No, I’m not moving Lorelle on WordPress. In spite of the limitations, I adore blogging on my WordPress.com blog.
However, for over three years I’ve been dealing with a web host from hell for several of my other blogs.
It began with promises of less than 24 hours to activate my site and transfer the domain which turned into six weeks of hell, excuses, and lousy customer support. The horrors continued with massive site downtimes, excuses for lousy service, failure to upgrade PHP, MySQL, and Apache so I couldn’t even have permalinks until recently, copy and paste online technical support, and then the killer of lowering the database access level without warning by over 75% and claiming that one of my blogs crashed the shared database and I was to blame. They lowered the number. They continue to blame WordPress and my blog for being the troublemaker. I’ve had WordPress experts go in and dig around and all come up with the answer that this web host sucks.
I should have ended it at the very beginning when all the signs were in that these folks were lousy. I was preparing to move back to the states and the timing stank. As with all businesses who make money on the impatience and no follow through of their customers, I gave up.
My blogs have long been testing grounds for WordPress Themes and WordPress Plugins, as I put them through their paces and report back to the authors on what to fix and improve. There is a lot of my blog code in the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress users, and on this blog as examples for the WordPress Lessons and other Theme and template file and template tag pages. A personal favorite and major accomplishment is the Category Templates – Replacing Multiple Category Templates With One section. Some of the most brilliant WordPress minds and I worked together to create a single category template file that would generate a custom look for every category, which replaced over 40 category template files with one. A work of art for code fans.
For the past year, posting more than one article on the blog crashes the database so I’ve been very careful with it, turning off almost all my WordPress Plugins, changing template tags links like categories and Pages into static links, working slowly and hoping the answers we brought them would force them to change their database restriction policy. It hasn’t, and they certainly don’t seem to understand that I have a really big mouth. 😉
I need to change web host servers. The timing stinks again but I’m at my wit’s end.
Help Me Find a Great Web Host
What features do you think are the best to look for in a web host, especially for one hosting a WordPress blog?
Personally, I want someone who will work with me and for me and I will work with them with my big mouth. While I believe the best web host is the invisible one, I’m willing to put my new web host out front and center to let the world know that they are doing right by their customers. If they aren’t, the world will hear that, too.
Bandwidth is an issue, not just for the web traffic but to also provide a safety net against the increasing number of comment spams consuming bandwidth and hammering databases as well as hungry search engine crawlers consuming bandwidth, database, and all site resources when they come to feed on your site.
Storage is also important as I have a lot of images and will be increasing that dramatically over the next two years as I finish publishing several books including photography books.
Flexibility is a requirement. I would like to use subdomains and separate domains to bring my self-hosted blogs under one roof. I might even like to try a forum.
Updated versions of PHP, MySQL, and Apache are required. Not the latest, but the most current and stable versions would suit me.
I’m fascinated with the idea of using Fantastico to make upgrading WordPress easier than it is for me now.
I want the transition between the two servers to be brainless. I have to do this soon and I don’t want to put much energy into the process.
With that information, what other features should I be looking at? And if you do recommend a web host, be very specific with why. What really impresses you about their services?
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117 Comments
Everybody that asks this questions gets told to try out A Small Orange. I’ve not tried them myself as I am happy with my hosting. They are apparently WP friendly.
You could also look at some of the hosting on the WP Hosting Page:
Maybe you need the control and flexibility of having your own dedicated server? If needed, it could be managed.
Shared hosting leaves you with little control, having the one benefit of being cheaper.
I’ve been hosting with PowWeb for about 5 years with my various blogs and websites. A year ago or so I had problems with database connectivity intermittently but no more.
These days it’s easy breezy.
Yes, very flexible. Unlimited subdomains.
Here’s what I like about this host:
1) AutoInstallers [for WordPress, or other platforms and CMS’s, shopping carts, other things I am not interested in…AND forums…and chat rooms too I think.]
– Although you still may have to upgrade to latest versions but it’s an easy walk through to do it this way.
2) A forum for members so if you ever have any technical issues or want to see service issues and communicate with other members.
3) An awesome help ticket system from your private login. Even if a problem has been resolved within 5 minutes “all by itself seemingly” Tech still responds.
4) Ability to engage in greylisting, blacklisting, or whitelisting of email addresses for the domain.
5) You can set up your own DNS information if you want to – pointing other domain names to a particular site. I really do like the whole self-serve features of this host; Can you tell?
6) A comprehensive billing system to let you know when you were billed, when you’re next billed and so forth.
7) Specs from their page:
$5.99 per month
300 GB Disk Space
3000 GB/mo Bandwidth
Unlimited Mailboxes
75 MySQL Databases
Site/Database Backups
Load-Balancing
InstallCentral
24/7 A+ Support
8) Affiliate program…and speaking of:
I make money some spending tokens if you sign up.
Host your Web site with PowWeb
All of my websites but for one are hosted on PowWeb servers. My clients I have put on PowWeb servers. I am happy with PowWeb…tickled pink for the service at the price they offer it.
I hope this has been helpful.
I have hosted with DreamHost for over two years now and I have never had a problem. The downtime is minimal, you can host unlimited domains, and they give you a boatload of bandwidth when you first sign up.
They have a custom web panel that offers all the tools you’d need to manage your hosting services, domain, and WordPress installs. Their one-click-installs panel allows you to upgrade your WordPress installation without touching an FTP client.
Finally, you get secure shell access if you really need to dig around on your domains or do some hardcore shell scripting. All this, and its very, very affordable. There are plenty of coupon codes floating around the net for DreamHost, including up to $97 off a year of hosting on their Crazy Insane Domain plan (which should be more than adequate for most non-enterprise users.)
Now, I know this sounds like a hard sell, but I wholeheartedly recommend DreamHost to anyone who asks for a great host. Check them out.
I’m hopelessly enamored of StartLogic, which as far as I can recall has NEVER been down. And since I’m nobody’s expert, I wouldn’t trade their (free, 24/7) tech support for anything on earth. They keep their WordPress install up-to-date, they have special offers for multiple accounts, they… well, they’re great, that’s all. 🙂
I can’t tell you how many hosting services we tried over the past five years, but I can tell you that absolutely none are as reliable and responsive as Hostgator. In my assistant’s words, “the Nordstrom of hosting services,” though not nearly as expensive.
For your needs and a very reasonable price I would recommend hosting with profitgate.net – they even pick up the phone within 2 rings almost 24/7.
I’ve used Start Logic and Dream host and while Start Logic is good Dream Host is hands down the best out there.
