About seventeen years ago, a few software developers installed a spare PowerMac running Yellow Dog Linux into a server cage where we worked so that we had a home for our personal websites. This quickly expanded to hosting not only our own websites, but also those of close friends and family. A year later, we decided we had what it takes to run a small web-hosting business, and so we each invested $1,000 in order to purchase our own server and secure our own cage at a server co-location facility. Retrix was born.
In a short order of time, we went from hosting a dozen or so websites to being a fully-fledged email, web, and domain registrar for hundreds of customers and thousands of websites. With what we saw in the market place, we felt we could offer an alternative to the "budget web-hosting" where customer service was a key focus at prices that wouldn't break the bank. Margins are still quite slim in the web hosting world, and so we augmented our hosting with a parallel consulting business.
Since then, we've strived to continue to keep Retrix running with the original goal in mind, but it has become harder and harder. In the past few years especially, we've fallen short of our original goal. We unfortunately don't have the resources to offer the support that's required and to keep up with modern expectations along with an increasingly hostile internet.
It has been a difficult decision, but we have decided to shut Retrix down. On December 6th, 2017 we will be powering off our servers. The Service Centre will continue to operate in the cloud for the next while to give people some extra time to migrate domains away, but we will not be hosting websites or email accounts.
You will need to migrate your website and email hosting to another provider before that time. We recommend that you take this opportunity to split your email, domain registration & DNS, and web hosting. We have found Google's G Suite to be a great email provider, and so this is what we recommend. For domain registration and DNS services, Amazon Route53 or dnsimple are good choices. If you are a Wordpress user, we would recommend choosing a dedicated Wordpress host like wordpress.com or WP Engine. We have no recommendations for non-Wordpress hosting needs, but we will maintain an FAQ page that we will update with any suggestions we receive.
We will be contacting people individually with details about how to access backups of your databases, download your sites as a single bundle, refunds for annual packages, etc.
To all you who have stuck with us through the thick and thin, we are eternally grateful. We wish we could continue the journey with you, but it's time for us to say goodbye, and sincerely thank you for the loyal business you have shown us.
Patrick, Mike, and Jamie