Recommended Hosts?

[AbusiveWombat]

Can anyone recommend a good host? Reliability is top most importance. The current place we're using advertises 99.9% uptime but during development I've encounted a few issues connecting to the site. If I've encountered a few issues during my very limited development time...I'm very worried about when we go "live".

[thorpe]

im very happey with textdrive.com (http://textdrive.com)

[toplay]

These guys have 30-Day and Any-Time Money Back Guarantees:
http://www.ixwebhosting.com

Here’s an independent Feb. 2005 review on them:
http://www.thehostingchart.com/ourreview1.html
http://www.hosting-review.com/hosting-reviews/ix-web-hosting.shtml


Powweb have PHP 4 and 5 available to use:
http://www.powweb.com

Of course one of the biggest is 1 and 1:
http://www.1and1.com

A review on them:
http://www.hosting-review.com/hosting-reviews/1and1.shtml

Do NOT pick ipowerweb.com/IPower.com or lunarpages.com.

Read reviews on the various hosts.

Good luck.

[Envex]

If you don't mind spending a little extra money, I would highly recommend http://www.rackspace.com/

:)

[joviyach]

I am using www.phpwebhosting.com for the last 2 months, and I haven't had any issues thus far.

[stolzyboy]

i prefer www.olm.net, i also have a reseller package there ;)

[toplay]

i prefer www.olm.net, i also have a reseller package there ;)
Never heard of them. I think their $6.95 ($83.40/yr) plan with only 200MB and 8GB transfer a month is too little for what you pay. Seems like the very old pricing days.

ixwebhosting.com's lowest linux plan is $4.95 ($59.40/yr) and has 2,500MB disk space with 100GB transfer a month.

For 82 cents more a month, even powweb.com's plan ($7.77/mo, $93.24/yr) gives you more than olm.net with 5,000MB of disk space and 300GB of transfer.

.

[stolzyboy]

just a reminder... you're not always paying for space... service far outweighs space in my eyes... typically you don't need a whole boatload of disk space for sites, if you are looking for just storage and no programming/db interaction, sure, go with a lowerend service outfit :)

[JPnyc]

I always recommend godaddy.com. I host a site there and directed all clients I've built sites for to them as well. I can't remember the last time the service was down.

[toplay]

just a reminder... you're not always paying for space... service far outweighs space in my eyes... typically you don't need a whole boatload of disk space for sites, if you are looking for just storage and no programming/db interaction, sure, go with a lowerend service outfit :)
I agree there's more to it, lots more and service is a part of it. Since I don't know what olm.net service is like, I simply didn't discuss it. I was looking at and pointing out features that one can compare (apples to apples).

Just because ixwebhosting.com is cheaper doesn't necessarily mean their service is worse than olm.net. I guess you never read the independent review link I posted. They got rated 99% on Customer Service and here's a quote from the article:

In my entire career as professional web master, I have never seen more responsive and technically sound support staff. I am thoroughly impressed by the technical skills of the IX Web Hosting customer care team.

Regardless of which artificially created problem I have prompted them with, everything was resolved within 24 hours: PASV FTP issues, CGI scripts with programming errors, PHP coding issues, ASP ODBC database connectivity, MSSQL Enterprise Manager troubles, domain-lock and expiration tricks - we were not able to fool them.

The support provided can be rated as above excellent, especially the 24 / 7 LIVE CHAT feature. We have submitted a total of 450 support requests so far in the past several months, and on 400 requests the response has immediately solved our problem. The other tickets had to be reworked to send more details to the technician. We called in via Live Chat at 3am and 5am EST several times and our requests were answered promptly and courteously. Unlike other hosts, IX Web Hosting is providing It is a true 24 / 7 chat service.

ixwebhosting.com got a 97% overall rating in that review (and 91% overall in the other review with 9.5 out of 10 for customer service). I compare them to olm.net because they have about the same number of customers (both hosts are in the 350K-400K customer range).

On the other hand, just because a host can be one of the biggest, doesn't necessarily mean they are the best in support. The 1 and 1 host has millions of customers and an independent review gave them 75% overall rating with 7 out of 10 for Customer Service.

JPnyc, I think GoDaddy.com is an excellent registrar but I would stay away from them for a hosting plan. Especially if you want to program in PHP. I've seen lots of posts from people in another forum where they are running into problems because they run PHP in safe mode and turn off certain PHP functions and features. Some people couldn't do what they wanted to do because of the tight PHP restrictions.

:)

EDIT:

BTW, I use GoDaddy's parent company/site Blue Razor (www.bluerazor.com) for domain registration. It's a membership based approach and is cheaper ($7.25/yr per domain) if you have lots of domain names (10+).

