Hi, Does anyone have any input in comparing these platforms? In terms of software, support, and price which is better for someone starting in the business? They both seem similar in capabilities, price, and idk about support. And of course the sale people are going to say theirs are the best. Neither offer free trials. Has anyone used both? Is there a clear favorite or just personal preference? Thanks.
I can tell from your other posts, you are very early to mailing practices. If that's the case, you would be 100x better to go with a solution like Kobeni. They have a lot of managed services for their consumers, which is perfect if you're trying to get a beginning grasp of the nature. Managed services like, obtaining servers, ip space, domains, installation/configuration of the software and probably a few other things. These services aren't cheap so you're looking to pay a good deal to get started but it's all for a purpose and if you're targeting GI then you might even earn some return.
Kobeni if you're just starting out.....if you're a seasoned pro and don't want to go custom/inhouse then Volo
Yeah, pointing and clicking is hard. When I was starting out I wish I would have had something as simple as volo.
Hey Frank, let's get together so I can show you a demo of Volo. I'll let you be the judge if it's a good fit for you. Shoot me an email! [email protected]
I helped a buddy maintain a network of 10 machines running volo.... lol. i haven't looked at the latest version but man the older one was ghetto.. volo used iptables static natting of port 80 to 8080 and port 25 to 2525? I never understood why.. Then it would create these rules for *ALL* of the IPs on your machine.. So when you were jamming mail out you would have random network problems because iptables would run out of memory keeping track of all the connections.. Then it would host everything.. Database, mailing engine , DNS , WEB all on one machine.. So while you're trying to mail to make money and iptables conntrack tables are filling up with useless bullshit, your clicks fail, dns fails, etc. Then random core dumps on various machines... Maybe they've fixed the problems and educated whomever thought using iptables w/static nat was a good idea. kobeni is a hosted injector for powermta. i've checked it out, it has a nice interface and some odd ways of doing simple things.. Haven't gotten all balls deep on it because it's hosted..
Volo no longer relies on IPtables, this was changed quite some time back. While everyone is certainly entitled to their opinions regarding various mail platforms, I'd strongly encourage those interested in Volo to take a look for themselves. I personally don't see how much of the above advice is accurate. Volo is a unique platform because it's capable of being as simple or complicated as you want it to be. By default, volo is setup to work correctly/easily for the novice mailer. Whether you want to pop open the hood and turn a wrench is up to each client. Point being, the advanced options are available for use if you know how or want to use them. A quick demo to teach the novice mailer how to import their data, configure their Domains/IP's, and schedule their first drop takes roughly 10-15 minutes, and the latest help documentation is quite frankly unmatched. Volo has been maturing for close to 11 years now, some of you old farts might be surprised what it's capable of now-a-days
Old farts. Lol. The stuff I've put together makes volo look like interspire. I was doing a good friend a favor and maintaining servers for him because your support system was painfully slow and inadequate at the time... I was sharing my experience with volo. How that is irrelevant is beyond me. I'm happy to hear your developers were beaten by the clue stick and removed iptables static natting.
I used to use Volo as well. My biggest issue with support is the fact that support was located in god knows what country. That means I submit a ticket at 10am PST with an urgent issue, and won't hear back until the following day because they are sleeping in whatever country they're in. Hopefully Volo moved support to USA or atleast work US hours.
I'd heard this as well. A fair number of people had asked for recommendations over the years on a decent platform because they were looking to leave Volo. People were not complaining about the platform so much, but their support. Or lack there of. That seems to be the common complaint I had heard from those leaving. Other than that issue, it would seem people enjoyed the platform. :aargh4:
Yeah I mean the platform was pretty sick. Mailing GI with good data (little to no hardbounces), the thing FLIES. But if you have any issue whatsoever you can be down for days. That is ridiculous these days.
Hey now, only kidding around. There's plenty for me to learn from the "old farts" around here anyways. Admittedly, Volo wasn't exactly known for their service/support in the past. We've definitely shifted our efforts in the past year to change this -- and the response we're receiving from clients seems good.
It can be broken down as simple as this. Ive used both. GI = kobeni TLD = Volo Volo is much more difficult to use. And the reason being, is that it has much more user controls which are somewhat pointless if mailing GI. The only reason user controls like server throttling, back off rules, really even need to be used is for mailing specific TLD and Cable domains. Frank, i helped you understand how rDNS works a couple weeks ago. i.e.: Volo would cause your head to explode.
used both as well and I second PInacle's comments. volo = tld kobeni = gi I would also point out that Kobeni's support is very very fast. It is definitely great for the novice mailer. I havent used volo in a year or so, and when I was with them, I had the same complaint, terrible support. The esp itself rocked and was super fast, but being down for days was definitely not an option. PS: we stopped using them.
Nothing wrong with using one box for everything if you do it right. Obviously they didn't do it right, but your conntrack issue would have been an easy fix - just tweak the ip_conntrack "max" and "buckets" values to suit your volume.
