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Dan Rubin's SuperfluousBanter

Suffering from chronic idiocy since 1977

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Hosting

I might be look­ing for a new host­ing com­pany. Cur­rently I’m with Pair Net­works and to be hon­est I have not much to com­plain (signed up with their “advanced” web host­ing plan). Their ser­vice is fine and their price is about right. The only thing that really annoys me is that I only have 1 SQL data­base — which is just not enough.

I have been look­ing around and so far Dreamhost seems inter­est­ing. Has any­one used their ser­vices? I’m will­ing to spend about $20 a month or so. I’m look­ing for all the usual things a web host has to offer and unlim­ited SQL data­bases is a big plus. So what are you suggesting?

This item was posted by dhilhorst on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

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  1. Posted by compuwhiz7 on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’ve been with Host­Nexus for about a month now—on their Cor­po­rate plan—and love it. Plesk 7, unlim­ited data­bases, unlim­ited sub­do­mains, five domains, 500 megabytes of disk space, 20 giga­bytes of band­width… their sup­port forum is off the charts, and they’re very open to new libraries.

    I highly rec­om­mend them.

  2. Posted by Roland on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    You may want to check the offer of http://www.ovh.com/en/.

  3. Posted by Jason Santa Maria on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I used to be on Pair and then Ter­abyte, but now I use Dreamhost and the host­ing is AMAZING.

    They have a GREAT web con­trol panel, respon­sive sup­port staff, and loads of features.

    What’s more, they treat their cus­tomers very well. Every month they send out mail­ing list digests and EVERY month their are new fea­tures added or they just decide to give you more space and band­width for the hell of it. I started with their intro account and just recently upgraded to their third-tier account. They were hav­ing a pro­mo­tion (it still might be going on, where the 3rd level costs as much as the 2nd level… for the dura­tion of your account!) AND they have a great refer­ral pro­gram. For every per­son I refer to them, I receive 10% of what­ever they spend for as long as they are a cus­tomer, AND I also get 5% of what­ever peo­ple they refer as well. This can be paid out as cash or used for your host­ing costs. My host­ing “costs” $20 a month, but I don’t pay a dime thanks to refer­rers. They also just bumped all cus­tomers’ band­width and space by 60% just for the hell of it. I now have 2.5 GB of stor­age and 65GB of trans­fer. Hot Damn!

    I can’t praise them enough. They rock my cock.

  4. Posted by Jon Hicks on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’ve got to say it, Seg­ment Pub­lish­ing have given me the best ser­vice of any host. You deal with one per­son all the time, no switch­baords. If I have a prob­lem or query I can email, AIM, or call Jeremy. Highly recommended

  5. Posted by Didier Hilhorst on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I also had a look at Seg­ment Pub­lish­ing. You know, it is the kind of com­pany I would like to sup­port. But to be hon­est there is just not enough bang for the buck if you ask me. Plus, it is not like have money to burn at the moment. If you com­pare it to Dreamhost it is really tough not to be seduced by the amount of stor­age, band­width etc. you get for roughly $20. So far the bal­ance is really tilt­ing towards Dreamhost, Jason’s com­ment is rein­forc­ing that too.

  6. Posted by Jeremy Keith on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I sec­ond the rec­om­men­da­tion for Seg­ment Pub­lish­ing. The ser­vice really is sec­ond to none.

    Dis­claimer: I’m not receiv­ing any kick­backs for prais­ing the com­pany; I’m just a happy customer.

  7. Posted by brian w on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’ve stayed with pair for one really good rea­son: absolutely no down­time. Erm, knock on wood. I’ve been using them for six years and haven’t had a sin­gle server out­age; seems like every six months or so I see a post on someone’s weblog like “Dreamhost was down last night, if you tried to email me can you send it again?”

    Write to pair. Tell ‘em their data­base pol­icy has caused their oth­er­wise stel­lar ser­vice to lag behind other providers. They’re respon­sive, maybe they’ll do some­thing about it.

  8. Posted by Brandon on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I am cur­rently on Ven­turesOn­line, but am think­ing of switch­ing to 1and1 Inter­net. Some co-workers and I have a few sites on their ser­vice, and couldn’t be happier.

  9. Posted by Robert on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I have been using DREAMHOST for about a year now and I have no com­plaints. They have been really respon­sive to any and all ques­tions that I have asked. Being a Perl pro­gram­mer, their CGI sup­port is great. I would highly rec­om­mend them.

  10. Posted by Jason Santa Maria on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    Yeah, I should men­tion, I didn’t say all that for a kick­back or any­thing. I was just try­ing to empa­size how good they are to their cus­tomers :D

  11. Posted by Walker on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I would have to say either Seg­ment Pub­lish­ing or Tilted. I have to say, I’m par­tial to Tilted because they’re from Chicago.