Lorelle, you didn’t say who you are using, but I use Bluehost. They have Fantastico. You can have forums and even wikis easily installed. You have a lot of subdomains, but I can’t remember how many. At any rate, my three education blogs, genealogy blog, personal blog, Harry Potter blog, cooking blog, and two children’s blogs are all on subdomains and I haven’t run out yet. You also get additional domains on the same account pretty cheaply, but I can’t remember exactly how much. The customer support has been very good. They have online help tickets, chat, and phone support, so you can take your pick. They also have forums with users who can sometimes help. They’re good about staying current with MySQL and PHP. I have never had any problems with my WordPress blogs on them, at any rate. I don’t have unlimited bandwidth, but it is very high, and I have tons of storage space. I am a bit of a neophyte with databases, but the way it works on my host is that you can create your own databases, and you can make multiple ones. I have a different one for each of my blogs. I am not sure how the transition would be, but I bet Bluehost would help.
They oughta being paying me for this! At any rate, I like them. They’re good.
I have both DreamHost and HostGator; I’ve never had any trouble with any of them. They both fix issues fast, if there is any. Dreamhost can be a bit strange to deal with at first as they run php as cgi. HostGator offers cpanel with fantastico – however, your really shouldn’t use that for upgrading WP as they are _slow_ to update their packages. DreamHost is not. – They have one-click install/ upgrade as well.
There is no better host than Media Temple – http://www.mediatemple.net
I’ve been using web hosts for 10+ years and have changed from any and everything, including Parcom, Dreamhost, Site5, everyone. And out of every last host, I still prefer and still suggest Media Temple above all others. For what you’re looking for exactly, they do everything right. I had some troubles personally on their Grid server in terms of usage, but that’s because our site grew and we’ve had to upgrade continuously. However for your interest and for your needs, the Grid server is perfect.
– It’s affordable, for one, great price for GREAT features.
– You get the power of a full dedicated server most of the time and it really boosts when you need it. Say you get dugg it has a unique feature to handle that. You can read about that at their site.
– Their tech support is probably the BEST I have EVER used. It’s 24/7 and via telephone. None of that e-mail crap. They take care of it right away. They sometimes have phone queues, but I’ve never had to wait more than 15 minutes. And their staff aren’t idiots.
– PHP, mysql, Apache, all on a linux machine, none of that Windows crap
– Awesome back-end control panel, everything you’d ever need for basic users
I think that covers everything important. Honestly, they really are a great host for affordable and small-to-mid-size needs. You’ll find they’re fantastic once you look into them, even if you move to one of their dedicated virtual solutions.
I’m a complete beginner with web hosts and wordpress but I took the advice of someone more experiences and went with MidPhase. It’s been great for me and I can’t imagine how much better it would be if I actually knew what I was doing! The staff is very helpful and responds quickly.
I’ve been a client of Hostaga for over a year, even though for Israelis it’s recommended to use Israeli hosting companies. I’m very happy with them. If I were to choose anyone else but them I would go with Dreamhost but they don’t offer quarterly payments while Hostaga do.
I’ll reiterate the recommendation of Dreamhost. I was actually referred to them by SlackerManager, she he’d drop his vote in for them, too.
I think we should be told who the present host is!
I use hugehost.com – they have three different hosting plans for CHEAP. Other than the “basic” plan, you get 25 databases and can point multiple domains to your hosting site by using folders to separate them in your FTP spaces. I use the mid-range hosting for my private sites and the basic for the site I run for my quilting guild.
They also offer a multitude of free software installs – WordPress 2.1 among them.
There is 24/7 call-in tech support and also email tech support. They have a multitude of add-ons (I haven’t investigated further because I don’t require them). I have had them for almost a year and they have only been down twice – both times back up within a few hours of noticing it.
I have had to call a few times and they were very helpful for this “newbie” of hosting accounts. I am very pleased with their services.
I do not think I am in a situation to really recommend anyone i have tried. I have shared accounts with Lunar Pages and Hostgator, both of which have been good. I have a reseller account and Reseller Zoom but I would not recommend it to you because they do have some odd permissions settings.
Before you try Dreamhost you may want to check on their permissions and scripts policy too.
I agree with the other commenter, you should probably look into a dedicated or virtual server. This is more expensive but is really worth risking your income to complain about a $10 host. When I move up in hosting, I’ll be looking at hosts like Prohoster and Beachcomber. Both of these have multiple data centers for redundancy. Rackspace is also well know for rock solid hosting.
I host with Dreamhost, but I would no longer call myself a “happy Dreamhoster”. I’m a Dreamhoster. I have had no problems with them on my personal sites, but have had EXTENSIVE problems with their support on another group project (separately hosted), which makes me moderately unhappy, but not dissatisfied enough to move (yet. Next major outage, maybe.) They have oodles of space, bandwidth and features, ’tis true. However, for every correctly-answered support query of mine, I have one or two others that are COMPLETELY misunderstood by their “knowledgable” staff.
I am recommending MidPhase to my clients. I am considering both MidPhase and Media Temple for myself.
Hi,
couldn’t resist answering with some shameless self promotion – you might wish to consider a down to earth hosting solution run by guys who work and live in symbiosis with web servers and know exactly your needs and requirements. We set up one of the first WWW servers in Italy in 1995. Systems management, seo, and HTML are the fundamental ingredients that make us so different from other realities.
We’re not big or famous, but we know the ins and outs of the business, and can meet your expectations in a timely fashion.
Right now we are relying of a great server farm providing unlimited high speed bandwidth – we do the rest tuning, monitoring and protecting the servers.
Sound good enough ?
Obviously there is no language or cultural barrier …
Cheers,
Sante
I use godaddy. It may not be the best or cheapest (but it has some great ads!) 🙂 but I use them because I’m a newbie at all this support stuff and the longest I’ve ever had to wait for support was 6 minutes. Then they’ve walked me through the solution or referred it to the tech backroom for a solution.
And all the problems I’ve had have been solved quickly and efficiently. The only problem they couldn’t solve was around a corrupted backup to WP – a humongeous file with perhaps a thousand pictures. I had to reinstall and start over. Oh well.
But the service has been good and I’m impressed with that.
I too vote for Dreamhost.
I have 5 wordpress blogs there and very much appreciate the 1-click install and upgrade facility. Bags of space and bandwidth and find control when you need it.
They do a referral system with voucher codes: use SOAPY and get $55 off your hosting.
I’ve been using 1and1 for the rock bottom prices. Big Space and Bandwidth. Can’t say too much about support, but what do you want for nearly nothing? Everything has worked as advertised.
BTW, coincidentally I read that category template page about 5 times today. Kinda thought it would be easier. Somehow I can’t figure it out…I guess I’ll be looking forward to some type of mental breakthrough tonight. Right?
i guess i’m the first to suggest it, but i’ve been hosting at http://www.site5.com for a couple years now and they are really great. i have a multisite account and host dozens of friends websites, each with multiple databases, and there’s been no sluggishness or crashes ever. i think they’re comparable with dreamhost and media temple and offer a lot more flexibility. support is ok too: ticket-based or go to the forums where they’re very active.
my two cents. and btw, great blog. your 30 day review of plugins was awesome.
