Web hosting
From Dar
A page to collate tips and comparisons of different web hosting services
( see also email list hosting )
Contents |
intro
It's very important to use a good web hosting service but what makes a good one?
Costs vary enormously. Location can be a factor. Pricing schemes vary as well. Some hosts 'oversell'. Some have affiliate schemes. Is fantastico desirable? Why so many different C-Panels?
forum
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/
UK Web hosting
The Webways
Fast, Reliable and Afforable Web Hosting from The Webways
Business package on special from £7.49 a month with unlimited domains, unlimited everything else they claim. Worth a try?
Webhost.uk.Net
http://www.webhost.uk.net/reseller_hosting.html
WebhostUK LTD offers "Affordable and Reliable UK Reseller Webhosting at Low pricing".
also http://www.webhosting.uk.net "Cheap and Reliable VPS and Dedicated UK Web Hosting".
RSHosting UK
Friendly, reliable and secure web hosting on servers located in United Kingdom. Specializes in offering managed web hosting solutions with lightening fast 24/7 support
http://www.positive-internet.com/
Used by Bad Science and,it would seem, Stephen Fry. Copes well with lots of traffic and starts at quite reasonable prices.
Others
http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/
http://ukwebsolutionsdirect.co.uk/hosting.php
- Used these to host my blog http://www.danielsiddle.co.uk . Seem reasonably priced and decent support. Not great with Wordpress straight out of the box but it doesn't take much to get it going. All in all pretty happy with them so far, 4 months and counting.
http://www.positive-internet.co.uk/ "excellent and reasonable priced"
http://www.xcalibre.co.uk/index.html
webhosting.uk.net
First UK hosting I've seen with a pricing structure more like the US model. Unlimited domains
DC Hosting
Ends up expensive and they block access to xmlrpc on some servers. No PHP5 available yet. System status messages are 10 month out of date. Mysql server long term unreliable.
Clook
http://www.clook.co.uk/ - Clook - very reliable, superb 24x7 real UK support, small company who refuse to grow too fast. I have used them as a reseller for 4 years and host 60 accounts. Currently no offering for RoR. Slgavin 20:17, 4 March 2008 (GMT)
I've had several problems with an entry level account at Clook that they don't resolve. The support process is particularly unhelpful, and at times quite rude.
United Hosting
comes highly recommended for friendly support and reliability
default "Piki" install produces:
MediaWiki (http://wikipedia.sf.net/): 1.4.15 PHP (http://www.php.net/): 4.4.4 (cgi) MySQL (http://www.mysql.com/): 4.1.20-log
No ability to unpack archive files at the server from the control panel, only by using command line access.
Recently upgraded everything over to PHP5.
bionic-hosting.co.uk
A small new hosting service based in docklands. Good telephone support reported, willing to customise cpanel to meet requirements, Live support online and a users forum.
Here's some more:
http://www.bargainhost.co.uk/ Bold text
US web hosting
Webhost.US.Com
http://www.Webhost.US.Com is one of the best leading and fast growing Web Hosting Company offering cheap, reliable and affordable web hosting, Domain Registration, SSL Certificate and Backup solutions. WebHost US is specialize in offering quality Customer service and value for money web hosting in US and across the globe.
- Siteground
recently converted to http://www.siteground.com, they have a control panel which allows you to quickly create sub-domains and even to automatically load VLEs such as Moodle or Blogs such as Word Press. It costs approx £45 a year and I have found it very efficient so far.
- RSHosting.com
Offering the most reliable, secure and cheap web hosting on our servers located in US datacenter. Plan starting from as low as $1.25 per month, RSHosting specializes in offering managed web hosting solutions.
- http://zensix.com/ starts at $15 a year
- Dreamhost very popular. Includes mediawiki autoinstaller
- Bluehost also popular $6.99 a month if you buy 2 years. Overseller. Can be problematic with CPU usage but improving
- http://asmallorange.com/ are cool webhosts
http://www.acceleratebiz.com/web_hosting.html - uses Hsphere control panel with Linux hosting
http://www.logicworks.net/ for heavy traffic sites, no prices displayed
http://www.vip-hosting.com/ starts at $4.95 pm Hsphere recommended sequential autoresponder
Lifestream Web Hosting
Sweetcron and Wordpress hosting at http://www.golifestream.com/ also 130% Wind Powered
free webhosting
Seems to have robots.txt set to disallow all, so no use if you want any search engine traffic.
Wordpress Webhosting
Not wordpress.com but a webhost dedicated to hosting WP blogs
EU web hosting
Doesn't work with mediawiki straight out of the box but got there after a few days. Unlimited added domains
WordPress autoinstall script only installs 2.3.1 and you have to create .htaccess manually before upgrade permalinks works.
Survey
- Who Do You Host With?
For US targeted sites I host with ASmallOrange, PowerVPS, BlueHost and a few other resellers. For my UK sites I use Clook.”
I’ve had dedicated servers with many different hosts, and RackSpace is the best. They’re more expensive than some other companies, but they live up to their claim of “fanatical support.” Their staff is incredibly fast, responsive and helpful.”
We host at a number of places, tests that have accumulated over the years, but the one that we do the most with is LiquidWeb. We have several dedicated servers there running on a private network with load balancing.
I’ve also been experimenting with several of the VPS/Cloud providers out there, Mosso, Slicehost, GoGrid, and Linode. I think we’re settling on Linode for fast deployment of servers. Hopefully this solution will help us scale better than we have been able to in the past.
- What are the most important features in choosing a web host for you?
Uptime and speed of response of support, ideally being able to contact them 24/7 via IM or phone.
Reputation of the host, uptime, customer service and technical support.
For us, the single most important feature is the ability to customize the server. We do a lot with custom code and need to be able to install apache modules, compile PHP, add in libraries and compile third party code. This is another reason we’re shifting away from Cpanel servers as we find we’re working around Cpanel more and more with the stuff we do.
- Good and bad hosting experiences. Do you have any tips?
Don’t rely on just your host for backups, do your own as well. If a host accidentally deletes all your data; get them to restore from a backup and move to another host BEFORE telling them exactly what you think of their crappy service
Ask around on forums on which companies others are using. And don’t bargain hunt – I did that in the past and wound up with a company that only kept a one-day backup of my files. The long and short is that I was operating a forum and it was hacked (I didn’t keep an archive of the files locally), and the host didn’t respond to me within 24 hours of the hacking. They simply wouldn’t answer my calls or emails for an entire business day. During that time, their system overwrote my backup with the hacked version and I lost two years of content.
You can save a lot of money by buying a year or two of hosting instead of monthly. Read the small print, but typically you’ll get refunded for what you don’t use, even if you buy in advance.
tools
Who Is Hosting This is a tool that enables you to find out who is hosting any web site. Simply type in any domain name, and you'll get a link to the company that's hosting this particular domain. It's that simple!