[JPnyc]

Ah, I didn't know that. PHP isn't 1 of the languages I code, which would explain it.

[Jason Batten]

www.servage.net

I was with powweb... if you want your server to be down use powweb they suck :)

[piersk]

I always recommend godaddy.com. I host a site there and directed all clients I've built sites for to them as well. I can't remember the last time the service was down.

Although I've never used them (I use http://www.netbunch.com and I've not really had problems) I have serious issues with godaddy after reading this (http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/43557)

[toplay]

...I have serious issues with godaddy after reading this (http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/43557)
Why? I ask because that Domains by Proxy (DBP) is just an option (service) with godaddy. You just wouldn't sign up for it because that service and others like it don't really give you a layer of privacy/protection (especially when it comes to legal matters). Their basic domain name registration service is just fine. All the info is public knowledge by default.

As that "delfuego" post says (from your link provided), you have to read their (and others) service agreement. It clearly states what you're allowing them to do.

It's just plain stupid for anyone to buy a service without first understanding and agreeing to their terms. This goes for godaddy and anything else like paypal.com (FYI: read the horror stories about them at http://www.paypalsucks.com/forums/).

For domain registrations, one can perhaps just use a PO Box and use their initials instead of paying extra money for some service option that is an illusion of privacy/security.

:)

[piersk]

So you'd be happy to pay money for a service and then not get that service?

[toplay]

So you'd be happy to pay money for a service and then not get that service?
I'm not sure if you're addressing my previous post or something else. I'll assume you are.

I'm not an employee of GoDaddy, but what I'm simply trying to share is that a person is getting exactly what they paid for per the companys service agreement. They haven't breached the agreement. Usually the consumer has not read the agreement prior to signing up and paying for the service. So, how is that the companys (GoDaddy's) fault? The person may feel they got conned or not getting the protection they think they were getting, and I can understand that if the company was trying to hide the agreement or something like that. But it's available for anyone to read. People who purchased the privacy service are probably just mad at themselves for paying money without investigating it further first.

At GoDaddy's legal page (https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/agreements.asp?se=%2B&ci=291), there's the Proxy agreement, and in part says:

4. DBP's rights to deny, suspend, terminate service and to disclose your personal information

1. You understand and agree that DBP has the absolute right and power, in its sole discretion and without any liability to You whatsoever, to either: (i) close Your account (which means You then become the Registrant of the domain name registration); (ii) reveal Your name and personal information that You provided to DBP when required by law, in the good faith belief that such action is necessary in order to conform to the edicts of the law, or to comply with a legal process served upon DBP; (iii) resolve any and all third party claims, whether threatened or made, arising out of Your use of a domain name registered by DBP on Your behalf; or (iv) take any other action DBP deems necessary: ...

DBP has the same/similar agreement found at their legal page too:
http://www.domainsbyproxy.com/LegalAgreement.aspx?prog_id=#

It just comes down to basic common sense and the old "buyer beware" mentality.

FYI:

A friend turned me onto Zend Technologies Ltd. because I was looking for an IDE. The Zend Studio Pro product is $299 and Zend Encoder is $960 which, IMO, are pretty expensive. They have a Zend Small Business Program (http://www.zend.com/store/products/zend-smallbiz.php) where the price is $395. At first glance this seems that small businesses can buy the product at a huge discount. However, it's not until you see the "1 Year" or "1 year subscription" comments do you realize that you don't really own the product, but rather leasing it on a year by year term (with a $299 annual renewal fee). To qualify as a small business you have to read their agreement to find out (and your company revenues has to be below $250K a year):
http://www.zend.com/store/products/eula_popup.php?pid=200

[Byrnie]

Powweb have PHP 4 and 5 available to use:
http://www.powweb.com

Have you used powweb? I'm evaluating a request for proposal, and it looks to me like taking the web application to production might be pretty hard (i.e., no Telnet) just to find my way around the site. Any one else have any experience?

If anybody wants to do this phase of the work: plug in a database, install a few PHP pages with email hooks, let me know :) . -Byrnie

[piersk]

I'm seriously considering getting a VM with these guys (http://www.bytemark.co.uk/index.html). At only £15 pm (about £2 a month more than I'm paying at the moment) it seems quite worth it. Anyone else used them or got their own VM somewhere else?

[maddog720]

1and1 is supposed to be pretty good.
1and1.com

[the_canuck]

Okay, this is a pretty old thread, but perhaps it will still have some interest.

I have a host to recommend (UnitedHosting.co.uk) and one to denounce (iPowerWeb).