I’ve used DreamHost for over 10 years now. I’ve never had any issues with service and they are definitely a great value. They’re funny too.
Like Dana Huff above, I use Bluehost. Never the slightest problem. Their president has a WordPress blog at mattheaton.com.
My site’s on dreamhost; I know people complain about them from time to time, but I’ve had no issues whatsoever with them. WP was very easy to install and configure and tinker with here.
I have used Dreamhost as a base for my WordPress blog for about a year with no problems (although you probably receive as much traffic in a day as I do in a years time).
For me, the easy of upgrading my software via their One-Click panel is of primary importance. Also, they provide a RSS feed for server status and technical issues, thus keeping you informed as to what’s happening at their end on a real-time basis.
I understand your frustration over hosting issues, been there myself.
I don’t know how many blogs your planning to move but from what i read i think you should be considering a Virtual Private Server (VPS) and while there are millions of VPS providers out there i will suggest http://spry.com and they are even having a 25% off offer right now and you might just be in time to grab that opportunity.
Their support is really good and there even have a 24×7 toll free number to call for support..that’s fantastic!.They have even won some awards down the years.
If you are still interested in shared hosting than Spry even has that or you can choose the very popular Hostgator.com
I’d be willing to help, just drop me a mail.
🙂
I recommend Total Choice Hosting or MidPhase. One site that I hosted with TCH had the hosting curse and gave me problems so I had to move it to MidPhase which claim to have unmetered bandwidth (which in fact is 1-1.5 TB)
I moved to A Small Orange in Jan 07 and it’s been great so far. Excellent speed, latest versions of PHP, Perl etc including PHP5 and the best part for me is excellent support and great user community. I raised a ticket to get shell access and within 10 mins I had an e-mail telling me it was resolved and what to do next.
The forums are also full of information and questions are answered by staff as well as the community at large. Fantastico is also supported and while i don’t use it for WordPress I have used it to try out other apps as it makes installation of the supported apps a breeze.
Highly recommended and in the three months I’ve used them I’ve not had and downtime or performance problems.
(mt) – enough said.
I’ve used dreamhost – if your serious about uptime and minimal impact from recklessly managed outages, they are *not* the best by a long shot.
You haven’t named names (which I can, to a point, understand) but we have no idea what you’re currently using, to use as a guide to inform you of options.
(mt) have a great product called (dv) which is a virtual server product that has been snapped up by a few people I know (and a few people you might know, like zeldman).
If you’re serious about finding a good host, then (mt) is a good start.
I’ll add my vote for Bluehost.
That said I’ll have to add that no host is without problems and downtime does occur. What matters most to me is how the host responds to the problem and how quickly said problem is resolved. Bluehost, so far, has impressed me greatly for a number of reasons.
1. Overall, I have to say they offer the most bang for the buck when signing up for one or two year hosting packages. My wife and I both use one-two year package, her’s being the main domain for her business website and I use a sub-domain for my blog.
2. They publish all there offerings including the toll free number for tech support in big bold letters on the main page, you don’t have to dig for it. Other hosts may do the same thing but it’s a nice touch and the the phone number works and the wait time is reasonably short.
3. Their tech support has always been cooperative and they listen to what you say and they take action on it.
4. They are consistent with sending emails to keep you up to date on what’s happening with your server(s) and the host in general (moving servers, troubles, bandwidth problems etc.) Most times we never have to ask what’s going on since they’ve let us know already.
5. They don’t hesitate to add options and upgrade things like your allowed bandwidth (already huge) and allowed storage when it becomes available. For example we went from 50 gb’s to 200 gb’s to unlimited storage space with no extra charge of course and then they told us about it(Oh…BTW…). I like that.
6. Most importantly, our server that my wife’s business website resides upon along with my blog was the victim of the latest “drive-by shootings” type virus attacks and had to be rebuilt from scratch. Considerable downtime was certainly to be expected in a case such as this but it was less than 24 hours when they had the server rebuilt and just under 800 websites restored with no loss of content or data and all apologizes sent out to the website owners. That’s quite a feat in my experience.
Last but not least, Bluehost is at the top of the list at WordPress.org’s recommended host list as the host meeting all the requirements for a WordPress install including Fantastico and all the permissions you need. I’ve never had a problem with anysort of permission crank downs and can chmod to my hearts delight.
Okay…you asked us to list our reasons for our recommendation and I’m a wordy sort guy.
Discalimer: I do not work for nor am receiving any sort of compensation for the above comment from Bluehost or anyone else for that matter. I just know what works. 😛
Hope everything works out for you.
Oh, and BTW. Bluehost just moved to a new facility with additional new servers to add to their current ones. We never even noticed when they transferred everything over. not a glitch.
Just so you know.
Another vote for BlueHost. Feature rich and a lot of bang for your buck.
MT? No. 1and1? Do you ever want your site back if something goes wrong? Dreamhost? Worst uptime ever. The only good host you’re going to get is a dedicated box from someone like Cari.net. Mine, for example, only goes down when I ssh in and do a shutdown -r now.
I use midPhase and I’ve been pretty happy with them. The price is right, you get loads of mySQL databases, subdomains and e-mail addresses, and I’ve had pretty good luck with their service since I began using them almost two years ago.
There are pros and cons to using Fantastico to manage your WordPress installation (or any other application, for that matter): it’s easy to set up an installation, but there tends to be some lag time between the release of a new version and its availability in Fantastico. Also, if you modify any of the core application files there’s a pretty good chance you’ll lose your modifications when you upgrade to a new version. Of course, that’s really no different than a manual install, but it’s something to keep in mind. One thing I love about WordPress is the ease of a manual install/upgrade, so I don’t use Fantastico myself.
MidPhase any day! They rock. Support is awesome.
They simply rock!!! My friend moved from Dreamhost to Midphase. his analysis – wordpress loads slow on dreamhost. No, he isn’t a newbie. He is a cool dude software analyst … so I take his word. Anyways, I was already on MidPhase and that is why he was able to run these checks.
I have had no downtime with MidPhase. They responed to email support within an hour!
I don’t call since I am based in AU.
Cheers!
Alpesh
I’ll also throw a recommendation for A Small Orange your way. I’ve hosted a blog with them for around five months or so. A few people have already mentioned ASO so I won’t drone on about them other than to say their support is top-notch.
I’ve filed around five or six support questions during my time with ASO. I never waited more than half an hour for a response. Every time but one the problem or question was solved/answered by the first email. That one time took a few back and forth emails all of which occurred within an hour.
They were friendly and courteous every-time. I really cannot say enough about the help they provide, class act. And as someone else mentioned their support forums are very helpful as well.
