I made that mistake about 8 months ago, and wasted $450.

PHPCOW is buggy and bloated. Their patches fix one issue, and usually create 2-3 others. My error log in CPanel is constantly full of PHPCOW errors (they say thats the hosts fault). The editor has a horrible time with font tags…..(repetitive placement of tags, no tags, improper placement, non-closing tags).

As to their customer service….poor is putting it nicely. The customer service people are either bi-polar, or habitual drug users. One day their customer service guy is sweet as sugar, chatty, and very helpful…the next, not so much. Each and every problem is your fault, not PHPCOW (Interestingly, they always release a patch addressing your problems within a few days). I changed hosting companies three times based on PHPCOW always telling me it was someone elses fault as to why their program has problems….and still no difference. When you try to argue or debate the point, their customer service A. Threatens to disconnect you B. Tells you you are stupid and its not their fault C. Tells you to find another News Publishing Program D. Threatens to delete your site…….but, my all time favorite is when they tell you if you are noty happy, to ask for a refund, and when you do, they tell you no….that they don’t offer refunds!!!! Ah, great customer service!!!! Also, if you have problems with someone at PHPCOW, good luck getting someone else to talk to…one person handles emails, phone, and IM messages, and when you make him mad…your complaints or questions get deleted!

Save your time, sanity, and money, these people are clowns

There is no excuse for the inadequate, combative and childish tech support.

Please tell me, which program is the best, I want something like PHPCOW or BRITIX

PHPCOW has some very good features.

1. Where other applications have poor template implementation, PHPCOW makes it extremely simple, allowing you to use either one of their pre-built templates, or use the wizzywig editor to create your own customized templates.

2. Although there are some bugs, features like RSS/ATOM feeds and block management (how your articles are displayed) make managing a site fairly simple and straightforward.

3. Although it isn’t listed or linked on their site, they evidently now have a support forum called PHPCOW HELP…..which will hopefully cut down on problems with their staff.

With the good comes the bad:

1. The root of all the evils is the wizzywig editor (which even PHPCOW has said is awful). We hooked them up with Cute Editor, which is by far the best editor I’ve ever seen, so hopefully PHPCOW 3 will be a much better program.

2. PHPCOW is a resource heavy application. We’ve used a variety of servers and had problems regardless of how much we invest. We’ve been told by PHPCOW that our server is the problem, but they refuse to help optimize it, or to publish fixes or recommendations on their site….instead they want you to buy into their small overpriced servers. We’ve lost countless articles, and hundreds of hours of work because the program decided to not save work, freeze up, etc.

3. The support is very bad. I’ve been as vocal as anyone about this. I think part of this is a language barrier, as they are based in Spain. However, as a business, they really need to improve how they treat customers/potential customers. With a program this involved, which has so little documentation about its features…..but uses encrypted software, they need to understand people are going to need help and guidance…..but they have little time or patience for people that need help.

Looking around, I’d say that we are one of the few people around who have anything positive to say about PHPCOW……regardless of the issues, we still recommend it based on its price, features, and ease of use.

I’ve been banned by PHPCOW for “abusing them” in a thread at Digital Point forums. I have to say that they are mistaken……We are tough on them, yes, but far less than others are….and if banning anyone who says anything negative is how they do business, they are gonna have problems. We continue to recommend PHPCOW to people, have sent them customers, and have made recommendations and pointed out bugs to them. However, I have to say that we have been extremely patient with them for a long time through a lot of bugs, lost work, crashed server, etc. We were promised updates and patches more than 6 months ago, as well as a support forum (this is the closest I’ve seen)….hence, we have a reason to be a bit perturbed with their staff.

I’m honestly hoping they come to their senses on this banning us and ignoring our emails. We’ve invested way too much time, effort, and money into PHPCOW to be treated the way we have, and for them to deny us any patches, fixes, support tickets, or updates to a program we purchased is unacceptable….

There is an 8 page thread that gives a lot of background on PHPCOW at Digital Point Forums that I encourage anyone considering PHPCOW to read…….its not all positive, nor is it all negative…..it points out a lot of issues and concerns, as well as great features…..like any objective review should.