    Chi-Town Rep­re­sent!

  12. Posted by Eddie Garrett on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    You should take a look at TextDrive. It’s a great host­ing com­pany started by Dean of TextPat­tern.

    You have com­plete con­trol and the most respon­sive sup­port group I’ve ever come across. I highly rec­om­mend them.

    Cheers.

  13. Posted by Michael Hupp on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’ll vouch for Dreamhost, though they are the only host­ing com­pany I’ve ever had and so don’t have much to com­pare to. Key things for me are:

    Web panel

    Respon­sive

    Killer pric­ing (I got on dur­ing their anniver­sary sale, so I’m get­ting their top of the line pack­age for 9.95/mo.)

    Very lit­tle down time. Only once since I’ve been with them and they were extremely forth­com­ing and sent out an email to all clients out­lin­ing what hap­pened, why, and how they were plan­ning to avoid it in the future, along with steps to take from our side if they go down.

  14. Posted by KillAllDash9 on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I don’t have any expe­ri­ence with 1&1’s shared host­ing, but I’ve had a ded­i­cated server with them for about 6 months now and couldn’t be hap­pier. It’s a lit­tle more than you said you wanted to spend, but for $50/mo. I’m get­ting a 2GHz Celeron, 40GB drive, 256MB RAM, and 500GB/mo. of trans­fer. The linux server comes with Red Hat installed, but I was eas­ily able to do a remote install of Gen­too.

    The nice thing about hav­ing a ded­i­cated box with root access is that you can make sure the server is run­ning exactly what you need for your sites and noth­ing more. This is not only bet­ter for per­for­mance, but for secu­rity as well. It’ll also let you start using PHP5 long before shared servers take on the upgrade, if you’re so inclined.

  15. Posted by travis schmeisser on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’m down with Dreamhost too. The referal deal is def­i­nitely sweet and their newslet­ters are funny. That has to count for something.

  16. Posted by Jeremy Flint on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I have been with Con­trastHost­ing since March and really like them. I have even signed up a few other sites that I do to them because they offer big plans at lit­tle cost.

    http://www.contrasthosting.com

  17. Posted by kilikina on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’ve hosted about 16 domains with http://www.globalwebhost.com for the last 6 years. I have zero com­plaints. The few times I’ve needed to con­tact sup­port they were pretty quick about things too.

  18. Posted by Jeroen on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I host my site at BlogHosts, and am very happy with their ser­vice. Even their cheap­est plans have unlim­ited mySQL databases.

  19. Posted by Enrico on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    Here server are

  20. Posted by yafujifide on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’ve used Dreamhost for a while, and they’re won­der­ful. I’ve had many hosts over the years, and I’ve never enjoyed a host more. Their prices are great, and most imor­tantly, their ser­vice is great. I wouldn’t go with any­body else.

  21. Posted by Simon Jessey on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    My busi­ness site, Key­stone Web­sites, is being hosted with DreamHost at the moment. I will be mov­ing the si-blog over there as soon as I have rebuilt my con­tent man­age­ment system.

    DreamHost’s pric­ing struc­ture is amaz­ing, con­sid­er­ing all the stuff that their pack­age comes bun­dled with. Their con­trol panel, while highly spec­i­fied, is a lit­tle con­fus­ing; how­ever, it will be no prob­lem for the expe­ri­enced neti­zen. My only bug­bear was that I was unable to build/import a data­base before the domain name pro­pogated, so some down­time is inevitable dur­ing a move.

  22. Posted by Brian on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I have been look­ing to switch webhost’s too. It looks like Dreamhost is offer­ing a life­time price of $15.95 for:

    1 FREE domain registration

    15 full domains, 75 subdomains

    2560 MB Disk, 64 GB Transfer

    300 Mail­boxes, 75 Users

    E-Commerce, unlim­ited data­bases, and more!

    Looks like a sweet deal! I’m switch­ing to them today.

  23. Posted by Fernando Dunn II on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’ve been with Always Web Host­ing for dif­fer­ent sites since 2001. Their site doesn’t grab you, but they have some feature-rich pack­ages for under $15 (with no setup fees). The sup­port is fast, too. My only issue is that I’ve had prob­lems con­nect­ing even though they promise 99.9% uptime.. I don’t know if it was my con­nec­tion or the 0.1% they men­tioned down­time they hint at.

    I’m think­ing about giv­ing them the boot and try­ing this Dreamhost or Host­way. I just hate setup fees though.

  24. Posted by none on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    Try Flu­id­host­ing (http://www.fluidhosting.com). I am with them for the past 1–1/2 years, and had only great expe­ri­ences. Plus you get pure Inter­nap band­width quality!

  25. Posted by George Middlebrooks on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’ve just started using Dreamhost this year, try­ing it out with a few clients’ sites and just recently mov­ing my own over. The com­bi­na­tion of tons of fea­tures, free domain reg, refer­ral pro­gram, and GREAT ser­vice makes it a big win­ner for me.