Another vote for A Small Orange. I’ve been with ASO for two years now and have been very pleased. They have a wide range of plans, from tiny to huge, and they don’t limit the number of domains or subdomains you can have on one account. The uptime is excellent — the only time I found my server was down, it was up again before I could finish typing my password into the support center! Their plans include cPanel with Fantastico auto-install, so if you decide you want that forum, it’s easy to set up. And of course you can install WordPress the same way. 🙂
Lorelle, I guess you would already know Bluehost.com since it mentioned as the first host on WordPress org. I have been hosting with them for past year or so. I would straightaway recommend them but for the traffic that you get. They have a restriction of not exceeding 20 concurrent processes, or the site goes down. It might be better if you can talk to them directly.
Otherwise, their support and response time has been excellent. Technically, they usuall stay with the latest. Their real-time chat is really fruitful in finding out cause of any problem. And they have been quite diligent in reporting any problems/upgrades or scheduled maintenance. They are great, except I wonder if they will be able to sustain the traffic that you get. They themselves might answer that better.
go to http://www.webhostingtalk.com I always go there everytime I’m looking for a new webhosting.
Hey,
Bitsor Web Hosting (Bitsor.com) is the best web host there is, in my opinion. Bitsor has 24/7/365 live support by phone, chat, and email with 1 hour response guaranteed.
The basic plan, only $4.95/month has 15,000 MB disk space and 300,000 MB of bandwidth per month. That is more than enough in my opinion. Also, the basic plan hosts up to 3 domains on one account.
And, most importantly, Bitsor.com is completely WordPress friendly. I host several blogs with them.
Hope this helps, sorry about your current host!
I’ve been using Pair.com for about 9 years. My friends and I have considered leaving for someone who is cheaper, but we never do, because Pairjust plain works.
They sound to me like they meet your requirements, but I have no idea how much bandwidth you need.
Lots of people plug dreamhost, but I hear a lot of complaints from people who have their site throttled because they’ve used up their minor allotments of CPU time. I’ve heard good things about A Small Orange, but have no first hand experience with them.
Check out http://Pair.com and see if they have what you need, because they deliver on their promises.
Bluehost is very likeable.
I have quite a bit of downtime on my two sites.
If I switched I would go to Media Temple.
I was at HostM and recently moved to Media Temple and love their phone support. They do not pass the buck but work with you to help you resolve the issues no matter the cause.
I’ve been using shared hosting on JaguarPC for some years now and in general they have been good. Note: I’ve not run any high profile sites there with a lot of traffic (like your site), but for my needs they have done well.
midPhase any time. They have a rock solid price. Together with a minimum of 35 GB of webspace and unmetered bandwidth (which is really unmetered, as they just up your limit as needed) they are hard to beat.
Their customer support rocks too. Whenever I submit a support ticket I have an answer or even a solution in less then an hour. Not to bad considering that I am in a completely different timezone and the US is pretty much asleep when I am awake. 😉
Go and check it out. http://www.midphase.com
I personally use dreamhost. I Looooove that site. For 9.95 a month you get 20 gigs of storage, and a terrabite of bandiwth. Minimal downtime and they are wordpress compatible they infact have an easy one click install for it. Hope that helps!
Im no expert but what I like best about my host is when I send an email with questions, I usually get same day, sometimes same hour answers directly from the CEO.
http://www.moreweb.com/index.html
I have used Bluehost.com for almost two years and been very happy with them. However, recently they stopped, without contacting their foreign customers, to support Zone Transfer. They and Dreamhost whom I contacted claim that this is a security matter. According to internet specialists I have spoken to, this only says that something is wrong about the techies knowledge.
So basicly I have been happy with the service but not the treatment.
I’ve used Siteground.com for several years now and haven’t had any problem with their service.
FREE Domain
40,000 MB Web space
900 GB Traffic
99.9% Server Uptime
15 min Response Time
24/7 Top Customer Care
CPanel and Fantastico
Immediate Activation
FREE SiteBuilder (save $99)
Unlimited MySQL DB
Unlimited Email accounts
Unlimited Subdomains
Unlimited FTP Accounts
FREE Blog Installation
E-commerce Pack
1 year is $72.00 and 2 years is $60.00. Support is included however backup restoration is extra.
Any problems have been handled immediately and their service has been great.
Side note: Somehow I figured this post would get a couple of dozen comments within 24 hours.
1&1 (http://www.1and1.com) seems like they oversell, but I don’t think they do. Their prices are so affordable – with the 1&1 Business package (for $7.49/month) you get 250 GB disk space, 2500 GB bandwidth, and similar numbers for other features. I think their support is great too: Today I called them with a billing question, and I didn’t spend a second listening to hold music before getting to the first rep handling my case.
If your needs are more modest, try ComputingHost (http://www.computinghost.com). Compared to 1&1, their packages are meager, but you get the supe-easy-to-use cPanel to use in mantaining your site. Of the few problems I had with ComputingHost, they were resolved in a day or less.
I must recommend against GoDaddy hosting, even though I am using them as my current host. Their shared hosting is strange, to say the least. Even upgrading to the deluxe or premium doesn’t solve the unusual compatibility issues that crop up from time to time. I’m sticking with them until my pre-paid time expires, but if they don’t improve before that, I will not be renewing with them.
I did see a neat one the other day called Nearly Free Speech. I have no experience with them, but their pay-as-you-go pricing seems spectacular for smaller blog site. Everything is pre-paid (meaning you must fill an account up with cash every so often), and their pricing is as follows:
$1.00 per GB of bandwidth
$0.01 per megabyte of storage used per month
$0.01 per month to run a mySQL process (just one can run several databases).
So for a small blog that doesn’t do a lot of traffic, you could get away with paying pennies for hosting. And because it’s all pre-paid, there’s no way to suddenly get a huge bill by going over your bandwidth limits (as in a slashdotting or getting dugg or something).
I really wouldnt recommend you Dreamhost…. specially since you are a Pro-blogger and have lots of visits and a decent Page-rank I suppose. I am a wordpress customer and I have one of my blogs hosted with them, and they cant keep up with the visits, they had to put a throttle on my account to avoid to many connections at the same time… Im talking about 9,000 visits a day, and I cant get more than that (more or less) due to this throttle.
So basically I cant host my two blogs in my wordpress account because that would blow up their servers…
The support is great and the prices too, but not their shared server capabilities 😦
I’ve never used Pair, but it certainly has a fine reputation.
Since it sounds like we’re talking shared hosting, it’s important to remember that the key thing is this: Your site is going to be sharing one server with a bunch of other sites. Sales pitches about unlimited bandwidth or unlimited whatever are pointless. Resources on that sinlge server are shared. No single customer can have unlimited anything, because that would mean hogging all available resources. Not going to happen. All shared hosts impose resource limitations that you’ll run up against long before you get anywhere near that “unlimited” territory.
