WHMCS to HostBill Migration

MechanicWeb

Has anyone performed a migration to HostBill from WHMCS recently?

That is, migrating with an existing client base, who had tickets, services, transactions etc. on your WHMCS.

Is there anything in particular that I need to keep an eye on?

seriesn

@MechanicWeb said:
Has anyone performed a migration to HostBill from WHMCS recently?

That is, migrating with an existing client base, who had tickets, services, transactions etc. on your WHMCS.

Is there anything in particular that I need to keep an eye on?

I think they usually assist with the process (For a fee).

MechanicWeb

@seriesn said: I think they usually assist with the process (For a fee).

I am in contact with them. But wanted to learn from those who have some first hand experience.

I expect there will be issues in a migration. Better be prepared for it as well.

seriesn

@MechanicWeb said:

@seriesn said: I think they usually assist with the process (For a fee).

I am in contact with them. But wanted to learn from those who have some first hand experience.

I expect there will be issues in a migration. Better be prepared for it as well.

Since they are actually charging for the migration, I can imagine that they would take care of any issues that may arise?

MechanicWeb

@seriesn said: Since they are actually charging for the migration, I can imagine that they would take care of any issues that may arise?

I hope they will.

But when they are at it, you and your clients might need to suffer. I want to minimize this, if possible.

JamesF

might be worth asking @Clouvider_Dom I think they migrated from WHMCS to HostBill

LTniger

They have module for importing WHMCS data. Just contact them.

A side note: Hostbill support is more horible than whmcs and documentation is abysmal. In the long run you will spend way more $$$ than with WHMCS.

Hostbill is recommended only if you need some custom solution to your hosting business. And even than, prepare to be charged no less than 99$/hour.

Clouvider

@LTniger said:
They have module for importing WHMCS data. Just contact them.

A side note: Hostbill support is more horible than whmcs and documentation is abysmal. In the long run you will spend way more $$$ than with WHMCS.

Hostbill is recommended only if you need some custom solution to your hosting business. And even than, prepare to be charged no less than 99$/hour.

No less than $99 an hour? That’s certainly not our experience.
Bugs are fixed for free. Bugs are fixed promptly and free of charge. They implement reasonable new features for a small fee. We are very happy with them.

We didn’t actually do the migration with all the data; we run WHMCS and Hostbill side by side, with WHMCS still being used for “legacy” services that we didn’t move to Hostbill, so can’t say anything about the data migration process I’m afraid :-(

MechanicWeb

@Clouvider said: No less than $99 an hour? That’s certainly not our experience.

Bugs are fixed for free. Bugs are fixed promptly and free of charge. They implement reasonable new features for a small fee. We are very happy with them.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

It seems folks that are using them are pretty happy about their support.

LTniger

@MechanicWeb said: It seems folks that are using them are pretty happy about their support.

Depends. Hostbill does not perform backward compatibility tests. After each upgrade you must manually check if everything works as expected. For example VAT percentage may be different, or something wrong with order process.

In my experience WHMCS was way more tested between upgrades and I felt more safe with them.

Take a note:

• Each support ticket costs $75 if you are out of support cases;
• Most plugins are out of date, only the popular ones are working without issues;
• They killed community forum when they started increase price;
• In order to have right to develop any custom module you need to pay $999 for SDK;
• On harder support cases they stall ticket for weeks, even if it is paid one;
• They are extremaly small. Probably 1 senior developer and 1 or 2 'code grunts';
• Browse third-party forum for various problems: https://www.hostbillforums.com/, there you can even get help without wasting precious support cases.

On a plus side:

• Hostbill was the only software which comply with very strict Lithuanian accounting laws. WHMCS is non-complying, Blesta was a pure joke, ClientExec tailored to USA market.
• Hostbill agreed to create WHMCS -> HB module to migrate accounts, services, invoices. That was pretty impressive. As I remember they charged $500 for this.
• You can get 'discount' for requested custom module if you sponsor it (this sounds strange, but it is good).
• They are based in Poland, so work culture is good and they are honest.
• Critical bugs is fixed fast.

MechanicWeb

@LTniger said: Depends. Hostbill does not perform backward compatibility tests. After each upgrade you must manually check if everything works as expected. For example VAT percentage may be different, or something wrong with order process.

A software developer would do that? It is likely to break a good part of existing installations if they release new versions without any testing. How come they get passed QA?

In my experience WHMCS was way more tested between upgrades and I felt more safe with them.

We had some troubling times with WHMCS. At times, it felt like from L1 to developers - none at WHMCS seemed to have any idea on how WHMCS works.

It took them three and a half releases to fix a bug that was causing clients to be charged an incorrect amount when paid through 2Checkout.

A bug as serious as this, was not fixed promptly, primarily because they didn't have a complete idea on how the module works - at user level.

Btw, the bug was caused by a version upgrade.

So it seems none of them is actually a joy ride.

They have released v8.0.1 already. I am actually trembling in fear thinking what more it might break.

But to their credit, it is pretty easy to create little modifications and hooks to suite your needs. But at the same time, they so very much lack some native integration that HostBill has.