Quality Hosting Companies?

[alethal]

Currently I have 2 sites - one is hosted on sbc/yahoo - the other on godaddy -

has anyone used these hosting companies - and/or what companies have any of you used that gave you basically worry free and easy service?

thanks -

[agraddy]

I'm not sure what the rules are about responding with commercial businesses...I guess if I post something that I shouldn't, it will just get removed (I don't have a problem with that, I'm just not sure what the rules are). I would imagine this is more of a "Lounge" question.

I know how time consuming it is to try to find a good reliable host, so I will give you a list of the ones I have used or are currently using. Please note that I am not giving you any affiliate links. These are simply hosts I have experienced and my views on them.

Last year, I had two different websites with two different hosts.

http://www.echristianwebhosting.com/ - I think it is run by one guy, but his response times are incredible and he provides great service. I was very impressed. I often wondered if the company just used the same name and email address for all their correspondance. If not, this guy must carry around a laptop with constant internet access because his response times were fast.

http://www.relyhost.com/index.htm - Extremely cheap, so much so that I was kind of concerned that I would get any service at all (I joined when the plans were $3/month with no setup fee). I was blown away with the support and service I received. I think it is much better than many of the larger more expensive hosts.

I highly recommend both of these webhosts even though I am still not with them.

I was hosting more and more domains, so I wanted to consolidate my hosting (that is the only reason I moved on from these two hosts).

I moved on to http://www.hostgator.com - They offer basic service with unlimited domains, emails, databases, for about $10 a month. I have been pleased with the service so far (I've probably had them for about 7-8 months). They definitely aren't as quick to respond as the two hosts I mentioned above, but they do provide decent service. In fact, I decided to get a reseller hosting package with them as well. I've had a few problems with downtimes, but overall, I'm comfortable hosting my business sites with them.

I recently also got an account with http://www.dreamhost.com - I found somewhere online that if you put in the code "BOYIS" you get a full year of service for only $22.40 (I don't know if this offer is still good, but if not it looks like they are always offering similar discounts. If you want to see if it still works, you can go through the entire setup and before you have to give them a credit card, it will show the discount - it will look like they are going to charge you something like $120, but the discount will show at the end). Supposedly you get a lot of space, bandwidth, and unlimited domains, emails, etc.  I haven't done anything with this account yet. I figured I could use it just for testing and playing around with. I'm really not expecting much from the service (I can't tell you if it is good or not, because I haven't done much with them). All the other hosts I listed use cPanel for their Control Panel while Dreamhost has a custom system that I am still getting used to.

If you are only looking to host one or two sites. I would recommend one of the first two hosts I mentioned. The second one has amazing prices (I would be very surprised if you could find that kind of service for that price anywhere else). I'm just a little concerned if the business model will be able to sustain itself at such low prices. They've been strong for the last 10 months so it must be working out all right.

If you are looking to host a lot of domains, HostGator has given me good value for the costs. They really are pretty good, I think it is just hard to compare to the first two hosts I mentioned.

The last piece of advice I would give, is to research any host you are considering on http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ - You can usually get a pretty good idea about certain hosts just by searching the forums.

Hope this helps.

[TriLogic]

By far I have found the people at ixwebhosting.com to be a fantastic value for the money.  Their product to cost ration is the best I have found.  Tell them TriLogic sent you (please)

[kermit]

besides myself   for absolute top quality i would recommend...

http://www.simplenet.com for web sites and servers
http://www.theplanet.com and http://www.rackspace.com for servers

these are not 5.00/month hosts. they are top shelf all the way and worth every penny.

[Dr.CSS]

has anyone tried or heard anything about 1and1.com

    mark

[kermit]

i inherited a couple of static sites that are hosted at 1and1. but they'll be moved to my own services soon so i can better manage them. i've also got a few domains registered through them (mainly because they were free for the first year), they host my sharepoint (which may be replaced by a php groupware suite), and they run (read: aquired) a free email service (with pop3/smtp access) i've been using for 10+ years.

i've no major complaints with them, but i've never had to contact their support either. a business partner hasn't had a trouble reaching them by phone though.  some people do bitch about their poor support.

if cut-rate hosting is what you're looking for, then 1and1 and godaddy are two of the biggest and least expensive ones out there. you know they aren't just going to disappear overnight either, so you do have that assurance.  just stay away from ipowerweb (another large cut-rate host).

but if you're looking for the best of the best, see my earlier post.

[lemkepf]

If you want a great web host i'd suggest the one I currently use...


I work for Modevia Web Services, LLC http://www.modevia.com. Our prices aren't the lowest... but we make it up in customer service and features. We are powered by a LAMP setup so you can see that it is very stable. We pride ourselves in accommodating our customers. If you need some obscure tomcat library installed... we'll do it. You need a specific kind of apache module loaded... we'll do it.

You can have multiple domains under the account, unlimited DB's, SSH access, and a bunch of other features you can see here:
http://www.modevia.com/services/

So give me a PM if you have any questions!

[badhoy]

I've been real happy withhe.net

[mikemee]

1and1.com - signed up for them when they were offering 3 years free.