So, ask about the server you’ll be on. How many CPU’s? What kind of storage? How many other customers will share the same server?
Don’t believe anything a host says about customer support. Ask them about their ratio of incoming tickets to support staff. How many tickets per day does each handle? Then, ask how many total tickets they have in queue. Odds are, they won’t tell you, but if they do you can figure out their real response time.
If I had to pick one key thing, it would be the number of sites per server. In many cases, the only real difference between standard and business class shared hosting is that they pile fewer sites on the business servers.
FWIW, I’ve been on TextDrive for a couple years. A few minor problems. They host a lot of Rails developers and a few of those servers seem to be plagued with constant downtime due, I suspect, to breakage caused by those developers. TextDrive has begun a migration from FreeBSD to OpenSolaris. If it lives up to the hype, it’ll be nice.
And, I believe TextDrive hosts some of the WordPress.com sites, so you may already be running there.
Lorelle, you should take a serious look at http://www.opensourcehost.com/
I have no skin in the game with them, nothing to gain, just host a small personal site with them. Here’s why you should look:
1. FANTASTIC service. They’ll install software for you. They’ll upgrade it for you. For free. As in no charge. And they’re nice about it. You don’t NEED fantastico with them.
2. They’re open source CMS experts.
3. Reasonable prices. Not the cheapest, but if you’re ever in a jam, you won’t wait at all for help.
Highly, highly recommended.
Wow! This is amazing input. Thank you so much. Keep it coming. I love the insights, too, on how web hosts are working for you and recommendations on what I need to keep in mind when shopping.
I will be summing up your input next week, so keep the advice coming! You can’t get input like this by reading web host marketing materials!
1and1 web hosting! Never had a problem. Run 12 WordPress sites, the most down time I had was 14 minutes. 4 years no problems.
Not HostGator! As soon as there was any traffic on my site, they claimed I was overusing resources. Also, they went in and hacked my file system, saying it was to disable RSS – which I was not using. After moving, I made comments in a hosting forum, and suddenly HostGator began attacking all of my domains and customer domains with bogus ICANN complaints and complaints to the sites new hosts – this went on for several months after leaving… I was attacked in webhosting forums by the owner of HostGator, who associated me with something called Jew Watch, and similar efforts by third parties with which I am not involved (haven’t even researched what they do after being associated with them). There was not technical support at HG – their answer to dealing with customer complaints is to point them towards the door, or just make their account disappear… HostGator, the worst of the worst.
I’ve had great luck with SurpassHosting’s $60 per year plan for my WordPress blog. That gets me 200GB of disk space and 2000GB of bandwidth per month. They’ve been very responsive on the few occasions I’ve had problems/concerns. Uptime and performance are great. They have cpanel and Fantastico, although I’ve been manually managing my WordPress upgrades since the initial install.
Lorelle,
I’ve been with A Small Orange for a year and I’ve never had problems with them. I’ve had good uptime figures with them and their tech support is great. In case you’re interested, I wrote about how to check uptime performance of web host providers. Here’s the figures for February and March.
I highly recommend Dreamhost – great customer service, decent uptime, and great value.
Sorry, sorry, my past comment was wrong… Im not a WordPress customer, Im a DREAMHOST customer… so heres my comment again :P.. sorry 😀
I really WOULDNT recommend you DREAMHOST… specially since you are a Pro-blogger and have lots of visits and a decent Page-rank I suppose. I am a DREAMHOST customer and I have one of my blogs hosted with them, and they cant keep up with the visits, they had to put a throttle on my account to avoid to many connections at the same time… Im talking about 9,000 visits a day, and I cant get more than that (more or less) due to this throttle.
So basically I cant host my two blogs in my wordpress account because that would blow up their servers…
The support is great and the prices too, but not their shared server capabilities
I use Hostway for my mission critical website. They are very reliable, but expensive. The second tier plan includes voice telephone support.
I would have an issue trusting my cash flow to a budget provider. Silly me, I think sometimes you get what you pay for.
I also use Dreamhost for hobby projects. They do have downtime issues, and I also have had WordPress die when they upgraded php without telling anyone. (twice) Dreamhost are a great and reasonable hobby site, but what can you expect the price you pay? I would not trust my email with them.
Lorelle,
For $19.95/mth, you can have root access to your own Linux server on rimuhosting.com
PHP and MySQL pre-installed, and full DNS control. They use Xen VPS images. Really excellent platform for WP and WPMU. Is there a better plan for what is (from a WordPress perspective) identical to a dedicated server? You can also run your own email (POP and IMAP, with webmail access) from this server. Plus any other Linux pre-reqs for specialist plugins e.g. Gallery2. Very responsive support.
Glenn.
Lorelle, I’m big on hosting with synhosting.com Pat over there is wonderful. That’s where I host my own personal sites off of my servers.
Plus they give you three free months to try them out if you’re moving from a different host.
I’ll put in my vote for bluehost.com. I’ve been using them over a year now with no problem. Technical support has been great. One part of my site uses XOOPS CMS and when I went to upgrade it through Fantastico my site crashed. The tech at bluehost was great and took the time to restore my backup for me rather than having me do it myself. I was very impressed. My site doesn’t generate a lot of traffic so I can’t speak to how that is handled on the server but when it comes to support I really think they are great.
I use Ace Net. The are fase and reliable and their CS is great. If you email them with a problem, they can get back to you ASAP. And for the package I have, I have a ton of space for hosting pictures and forums. with the fact you can add up to 9 other domains plus an unlimited number of sub domains, they can’t be beat.
They have also upgraded to the current version of PHP and they use Fantastico for their scripts.
I highly recommend them…
#
NOlo
Posted March 31, 2007 at 1:35 pm | Permalink
>I really WOULDNT recommend you DREAMHOST… specially since you are a >Pro-blogger and have lots of visits and a decent Page-rank I suppose. I >am a DREAMHOST customer and I have one of my blogs hosted with them, >and they cant keep up with the visits, they had to put a throttle on my >account to avoid to many connections at the same time… Im talking about >9,000 visits a day, and I cant get more than that (more or less) due to >this throttle.
This comment is meaningless without telling us which of the 4 or more levels of package that Dreamhost provide is the one that you are using?
Please clarify.
Rgds
Matt
Hi Lorelle,
I’m very eager to hear more about this topic from you and other readers, because my mission is to be the kind of host you’re looking for (and not the kind you tell horror stories about :).
Most comparisons of hosting companies focus on the disk space and bandwidth that they allow. The truth is that these stats are made up to have a bigger number than the next company; all companies oversell and hope not too many people use their full allotment. A good host will let you use what you need, and will have the infrastructure to handle it, without making ridiculous promises about how much of everything you can have.
