CMS Made Simple Forums

Hi Everyone,

One of the cool things with CMSMS is the fact that you can take it and install it just about anywhere that supports PHP and MySQL. With that said, I'm sure many people use web hosting companies to "rent" some space on their servers to host their CMSMS websites. My question to you is this: How would you rate your web hosting company? Respond to this thread and tell us about your web hosting service provider war stories; good or bad! Try to include some of the following:

• Name and URL of web hosting company
• Pricing policy (how much monthly, quarterly, yearly)
• What major features do they have?
• What are their limitations (bandwidth, transfer rates, file quotas, etc)?
• How is their support?
• What kind of access do you have (shell accounts, control panels, etc.)
• How is their service? Is your server fast? Does it go down?
• Finally, give your hosting company a grade (A=Excellent, F=Terrible)

Thanks everyone!

Corey

Name -
PHP Web Hosting - http://www.phpwebhosting.com
(based out of Indianapolis, IN)

Summary -
They boast to be the best web hosting company for the price given their feature set. WIth all of the unlimited and extra features that many hostng companies do not give, I believe them.

Pricing -
$9.95 monthly or $110.16 yearly($9.18/mo if you sign up for a year contract)

Major Features -
Scripting: PHP 4, Perl, Python, Ruby, cgi-bin, ssi
Web server: Apache, mod_ssl, mod_rewrite, full .htaccess reconfiguration
Libraries: GD, ImageMagick, FreeType2
Mail: POP3 boxes, auto-responders, mailing lists, forwards
Database: MySQL
SSL: Allows for certificates to be used to encrypt your website

Limitations -
None really beyond no adult sites, no files/leeching sites, etc. They try to promte fair and equal access to everyone.
Disk: 500mb (though you can request more for no additonal charge)
Bandwidth: Unmetered (at 25gb/mo, you will get warned)
Database: You can create as many MySQL databases as required
Email: You can create as many pop3s as you like
Subdomains: You can create as many subdomains as you like
Parking: You can park domains free of charge (they point to your base /index.html site though)

Support -
Helpdesk: All suport is handled via their web based helpdesk system. There is no real 800 support number.
Support has been "ok." They usually respond in 24-48 hours. Sometimes that isn't fast enough when someone has a runaway process on the server you share with them, however. (That has only happened twice and I've been a customer for well over a year now.)

Access -
System: Secure shell unix account (by request, free of charge), FTP, crontab, java, compilers, various shells
Control panel: custom bult web control panel that allows management and creation of subdomains, parking, database creation and deletion, email management, webmail, and phpMyAdmin

Service -
Server: It is decent. It's not the fastest in the world. But it is at least a 4 processor pentium III server.
Availability: There have been some slow patches, and a couple server reboots, but for the most part, my site has been up and available 24/7

Grade -
I give PHP Webhosting a B+ for giving me so many unlimiteds for $10 a month. They are extremely generous wth their resources and are generally pretty helpful in fufilling unusual, nonstandard requests.

i use this:
www.siteground.com

5$/month

unlimited traffic, 1GB space etc...
pretty good deal

Umm ... it might be a good idea not to post each and every single host around the world here. Some guys have already thought this over and came up with portals like:

International
http://webhost.thelist.com/shared.php?pgid=sp&fg=1
http://www.hostindex.com/
http://www.hostreview.com/

Germany
http://www.webhostlist.de

Might be a good idea to go and have a look at the reviews here and there.

Regards,
Nils