted by Goofyy at 9:51 PM on July 1, 2005


Response by poster: Hmmm, might just go with Textdrive. I've installed enough apps on my Macs that it doesn't seem like Fantastico will really be all that much help for me. And I'm leaning toward using Textpattern as my CMS because all the others that Fantistico can install have limitations in one way or another.

Thanks for the excellent feedback.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 10:50 PM on July 1, 2005


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