Someone please recommend a great host company

[Anonymous]

Ok, I know it’s been asked many times before, but times and other things change.

I looked at other posts on here about recommended companies and have been trying for the past week plus to sign up with Stablehost. They’ve placed a hold on my account for the amount due 5 times yet claim the bank is blocking any transaction! They claim the address is wrong that I provided for the credit card, yet again they are holding the amount due 5 times!

Will be away until Saturday, but thanks in advance.

[nixnerd]

I wouldn’t recommend a hosting company per se. I would recommend a VPS provider. If you’ll looking in the $5-10 per month range, I’d go with Digital Ocean. For what most people want and need, they simply can’t be beat.

You can spin up an Ubuntu VPS in about 30 seconds with cool stuff like GitLab and Docker ready to go out of the box.

Shared hosting is a rip and I’d really avoid it if I were you. I found that out after YEEEARS of paying for it.

[nixnerd]

BTW, Digital Ocean is easy peasy to set up billing wise and you actually pay per HOUR. That means… if you for whatever reason don’t like it after 10 days, you pay the pro-rated amount of your $5 fee.

It’s pretty awesome. Look into it.

[jarrodlsb]

You can try with http://www.ipserverone.com as they respond is very fast. They are one of the top hosting company here in Malaysia. They have 24hours of support and my site http://www.krissufashion.biz is host by them. Even their price is a little costly, however it do worth it because of their good and reliable service.

[nixnerd]

Digital Ocean would probably work better because if I’m not mistaken you’re in Romania? They have servers in two separate Amsterdam locations.

[James Burton]

@Joe_Temp

I think Windows Azure Website are good. You can run Asp.net and PHP and you can upload the site by ftp or git.

[nixnerd]

I’ll be dead honest with you James, I have no use for a Microsoft server or any hosting on a Microsoft server. I’m a Linux guy, ESPECIALLY on a server. I know Microsoft Azure for app hosting (non-website version) offers an Ubuntu, CentOS and SUSE image… I have no use for any of that either.

Besides, have you seen the prices on all their plans? Ri-donkey-donk.

You can run Asp.net

I have no use for this either.

…and PHP

I hate PHP but it’s a fact of life.

you can upload the site by ftp or git.

That’s pretty standard. SOME shared hosting won’t allow SSH connections, making Git impossible. But, I’ve never used those services.

[James Burton]

@Joe_Temp

I don’t use Windows Server on Windows Azure.

[nixnerd]

I know Microsoft Azure for app hosting (non-website version) offers an Ubuntu, CentOS and SUSE image… I have no use for any of that either.

No Debian or Arch? Crazy sauce.

Their prices are still atrocious too.

[James Burton]

@Joe_Temp

I know google compute engine offers Debian.

[nixnerd]

Unmanaged VPS + Docker/LXC FTW!

On another note… I’m not totally in love with supporting Microsoft or Google in any capacity at all. There are certain situations where its unavoidable… but I’d really prefer not to if I can help it.

[nixnerd]

And on yet another note… pretty sure the OP doesn’t care anymore.

[__]

Well, the OP has hinted at this problem in a couple other discussions we’ve had. I’m pretty sure he still cares. : ) Unfortunately, though I agree about an unmanaged VPS being the way to go, I don’t think “unmanaged” will meet his needs.

@michael1961, as I said earlier, I don’t really use shared hosting anymore, so I don’t have a current “best choice” to recommend for you. I have used 1&1, MediaTemple, and even hostmonster in the past, and they were decent. (Honestly, though, it is likely that you simply won’t find an “incredible” shared hosting experience.) Of the three, (mt) had the best customer support, though I have not had any experience with them since they sold out to godaddy.

Joe_Temp is right about an unmanaged VPS being “the way to go.” I think, within the next five years or so, the shared hosting model will give way to semi-managed VPS hosts. Until then, however, you’ll need to have the knowledge to get things set up for yourself.

If you don’t want to (or feel comfortable learning how to) set up your own unmanaged VPS, another option you might think about is hiring someone to install cPanel, phpMyAdmin, and so forth on it. It might be a couple hundred bucks for the initial setup, but it would give you low monthly costs and you’d have a familiar interface to manage it from.

[nixnerd]

you might think about is hiring someone to install cPanel, phpMyAdmin

Or zPanel if you don’t want to license cPanel… which I don’t personally. Mainly because it’s really expensive. If it weren’t for setting up emails. I probably wouldn’t even use zPanel.

even hostmonster in the past

I too have hosted SEVERAL sites on Hostmonster. It was ok. Their tech support is super friendly but not very knowledgeable. It took me 2+ hours to get them to supply me with the server’s SSH key fingerprint for verification.

I still vote for Digital Ocean because it doesn’t give you every option in the world… but dollar for dollar I don’t think it gets any easier/better than DO.

For the record. I do NOT use DO. I did, but I don’t now. I use Linode. But for most people, I feel like DO is absolutely the best option.

Media Temple seems pretty legit… but it’s expensive. I think the vast majority of what you pay for with them is their awesomely designed site and interface. I’m being dead serious because their hardware is the same as everybody else’s. It’s not like MT is faster or better. DO has a really sweet site too. Just sayin’.

[__]

It was ok. Their tech support is super friendly but not very knowledgeable.

Unfortunately, I think you’re hitting on the “best case scenario” for most shared hosting.

This also brings up another aspect of the problem, which is that more experienced developers will have fewer complaints about various providers… simply because they don’t rely on their tech support as heavily.

I, for example, haven’t had to call a web host tech support number for years, because the problems I’ve had I could fix myself, and faster. I hesitated over putting hostmonster on my list above, not because I’ve had problems with them, but because I’ve had no problems (and, therefore, they have never been given the test of resolving a problem for me).

Maybe the lesson here is to not ask us which shared host to choose, because we’ll just tell you to go get a VPS instead. :p

[Author]

Posts