Far more important than high disk and traffic limits is service. There are plenty of terrible, no-support, don’t-answer-emails hosting companies out there (you can even buy them on eBay for a few dollars and start offering service). There are plenty of good hosts that offer what you need, but don’t specifically support WordPress. The third category, which is very small, consists of hosts that offer what you need and fully support WordPress. My company (forgive the commercial) strives to be in this third category, and excels in providing personal support, free backups and WP upgrades, and help with individual theme and plugin issues. I’d like to hear what else people would like in the way of service.
I think I saw a mention of Fantastico somewhere in this post or another, and my advice is to do a manual upgrade, as Fantastico tends to not keep up with WP upgrades and may overwrite things you don’t want it to.
I used WiredHub.net for a while in 2001-2002 before starting WebbleYou, and was very pleased with their service. Friends have said BlueHost is also excellent. I hear that mediatemple is also excellent, though $20 may be beyond some people’s price range.
The comment Jim made above (#64) about upgrading PHP without telling customers is a huge issue with WordPress. For a while, PHP 5 broke WP, though I believe this has been long since fixed. Our method of handling upgrades is to do a fresh install of the latest version of everything, then migrate clients individually and ensure that everything is working. We don’t upgrade production servers while they’re hosting clients, as this tends to break things and cause downtime; instead, we keep a few extra servers set up so we always have a place to move sites that are on a server that needs to be upgraded.
I am curious what type of help people have obtained with specific WordPress issues (other than installation) from other hosts. As far as I know, WebbleYou is the only company (other than the WP team’s Automattic) that offers specific WP support, but I’m guessing there are other companies out there that I don’t know about doing the same thing.
Thanks for asking – as I said, I’m very interested to hear what your readers are looking for.
Sincerely,
Justin
WebbleYou.com
I’ve been using Smile Global for my personal site and several sites for clients for a few years now. Pricing is decent, support is spot on, downtime has been minimal to say the least. They are worth a look.
http://www.smileglobal.com/
I’m amazed that nobody has mentioned HostRocket! I’ve only been with them for about 3 months now so I don’t have a long track record with them yet. I do have a number of clients that have been with them for a year or more. So far the support has been nothing but excellent. Quick responses, friendly service and issues resolved in no time at all. The prices are excellent and the feature set is very nice. They fully support WordPress and many other packages.
Check out http://www.hostrocket.com
-X
I use WebFaction and I love their service. WordPress is one of their supported apps (others include, Django, Ruby on Rails, Subversion, Trac).
Lorelle, I should have been more specific with my recommendation. Webfaction supports and installs the following applications:
Rails sites
Django sites
Turbogears sites
Zope sites
Static HTML or CGI sites
Wordpress blogs
Drupal or Joomla sites
Wikis (MediaWiki, MoinMoin, …)
Web forums (phpBB, punBB, …)
PHP sites
Trac/Subversion sites
They also received a hosting award from Host Review recently.
Johnny K: Many web hosts can install all kinds of things for you, most of them things you don’t need. There is much more that is required for choosing a web host such as bandwidth, storage space, up-to-date PHP/MySQL/Apache, etc., level of database access and restrictions, transfer rates, and so on. It’s not about the gizmos. It’s making sure what we need to work will work when the pressure is on.
I also recommend WebFaction. It’s more than just the one-click installs. They have the friendliest support I’ve ever seen and they really do try to solve your issues. They don’t oversell like crazy but the diskspace and bandwidth are more than enough for most people. They pretty much run the latest versions of most software (PHP,MySql, …). Finally, I’ve been with them for over 6 months and haven’t had a second of downtime (I might be on a lucky server though).
Hi Lorelle well I read your blog regularly but I think I never commented before. Anyways I use Pixelled Solutions http://pixelledhost.com/ They have one of the most competitive prices around. They are really WP friendly. The support is very fast and I do get all my questions answerred in record time. Just check them out.
I know that Lorelle, but you can easily go to the webfaction site and see what they offer. I was only giving you some quick information.
You can check out their support forums if you want to get a feel for the type of organisation they are. I don’t run heavily hit sites so I can’t comment on transfer rates.
PHP – 5.2.0
MySQL – 5.0.27
Apache – 2.0.52
Here’s some information about their hardware.
When It comes to posting and building blogs no one beats Host Gator.
Smoky
Smoky knows his stuff. I would heed to his advice. His advice has eleviated much of my frustration.
Thank you,
Thai
Okay, I know everyone has said blue host and ASO, etc well i am here to say Bluehost is good, and ASO well I had some issues but it wasn’t insurmountable and the same with Powweb. The last two interestingly just didn’t know fart all about WP other than the basics and neither ever upgraded my blog upon request or migrated my blog as part of their service.
I started about a month or so ago with LivingDot, they pretty much only host blogs, I mean they can host other stuff but their packages and information are all dedicated to Blogs and their extra specialisation on top of that is WP and MT.
Now this is what they have done for me and you can decide whether their they are an attractive host for you.
– They transferred 5 blogs that I run over to their site for free, no data was lost and nothing other than passwords were needed e.g. WP Passcodes and MySQL Passcodes.
– Then I requested they upgrade my blogs from 2.0.x to 2.1 and within a few hours it was done.
– I had some permission issues that I couldn’t figure out how to fix, they fixed them and then explained (upon request) how I could fish for myself the next time I had an issue.
– Today I decided all my About pages were going to go to my LinkedIn profile just to keep things simple and allow a more professional About page. Done and the solution given to me again so if I wanted I could fix it myself. Sorry I am not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to ReWrites.
– Now since 2.1.3 came out today I asked for them to upgrade that and out of all the things I have asked this was the only time they took more than a few hours, but apparently thats because everyone wants an upgrade and so they are a little behind. Not a biggie.
Now the first thing when I went looking for a host was my initial thought more disk space and bandwidth, but thats not really right (at least not in my mind). Obviously if you want to put your kitchen sink on your host those are an issue but if you are me and you use the web as tool then response time is the most important. My sites always load in under .25 seconds (usually around .12-.14).
Why do I say these are not big issues? Because if you start podcasting then you want to really use another source so you can give your readers the best experience e.g one of the specialty hosts. If you are going to do some video then there are some really great free/paid choices from ‘Give up your IP YOUTUBE’ to Blip.tv.
I prefer the later, as they have many of the tools a green user like me needs and they are getting better at monetising the Video they host which means more cash for me in the future if I decide to go down that route.
Anyway thats just me. Good luck finding a host you like it took me three years and my figures are still crossed because of all the previous bad experiences.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.techwinter.com
I’m not here to recommend a host (although I love my current one) because you’re obviously looking for something high-end with extra-robust servers (the one I use is a small reseller but they do know what they’re doing) …
But I guess it would be useful if those recommending hosts could also give an indication of how much they’ve ‘pushed’ the resources as well.
