Who do you host with?

So who does everyone use for their webhosts? What sort of experiences have you had? Who do you avoid?

Im currently using godaddy for all my small sites and I can not complain- cheap, reliable and fast :) Works a treat for my lower end sites.

I'm with Valcatohosting.com, no downtime, great support, is what I look for in a host, so I chose them

I use a colocated server by Otenet wich is the bigest provider here in Greece. It is not like a host in the Usa but I had to do this as my clients are from Greece and this way it is better for them. Before that I was using hostsave from which I am dissapointed, because I had to cancel my credit card in order to stop them billing my sites.....

Its so annoying when people dont listen and carry on billing your card - has happened to me about 5 years ago with fasthosts! I think they took two extra payments after I cancelled the hosting - Only ever got one of the payments back :(

Yes it is too bad for you and I believe that scummers like them create a bad name to the ecommerce in general.

Right now I am hosted with http://rescuehosting.com. They are very very cheap and reliable. I have been with them for about 2 years now.

I use www.hostfor2bucks.com. Costs me 24$ a year and comes with a free domain so I like them.

That's really cheap, but I suppose that you get what you give....

Is that right?

http://www.hostfor2bucks.com seems really cheap but if you take away the domain http://rescuehosting.com gives you much more for 15 dollars. And does theirs come with cPanel or Fantastico? Thanks for the link, incase resucehosting decides to shutdown for some reason.

Just tried visiting hostfor2bucks.com - page is still loading on my 2mb line after 1 minute - hmmm not really a good advert for their services if their own website takes an age to load. :(

I believe this is the most important rule of commerce: You get what you pay

Not a truer word has been said :)

If you want some good host suggestions try http://tophosts.com

My host is http://www.1and1.com  They provide a good service, they're very well known and they have fairly nice prices.

I don't have any hosting right now but I used to use http://www.globat.com/

Has anyone hosted with glookihost.com before? Their plans look pretty good.

I've just visit their site and it seems to be ok.

But I would suggest you to make a search before you buy an account because you never know...

Before I bought my own server I was using hostsave which is a very good company, with very good plans, etc.

When I finally decided to stop hosting with them, they continued to bill my card for several months, and in the end I had to cancel my card in order to stop them bill it!

i use www.mega-host.org as they are fast reliable and cheap.

he is also a mate of mine so i get hosting for free off him anyway

lol

I'm with asmallorange.com right now, as I said in another thread. Very pleased with the service. I'm on their $5 Small plan - covers my needs great. Plus, there's A LOT of room to grow.

well right now i use http://redz.us , i tried godaddy.com hosting before but they use plesk as their control panel and i am use to cpanel which is the best.

I use tektonic.net, as they are one of few VPS proviers that allow proxys (h)

If you host multiple domain names, I recommend HostMonster.com.  It was the cheapest I could find that provides unlimited domains on one account.  Free private registration and Free 24/7 phone support.

I use Lunarpages. Quite reliable. Might not be best for newbie webmaster as their support team while fairly fast can sometimes rely a bit on "Not my job, tis yours as the webmaster" excuse.

Only 1 downtime in 16 months. Another business in building had a fire and fire dept made LP turn off generator. Was down for a few hours. They posted notices in the forum - I liked that they actually said, yes we were down.

I am no longer going to recommend this host. Recent days (Jan '07) have shown that they are quite young and inexperienced when it comes to dealing with security threats as reflected by their recent over-reaction to an old problem. I would refer you to a long thread in their forums where so many of their customers are reporting problems and LP offerring NO assurances that this will not happen again in the future; but it would appear they have deleted it - which to me is more offensive than the original problem.

Guess I'll be reviewing the other replies in this thread in search of a new home for my sites.  I'm not a very happy camper.

We use two hosts for our clients Dreamhosting which provides really good general hosting and has ROR support as well as Quicktime and real streaming servers and Media Temple Grid Hosting which uses clusters for all its web hosting packages which makes it really good for larger sites.

[post edited]

Hey Tim, affiliate links are not allowed here. Please edit your post :)

sorry cut and paste job...

No worries my friend :)

Since a few month I'm very happy with this dutch based company (they have international customer too):
http://pcextreme.nl/

My sites are hosted on a 1and1 server that is based in Germany.

It costs about $160 per month, but is very fast and so far has been very reliable.

I have heard bad reports of 1and1 in the USA, but the one that I am with is great. No problems so far  ;)

Is this $160 for dedicated or shared hosting?  ???

For $160 a month they would have to be the best, have you thought about cheaper options such as building yourself a data centre?

one more question why are you using German 1&1 when you and your site are UK based?

I use a number of shared plans and most seem pretty good but so far I have been pleased with https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ and not only for the low cost. I can't comment on the available support because so far the FAQ has told me what I need to know. :)

pay as you go hosting an interesting idea, though it has its worrying side


Wouldn't want to get dugged and slashdotted!

LOL Not really a problem for me, but I might be willing to pay to see it!

I've been using pair.com for running 10 years now.  I also have a site at godaddy but I prefer Pair.

I signed up with 1and1.co.uk but there server is based in Germany!

How odd I use to live less then 20 miles from 1&1 datacentre, its on the out skirts of London it was at least according to their marketing hype one of the fastest in the world as it had a fibre connection to the docklands. Still your hosting has to be pretty special or your needs overwhelming to require such large payments?

Well I have my main site http://www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk/

Plus the forum- http://www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk/forum1/index.php

and the directory- http://www.directory.ultimatehandyman.co.uk/

Last month my site had 500,000 page views, That is without the directory as I only started to advertise it yesterday.