In brief, ok for static sites, but anything you care about using LAMP is problematic for various reasons including:
+ uptime has been ok, but not great. When it does go down, it can be a while (includes > 12 hrs one time)
+ support is hard to get hold of and sometimes slow to respond if its a hard question (anything technical)
+ they routinely upgrade things (like PHP version) and stuff breaks - and support has no idea - and there's never any advance warning

The last is what finally drove me elsewhere for my CMS sites.  Everything would be running fine and then all of a sudden something breaks without warning or reason. The last couple of times I didn't even bother working out what broke - I just moved the whole shebang elsewhere.

http://httpme.com is now my webhosting of choice. They're expensive, starting at $30/mth, but that's a reseller account which helps. Best of all, I haven't had to touch any site I've moved there since I installed it. It just keeps working. Support is beyond belief, any hour of the day, any day. No ssh, but I've learnt to survive without it. They also have a good forum (like here), so its easy to get obscure configuration answers quickly.

No complaints at all (just wish it was a little cheaper!)

Hoststock.com has been recommended to me by the person who put me on to httpme.com. He says they're faster, just as reliable, and also excellent service.  And much cheaper.  I can't bear the thought of switching the 10+ accounts I have at httpme.com so I haven't tried them myself, but I'm tempted.

Added later:

dotable.com  This thread got me thinking and I went surfing and found dotable.com - run by the same guy who built httpme.com 'Aussie Bob'. Just started a few months back, but looks like he's setting it up just the same way. Best of all its cheaper (and billed in AU$ where I happen to be living currently though the servers are West Coast USA). I'm seriously considering moving all my httpme hosting there as a block (easier than domain by domain).

Checking out reviews at webhostingforum confirmed my experience with httpme - couldn't find one bad review.  It is nice when you get what you pay for.

Hope this helps someone ...

[Kayin]

I guess to throw in my 2 cents

I work for a web design company. We'll start picking up CMSMS as one of our primary CMSes shortly once I become more comfortable with it

but as for hosting we outsource to another hosting company.

I've been amazed by www.bluehost.com lately.

bluehost offers amazing support when you open a ticket and has features that no other webhost has provided before. I can literally take control of a lot of "inside features" such as the php.ini and .htaccess.

It's unparallelled in my opinion.

-K

[pgoneill]

I used 1&1 for a while (when they were doing that free 3 year thing).  I also have a small account with a friend of mine who's a reseller through Surpass Hosting, which is OK it seems, but there's rumors of them deleting negative comments from their forums, overselling, etc (kinda like Dreamhost).

Currently, I've been happiest with A Small Orange.  Their prices aren't jaw-dropping like Dreamhost or anything, but you get what you pay for - responsive support (no phone support, sadly) and a solid community.  They don't oversell like many of these companies offering hundreds of gigs of bandwidth for a few bucks a month.  I'm generally suspicious of those sorts of operations - if they're not honest about the services they offer, the probably won't be getting my money (no one can use 1TB of bandwidth and not break the server resource usage limits).

[anthony]

I use Dreamhost for a few of my sites.  Their package is really sick and so far I haven't been able to find many companies to compete with what they offer at each level of their service, http://dreamhost.com/shared/comparison.html . Some highlights for if you sign up for 1 year with their cheapest plan ($7.99/month):

• Disk Storage: 20 GB
• Monthly Bandwidth: 7 TB
• MySQL DBs: Unlimited
• Unlimited domains and subdomains per plan
• 97 money back guarantee

Now one down side is if you're running a really big site on one of their shared server plans.  They run PHP installed as a CGI binary so it strains the processor.  If you have site with a ton of traffic you'll start straining their processor and their alarms will begin to sound.  For small or medium sized sites though I haven't heard too many complaints.

If you want to sign up, use this link (help a brother out ): http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?146122

[mderbyshire]

United Hosting (http://www.unitedhosting.co.uk are one of the best. They are a UK based company (in terms of their owners are from the UK, but they have several remote employees all over - including the US) but you can choose between having your site hosted on a server in the UK or the US - the cost is the same.

Their servers are rock solid, packages and prices are realistic (you won't find 10GB webspace and 100GB data transfer for $5 per month), and thier support is fantastic. Just as important, the level of service you receive is consistent. They are not a one-man-band, but a small company with several employees, so you needn't worry about the good support you have been receiving for the last 3 months suddenly going down the dip because the owner decides to take a holiday, or gets ill, or what not (which is very often the case with small web hosts.

I'm a customer of theirs myself and am over the moon with their service. Check out their forums for other testimonials if you need reassurance.

[anthony]

Dreamhost does "oversell" space and bandwidth, and are rated F (best=AAA) by the Better Business Bureau. Now, some people do not mind beeing on a server where oversell is done.

Furthermore, check what users say about their experience with them at http://www.webhostingtalk.com, there are some good, some bad and some neutral reviews about them.

Could very well be, so far I have not had a single problem with any of the sites setup so I can only speak from experience.  I have had quick customer service response and haven't experienced any outages worth noting.

The one concern I do have with them is just the overall speed of their servers.  Anything using GD seems to slow down their servers so much that it has begun to irk me.  I am not sure if it is all related to PHP running as CGI but I wouldn't be surprised.

A company that was recommended to me, which I have yet to try is htt://mediatemple.net .  May be worth a look.

[jke]

http://www.liquidweb.com  I've had a dedicated server with them for about a year and don't have first hand experience with their shared hosting, but all indications are they're a very professionally run company - unbelievable [phone] support and spectacular network.