I've had two accounts with United Hosting since the close of 2004 and I've been very pleased with them. Their customer support is outstanding. Though they don't offer phone support, they respond to most non-urgent support tickets with an hour (and I had an urgent ticket on a Sunday afternoon that they answered me on within two minutes; after a couple of back-and-forth's, the matter was resolved nine minutes after my first message to them). Oh, and they're quite cheap, too (starting at $8 bucks a month).

Now for the bad -- iPowerWeb.

Why do I hate them? Because they lied to me.

I was an iPowerWeb customer for about two-and-a-half years. As it happens, I only really used their hosting during the first year of that; we'd changed both domain names and hosts after that, and I maintained the iPowerWeb account out of habit (and perhaps as an eventual backup).

Recently I decided to cancel my account finally. To my shame, I waited until the day before the next three-month billing period to cancel; despite the late notice, I was assured by the iPowerWeb rep I spoke with on the phone that I'd been cancelled just in time. I then received an email saying, essentially, "We're sorry you want to cancel. Is there anything we can do? If you don't answer within 3 days, we'll ASSUME YOU'RE NOT CANCELLING AND KEEP BILLING YOU ANYWAY."

Now I'd already cancelled with them, right? So I think I'd be forgiven for merely glossing over this email and perceiving it as nothing more than something an after-the-fact request for info on why I'd cancelled. But that's not what this was -- it was negative billing, pure and simple: tell us NOT to bill you or we WILL bill you.

Do NOT use iPowerWeb.

... and that's all I have to say about that. :)

[dougal85]

www.aventurehost.com have always been good to me.

*edit*

They finally got PHP5 too. just as i was about to leave them

[michaewlewis]

http://www.lunarpages.com

[bpat1434]

I have to second the servage.net. I've been using them for a while, gotta love 'em. Easy to use, plenty of space. Nice and cheap.

[Sxooter]

All I can say is that if you're gonna need a whole farm of servers, stay the heck away from Savvis.

Those guys are utterly lost most of the time. They try hard, but man, are they clueless.

[Jason Batten]

Anyone know any great hosts ( and cheap :) ) with PHP5 / MySQL5 with servers in the USA?

[bpat1434]

Servage.net

Less than $10 / month with 250 gigs Storage, 2100 gigs Tx, unlimited email, unlimited domains, PHP 4 & 5 (5 is CGI), MySQL 4 & 5 (your choice at database creation), PHP Safe-Mode, Register Globals, and Safe-Mode GID switches and much more (including "S:" drive ;))

Only catch is you have to pay on a payment plan. Right now I've got the reseller account, but am not allowed to make any more customers (getting rid of it) but I had to pay XX up-front, then the rest is just like a bank. I put funds in, then they subtract as needed. Pretty nice set up. Deposit like $50 bucks in, a few months later, go back and deposit another $50 or so.

[stolzyboy]

i just signed up for a reseller at hostgator.com, seems great so far, they have php 4 and php5, not sure on mysql5, i know they have mysql4 tho

[bpat1434]

i just signed up for a reseller at hostgator.com, seems great so far, they have php 4 and php5, not sure on mysql5, i know they have mysql4 tho
I had an account with them a while ago. Hated every minute of it. Their support with me was horrendous, and it wasn't worth the money. Eventually I switched to bitesites.com, and then went to Servage. I've loved servage since I've been with them. Couldn't ask for a better group of people.

[jonlink]

I use lunarpages and really like it
http://lunarpages.com/

their prices are good, the customer service is good, and you get what (to me) is a great amount of space, bandwidth, and options— the best I've seen in that price range ($7/month)

MOD EDIT: Jupitermedia's AUP doesn't allow any form of solicitations and whatnot, so we can't allow referral links and the like to be posted. Sorry!

JON EDIT: Sorry about that. Even if I can't get the affiliate dollars, I still recommend them.

[Elizabeth]

Well after my server was down from about 8 pm last night until 6 am this morning, I think it's time to switch. We've used Lypha since 2003 and I've always been patient with the infrequent (but present nevertheless) outages... but this is ridiculous. Especially since there was no notification or communication to us, and we're resellers so all my client's sites were down as well. Ouch. I think I'm going to take bpat's suggestion and check out servage.net. I'm also looking in to rackspace just because of their awesome uptime record, but I know they're pretty pricey for their managed hosting.

[Jason Batten]

www.servage.net

I was with powweb... if you want your server to be down use powweb they suck :)
That's from the first page ;)

Don't know how many times I have said servage... pretty sure their servers are not in the USA.