My forum used to be on shared hosting and it crashed a few times and the forum members used to get mad, especially as it crashed when I was in Crete and it was down for 3 days!

The directory was on a linux shared server snd when I got to 1000 categories it slowed right down, I moved to VPS and it was not much better, plus to my suprise there was no online help for the VPS.

I have a couple of small sites on the server as well, it should meet my needs for the future!

Sounds like you have been through the wars a bit, you can get good hosts that have decent hardware at more competitive prices but if 1&1 give you peace of mind then I guess they have to be worth it for you.

Good luck with the directory by the way, though one tip you might want to use http://directory... rather then www as it stands it already resolves correctly, but some search engines have a problem determining relevancy to the original site if you use www prior to a sub domain.

Thanks for the tip  ;)

I used to use Techark.com. They are fantastic. They are very reliable, but if the server does go down, they will and I mean will tell you why and when that server will be back up. They also keep you upto date with any scheduled server down time.

Sadly I don't use them anymore due to the fact they are based in the US and not in the UK.

And what is the problem with that?

If its an ecommerce site, UK and US law are some what different its a pig to organise privacy policies when your server is based in a country that effectively has none. In the UK and ecommerce site must comply with the Data protection, Data retention acts and if they collect the credit card details must have the correct Data protection certificates. Unfortunately the US laws are very different and basic means you can't comply with the data protection act and therefore can't get your certificates. Most UK companies don't actually realise this and leave themselves wide open to law suits. Of course the easiest way around this is not to process clients details through your site or set up a holding company in the US. Its the same for all EU countries though some are less stringent then others though expect it to become a big issue when the lawyers realise how much money they can make.

I host with Zambini (a friend of mine) so far have had 2 downtimes in 3 months (1 MySQL and 1 site). Pretty good for 7.30 USD/month. I get 3000 MB of storage and 300 GB of transfer, besides unlimited databases, emails, subdomains, and has a very easy CPanel to learn. I can host up to 10 domains on my account.

If I had to choose again, I'd go with HostingRevolution (http://hostingrevolution.com) for my site. Cheapest plan is just US$10/month, but that's for 1000 MB of storage and 10GB of transfer per month, besides unlimited stuff like above.

I am with hostgator.com. I had prblems at beginning, but now I am satisfied with this hosting.

I use the cheapest reseller hosting I could find http://resellerzoom.com/
it has its downtimes but mostly uptimes
but you get what you pay for
as a wise person said in this same thread ;)

Edit: I forgot to mention http://doorhost.net/ which I use for personal projects only, they probably cost me more than my reseller account but I have been with them for more than 4 years with very few problems - so few I barely remembered they existed  :)

some downtimes are OK if your customers doesn't have complains :) but at the end you want to have 100% uptime, I tried a lot of these overselling hosting companies, now I have my customers website by a reseller in Holland and have 0% downtimes (and I can sleep well):D

I'm planning on switching to another host...as I keep getting ideas, and want each to have it's own domain name, as well as the ability for adult sites as well ;) .

Hey I thought you had a network about Christ :P

For adult sites I think hosting should be a taught one. I guess you will need a dedicated server for this, but I don't really know as I don't have any adult site

Due to the severe legal aspects of an adult site you will, find it easier to host outside the normal countries (I.e not the US and not in the EU) but the best bet is a dedicated server in some African coast country or better still don't!

Yes, most hosts don't allow adult content on their servers unless you get a dedicated server. There are however hosting providers that are specialized in adult site hosting.

Duh...that's why I've got to switch.

(Besides about having a Christ site, doesn't automatically make me a 100% fanatical Christian - I'm more liberal in my views.)

WhiteEagle

We are with intermedia[dot]net -- very happy with the services.  They have a private label exchange hosting program that is working very well for us.

[edit Mind_nl: removed the link, if anyone is interested they can type it in the address bar]

I think hostgator is a nice option for your average site.  Much more reliable than GoDaddy.

Just coming from the details page from hostfor2bucks.com. Why didn't they sack the designer? This page is not readable even with glasses on! Sorry...
I myself have most of my sites on Blue Host. Good price and very good service. Here are the details.
Beware though; if you host many sites and interlink those sites it is recommendable to host them on more than one host with different physical locations!

My hosters:

esthost.com
hqhost.net
webazilla.com

I used HostGator.com but now want to change it.

Well I am using godaddy earlier but later on I came to know that its quite expensive and they are also not giving you the value of your money. So now I am looking for good hosting may be hostgator or if you guys have any other suggestion than please advice ...

A couple of great hosts I have been with in the past:
1- InnoHosting.com
2- mjmwebtech.com

both were really good to me when i needed them and when/if i ever need a host agan i will have a hard time deciding between the two. check em out


EDIT no affiliate links here

Trying to look for a reliable host. Which is better? Hostgator or bluehost?

I'm using MediaTemple and there great:)

Hostgator all the way, never use GODADDY tho!

Last company I was using were marblehost.com. I can say now, I can recommend them as good provider for shared hosting... Their free features rock!

I use SeoHosting.  They have all the familiar tools, reliable but you get a better price elsewhere.

I'm using 1and1 right now but I can't seem to get clean urls working. I don't think they offer support for this feature so i would need that, obviously mysql and php, ftp and some email addresses. I'm not sure what I would need for space (database space and web space), this is my first project with mysql so any suggestions would be appreciated.