I think anyone looking for hosting should talk to the folks at NearlyFreeSpeech, if only to get some perspective on the whole hosting game. So many hosts ‘sell’ us loads of crap we don’t need in the way of supposed bandwidth and storage. NearlyFreeSpeech sells only what you use. I’ve hosted WordPress blogs with them for several years and have spent a total of less than $10 for hosting. Granted, my blogs are only for family and myself, so they aren’t getting hit anything like yours, but you might be surprised if you do some math at what a good solution they provide. It might not be the right fit for all that you do, but they could make sense for some things.
I am a web developer and provide hosting for most of my clients. Over the past 10 years, I have tried many companies. Right now, I have just moved from a VPS to a Dedicated Server at liquidweb. It is excellent! The best hosting experience I have had yet. The staff is excellent and very helpful, servers are completely managed, uptime is 100%, etc.
Before that, I used HostGator for many years and was very happy with them. The only reason I left is because they did not offer VPS plans, and I needed one.
The worst hosting experience I have had by far is with Dreamhost! I lost several hosting clients due to tons of downtime and even more times where email did not work. Not sure if this is still true, but at some point, dreamhost was banned from allowing people to forward email addresses from their domain to any AOL email addresses. The staff was friendly and people love them for it, but bad service is bad service even if you joke about it in your newsletter.
I would like to chime in again once more.
I have noticed not for the first time that you are with 9Rules and let me me say to so as to couch my next statement appropriately, I don’t know squat about the politics between the blog networks but I do know my friend SlackerManager left 9Rules to B5 because they offer all the blogging infrastructure he needed and this has allowed him to focus on what he started out to do – blog.
Just a thought not that you should switch but that you should maybe demand more of your Network than possibly you are getting. **Again I am not encouraging you to switch, just saying if he can get it from someone else why don’t you demand the same from yours. Tit for Tat as they say.
Anyway I hope that little thought wasn’t too much of a stir.
Cheers
Roger
9rules has nothing to do with the web host I choose. They don’t tell me where to host and I don’t tell them where to host themselves.
Roger’s knowledge of how 9rules works FTL.
I use nearlyfreespeech.net, mostly because they are absolutely flexible in setup. This has its pluses and minuses, though, as you really need to know your way around a server to take full advantage of it. Aside from this, they are indisputably the cheapest host on the planet!
I use MySiteSpace.com. They’re not the cheapest, but their uptime is great (I can’t remember the last time they had more than a brief hiccup) and response time for service requests is fast. I just upgraded to get more databases to play with–I was on their rock-bottom plan before, now I’m on the next one up.
They have Fantastico and other shiny things too 😛
I have used mysitespace, i have no access to my site or my emails, there is no number to call and right on time each month i get a charge to my credit card. An alternative to their wonderful service is set live in a cave and communicate by smoke signals.
Hi Lorelle,
I’ve had a dedicated server with Hostgator for nearly a year now and the service has been the best I’ve ever experienced. Not only the performance and uptime, but the support is great too. They’re always ready to answer your questions and even the livechat function means I can usually get an immediate answer to any problems…which are few and far between.
Hope this helps,
Richard
I have the intimate feeling that asking for hosting recommandations is totally useless. For each and every host you’ll find lovers and haters. Big host = lots of lovers & lots of haters. Unknown host = a few lovers & a few haters.
I’m hosted with lunarpages (VPS) and the service is great , you really get what you pay. My advice is to go for the VPS solutions , don’t bother with shared hosting.
I agree that lunarpages is a great host. Their support and response to my questions is incredibly fast and of good quality. I would say their support is a bit better than hostgator but hostgator is good too. Lunarpages does not waste their resources on a basically useless live chat so i think this helps them deawl with support with more quality.
Lunarpages has some really good coupons out as well: 27Percent, 1FreeSave28. Also use Save50 for VPS or dedicated plans.
Lorelle, I hear ya! I went with Laughingsquid because of the promises of individual tech support on the WordPress page – yet they wouldn’t help me by phone (granted, I am severely deficient in Tech Genes).
Heck, I’ll admit it – I went with them because the company sounds artsy & has a really cool logo. Like I said, I’m deficient in tech (and logic, it would seem) genes…
Since I haven’t even been able to get my page activated (!) after nearly a month, I’m going to try another company. I don’t have any suggestions, but I found a really good page on choosing a web hosting company: http://tinyurl.com/2at2pg
Darren at Problogger wrote an article asking people for suggestions, too: http://tinyurl.com/2m66ae.
I’ve been reading for days, and I’m trying to sort thru the real recommendations from the cloaked affiliate links!
Lynne
You have to know what your site need before you sign up with any web hosting plan. Don’t even think that you can change your server any time if you don’t like it. It’s not easy at all.
make a list of your criteria –>find informations of hosts that meet your need –>go through all details regarding Reliability (uptime),Bandwidth (Data Transfer), Disk space, Technical Suppor, Control Panel, Email account, Inclusion, such as,CGI, MySQL, PHP, ASP,etc. Payment plans.–>check up if what they do is same as what they say.
Follow above process and find a good deal.
How to check a web hosting provider’s reputation?
It’s very important to know others experience of using a web hosting service.
Go to google.com to search something like “is xxx web hosting good?” or any specified questions you considering. You will find some commends from other users. It’s a good way to make sure if you choose a right hosting provider.
I absolutely love my host and have been with them for over 5 years. They are Jumpline.com. I found them by analyzing Netcraft and finding the host with the least client turnover and least downtime. They were number one.
I’m also an affiliate of theirs now. If you’d like, you can subscribe to my RSS feed and there’s an advertisement for 1 year of free hosting. Trust me, you won’t regret it!
Doug
No question in my mind: Hostgator. All the features you’d ever need; reasonable pricing (though clearly not the cheapest); remarkably reliable; and 24/7 support means you can always reach someone by telephone and generally the problem will be resolved with that party, and via email, I’ve always (which doesn’t mean much because I’ve only had a couple of issues), received a response that resolves the problem within four hours.
I’ve used any number of hosts over the past five years and have been with Hostgator for 14 months. Clearly it’s the Nordstrom of hosts.
Hope this helps.
I love my WordPress Host [Hosting-Q.com]. I run the venture.
Recent releases of WordPress are also saving more [spam] data to the underlying database which causes server performance problems. I have no doubt that WordPress is causing Web Hosts added burdens.
I am a WordPress lover and software consultant. I have been working to take the loads off my servers.
Regina Thomas
QiSoftware
I’m as usual late to the party, and I apologize. I followed your related link back from here.
I use two hosts. I use websitesource on one of my sites and Dreamhost on another. When I tried to switch my websitesource site over to another host, I needed a code. I asked support for the code and since then have had zero response from them. I have no downtime and no connection issues, but they will not respond to trouble tickets from me at all. Prior to my inquiry about switching they were very friendly and responded expediently. I don’t recommend them.