[stolzyboy]

That's from the first page ;)

Don't know how many times I have said servage... pretty sure their servers are not in the USA.

that is one reason i didn't choose servage, as there was conflicting information on where the actual servers were

dunno if you get any deal or not if you use my referral link or not at hostgator, but here it is just for giggles: http://secure.hostgator.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=codesight

[Jason Batten]

http://whois.domaintools.com/62.214.98.127

Conflict no more?, Denmark it seems :)

[stolzyboy]

i'm not sure where, it's been a little while, but i thought they have a datacenter in dallas as well... i could be wrong, but i thought i read it, lol...

i was in correspondence with them(stephen - the owner?) when i emailed sales... and he was not too helpful, do not ask them more than 1 question at a time or they won't answer them, why, i dunno...

he just seemed a bit odd when corresponding with him... one thing i like about HG is the live online support where they can answer pretty much everything as far as config/simple questions/etc... if not, you can get ahold of different support which they'll point you to

i've only had these guys a week and have chatted with them quite often as i was not used to whm/cpanel (i'm from the ensim world), and they've been nothing but helpful

everyone always has different experiences and NO host will be trouble free or have circumstances where one person can go years w/ no troubles and the next guy gets screwed right away and the whole time

stolzyboy

[bpat1434]

Well after my server was down from about 8 pm last night until 6 am this morning, I think it's time to switch. We've used Lypha since 2003 and I've always been patient with the infrequent (but present nevertheless) outages... but this is ridiculous. Especially since there was no notification or communication to us, and we're resellers so all my client's sites were down as well. Ouch. I think I'm going to take bpat's suggestion and check out servage.net. I'm also looking in to rackspace just because of their awesome uptime record, but I know they're pretty pricey for their managed hosting.
I looked into Rackspace as well. They were pricey!! But it's managed dedicated hosting. Load balancing, redundancy, battery backup. The works essentially. Now, with that in mind, you might want to look at Logicworks (http://logicworks.net/) for managed hosting. Located in NYC, NY you can build your own custom design of stuff (load balanced, fire-walled, Web Server, File Server, DB engines, SAN storage, application servers, External storage, private servers, general servers and probably more.

But here's a small image for you to look at for a few moments.... my dream :)
Uh.... I hate [img] tags.... first they don't work, then they do. Anywho... here's a link. The image is quite large. Click here (http://phpbuilder.bpatterson.net/myCluster.png)

[piersk]

But here's a small image for you to look at for a few moments.... my dream :)
Uh.... I hate [img] tags.... first they don't work, then they do. Anywho... here's a link. The image is quite large. Click here (http://phpbuilder.bpatterson.net/myCluster.png)

How do you get to that? I'm looking for some hosts that can provide this sort of service at the moment...

[stolzyboy]

lol, $37,000 monthly :)

[bpat1434]

You get it if you go to logicworks.net and then on the left click "Build a custom solution". You have to "register" so they collect your email and such, but that's so they can contact you proactively about it. I've gotten one email, and I've played in there quite a bit. They're easy to ignore if you want, or you can talk to them.

lol, $37,000 monthly
Heh.... some of us plan on winning the lottery ;) Up to 54 million, that's around 27 million take-home cash (conservative estimate). 27 million, compounded daily at 4% interest (.04/365) is 0.000109589% per day or: $2,958.90 per day in interest alone. Multiply that times 20 days: $59,178.06 every 20 days. So $37,000.00 monthly will be no problem :)

Now.... off to go buy enough lottery tickets to guarantee me that win!!

[stolzyboy]

lemme know how that works out for ya :)

[bpat1434]

Heh... I just researched it a bit online, 25% to the Feds, and only 4.75% to my state!! So I get 70.25%!!!! 70.25% of 54 million is $37,935,000!! So my daily interest gain is: $4, 157.26. So I could make that $30k in a week!!! Haha... Let me tell you... if I ever won the lottery, i'd love it. I'd finish school, pay everything back immediately, get myself out of debt, get rid of the credit cards, and live off the interest!!

[piersk]

Hehe I doubt mine would be that extensive, in fact probably no where near, so it might be worth playing around a bit to see how much it would cost.

[sree06]

can check with http://www.powerlinuxhosting.com/

[piersk]

That scared me for a moment. 5999 p/a? Thats a bit expensive. Then I noticed that it was an Indian company...:o

[pohopo]

I have had great a experience with jodohost.com, I have been with them for over 3 years and my sites are always up. And they have real 24/7 online support and they do periodic backups which I had to use once which saved my butt. The biggest thing though is if you are a reseller you have a control panel where you can create Windows or Linux accounts. This is great for someone that does some coding in the evil .NET language.

This is not the cheapest host in the world, but I have learned you usually get what you pay for.

[piersk]

Has anyone tried media temple (http://www.mediatemple.net/)? They look really good and i know that they're used by big websites like TechCrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com/), but I don't know anyone else who's used them.

[greenie2600]

I use ThinkHost (http://www.thinkhost.com), and I've been quite satisfied. Never had any problems with downtime.