I’ve only been with Dreamhost for a couple of months and have noticed that my WP blog is slow. Way slower than the one hosted on websitesource. I thought it was a plugin issue, but then realized that my other blog has more plugins and isn’t dragged down like the one on Dreamhost. Of course, I’m using their Crazy Domain service, so I don’t expect a whole lot. Their support is tremendous though. When I submit tickets I receive a response within hours (at one point it was minutes, but that was an issue of my own doing). I don’t have any clue as to what CPU throttling is and haven’t experienced it. Of course, I get very little traffic.:)
As for HostGator, as well as GoDaddy, I’ve seen horrible things about them. And many times when someone writes something bad about them an army of paid “supporters” shows up to refute the naysayers. I’m not saying that anyone here who is cheering for HostGator is paid, but I’ve seen reports that they do pay commenters to cheer them on.
I hope you find a good host soon. It’s difficult to pick and choose. I do recommend, though, that you make sure whichever one you choose has a money-back guarantee period. (Dreamhost has 90 days, I think, and websitesource has 30_.
I use Yahoo Small Business Web hosting and I hate it. The site is always down, and tech support is totally clueless.
i would recommend hostican, they offer 500 gb web space and unlimited (unmetered) traffic + you get a free domain name. this all for $10.95/month (when you prepay for 2 years). but you can also pay every 3 months at $16.95/month (+some setup fee), every half year at $12.95/month (+some setup fee), or prepay one year at $11.95/month (no setup fee)
I see that you, too, missed the point of my post. I don’t care about how much it costs. That tells me nothing of the quality of a web host.
My question asked what features should someone be looking for in a web host. What qualities? What specific things that make or break a web host as a good one?
Anyone can hand out a price list. That’s not the point. What is it that makes a good web host? Customer service? WordPress automatic upgrades? The administration backend? The database system? The software? The hardware?
remembers me of a nirvana song, hehe.
but finding the right hosting provider is hard. it depends on your budget, webspace and traffic demands.
most hosting providers give you a lot, they offer you amazing bandwidth but when you really use it, they suspend your account due to massive cpu usage.
its very hard to find the right hosting company. but so far i had great experiences with hostgator and crucialwebhost. thats what i have learned so far.
I found this post very much helpful for my design blog, which is currently hosted for free. But now I am looking for a stable host for it who can provide – at least 99.95% uptime guarantee, 24/7 toll free quality support, budget would be the third primary accept. I think these are the features that matters to me instead of unlimited x unlimited y unlimited z etc. I don’t believe in those things as those are just marketing hypes.
Hey, if you’re looking for good hosting, try unlimitedmb.com. They offer free and paid hosting with numerous features. And since they offer paid hosting, they won’t be going anywhere.
Hi Guys,
I am newbie so i am very much confused about using the web hosting service. I have some of them in my mind godaddy, dreamhost, and siwrlweb, etc. Can any one suggest which is the best.
While any web host can be a good web host, especially if you aren’t picky, this article was about looking for the key elements and features when looking for a good web host, not recommendations on web hosts.
I have no recommendations, nor should you take any on this post seriously, as they are based on experience and opinion, not facts – and that is what I was asking for. Facts that help define the things you need to evaluate before choosing a web host. I’m still looking for those, but the comments here and in The Taboo Topics You Need to Know When Choosing A Web Host may help those looking for answers to these questions.
I have been with Lunarpages for nearly 3 years, and I’ve had my grandma signed up for more than a year as well. For the most part, we have been happy. Decent uptime (better than the Dotster hosting I previously tried, anyway), and you get plenty for your money. They also have cPanel with Fantastico, although I have not successfully used it to upgrade WordPress. I tried once a long time ago (before I realized how easy upgrading is), and the process just didn’t seem to do anything.
Every now and then, however, something goes wrong on Lunarpages’ end (in general, not re: WP), and that’s when I get really frustrated. I don’t get frustrated because they ran into a (usually) minor fixable problem, but rather because their support is absolutely horrible. The response time is usually pretty fast, but the people just don’t know what they’re talking about, until someone finally agrees to escalate the ticket and/or talk with a senior sysadmin. Half of the time it seems like they (the people you initially get when opening a ticket) just read the first few sentences and then paste an answer. Also worth noting is that Lunarpages’ toll-free number is no longer listed on their site, as far as I can see.
I wound up on this blog because I’m finally starting to give up on Lunarpages and look for another shared hosting provider. My impression before I came here was to try HostGator, ASmallOrange, or BlueHost. The comments here seem to more or less confirm that conclusion.
This is a valuable and interesting thread. Thanks.
I’d offer an additional consideration regarding blogs and web hosts, namely: what are the host’s strengths/weaknesses in supporting e-commerce (web stores, web point of sale)?
I raise this because a blog can be a valuable ancillary ‘asset’ on a web store site; and the blog can be its own ‘product display’ (especially in the case of photographs and fine art for sale).
I also wonder if a strong web-store host and a strong blog host may be two separate animals. Might one need to host a blog with one host, and do business on another?
Enjoying the site and the good ideas. Bill
Hi Lorelle, I’m with ASmallOrange right now and am fine with them. However, if you need more space and bandwidth and don’t care to pay a little more, I would recommend you to go for a dedicated web host if you still haven’t find a new web hosting.
I had done some research as to who is happy with their webhost and who is not, too much time invested?! not really. unless you get someone else to do the dirty work to spend all that time finding a new webhost.
so here is the reason why im posting this win – win situation:
I got my hosting a few months ago with servage and I’m quite happy with them and the price is right, they give me tons of space and good traffic amounts. they have unlimited this unlimited that, most of which i would never use.
PS they have autoinstallers for WordPress, Joomla, and many others…really good!!!
cheers
I too have tried many different hosting companies over the last few years.
Just for the heck of it, I tried one that did not have CPanel!!
aarrggghhhh! I ended that subscription quickly because I was so lost without the ease of using CPanel.
Price is always a factor in choosing a good host, but so are knowing what each plan offers so that you know what will work for you.
As far as recommendations go, you can always google search or yahoo search a particular hosting company and see how favorable they rank with the public.
@Colleen W:
There are some who do not like Cpanel, but knowing which interface you like best is one of the features you should put on your list to look for in a new host.
Price “should” be the last thing you look for, but what most people begin with. Remember, you get what you pay for.
Lorelle,
I know this post is older but some great hosts that I could recommend to you would be:
[edited list]
Let me know if you have any questions
Ross
@ Ross:
Thank you for the list, and I thank everyone for their recommendations. It’s a pity so many missed the point of this article. I was looking for characteristics, the questions to ask when searching for a web host, not specific web hosts. I covered some of these in The Taboo Topics You Need to Know When Choosing A Web Host.
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