    And if you have sev­eral domains or host­ing accounts that you man­age through them, you can do it all through the con­trol panel with a sin­gle login, which is a nice solu­tion to what can oth­er­wise be quite a pain…

  26. Posted by Sharif on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I asked a sim­i­lar ques­tion on my site a cou­ple months back, and got some great sug­ges­tions.

    In the end, I went with a reseller account from Insider Host­ing… with ample stor­age space/bandwidth, unlim­ited domains, unlim­ited data­bases and a lot more for just $25/month.

  27. Posted by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I sug­gest you take a trip over to http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ to do some more home­work. Don’t get sucked in by cheap prices and a ton of fea­tures. Good sup­port & reli­a­bil­ity is where it’s at.

  28. Posted by Jason on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’ve been with Dreamhost since 1999, and while there are times when things go down, it’s never for long and their cus­tomer ser­vice is spec­tac­u­lar. They’ve always responded to my queries quickly and completely.

    For those of us with mul­ti­ple sites, they have a great deal on now where you can host 15 URLs, get 2560 MB in stor­age space, unluimited mySQL data­bases, and 64GB monthly band­width for $20/mo. ($16/mo if you sign up pre-paid for 2 years)

    They rule school.

  29. Posted by Nathan on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I sec­ond the rec­om­men­da­tion for Textdrive. It’s still in “startup” mode, and can be a bit rough about the edges, but I’ve never seen bet­ter ser­vice. The servers are respon­sive and spiffy, the admins know what they’re about, you have near-complete free­dom, and the staff is incred­i­bly respon­sive and supportive.

    I’ve been with sev­eral host­ing com­pa­nies over the years, includ­ing Dreamhost Pair, and Cor­ner­host, and while all-around good, I’ve sim­ply never trusted any of them as much as I trust the folks at Textdrive.

  30. Posted by Jonathan on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I agree about TextDrive. Its sim­ply fan­tas­tic. You can­not ask for a bet­ter deal or for bet­ter ser­vice. They are a lit­tle rough around the edges still, but the progress is amaz­ing, and if you get in now, you can get some great host­ing deals from them.

  31. Posted by compuwhiz7 on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I also con­sid­ered Seg­ment Pub­lish­ing, but, like you, found it to be far too expen­sive con­sid­er­ing the specs. They do seem ter­ric though, but I have no qualms with HostNexus.

    TextDrive seems good too.

  32. Posted by Kevin on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’ve been happy with Host­cove (hostcove.com). Their prices are low, they offer plenty in the way of data­bases and such things, and their sup­port staff responds prac­ti­cally instantly when I have ques­tions. I’ve been happy with them for a few years now and rec­om­mend them with­out reservation.

  33. Posted by John Y. on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I’m with Dreamhost as well. There was one par­tic­u­larly nasty DDOS attack at the begin­ning of the year that took them down for nearly 36 hours, but beyond that I haven’t noticed down­time any worse than I’ve seen with any other host.

    Their sup­port is good, quite respon­sive in my expe­ri­ence, the pric­ing is good and their web panel is fantastic.

  34. Posted by Kenneth F on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    I use West­Host. I have been a (reseller) cus­tomer for 2 years, and I host all 25 of my clients there (in my reseller package).

    No prob­lems at all, and great cus­tomer ser­vice 24/7, great forums, your own con­trol panel to oper­ate all aspects of the site.

    Take a look at the below link for pack­ages that they offer:

    http://www.westhost.com/web-hosting.html

    Oh, and unlim­ited databases.

  35. Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004.

    Might I sug­gest check­ing into Host­ing Beyond (www.hostingbeyond.com). I host my per­sonal port­fo­lio as well as another project of mine, AdvancedPC.org there. Have noth­ing but good things to say about them. Excel­lent uptime, and cus­tomer ser­vice is bar none.

  36. Posted by Chris from Scottsdale on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    I’d sug­gest Crys­tal­tech (www.crystaltech.com) for Win­dows hosting.

    Or, go with Host­Nexus for Linux Man­aged Ded­i­cated Server Host­ing (or shared).

  37. Posted by Ian Gordon on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    I would sec­ond the 1 and 1 Inter­net (http://www.1and1.com) sug­ges­tion, they are backed by a top notch enter­prise host­ing com­pany (think Rack­Space). So they will pro­vide real reli­a­bil­ity. You can also get a good bang for your buck.

  38. Posted by Kevin on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    I’ve been look­ing around myself and my co-worker rec­om­mended Total Choice Hosting

  39. Posted by Connie on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    I can really rec­om­mend Com­forthost. The prices are stun­ning, and the ser­vice is excel­lent. I have been in the hands of this admins host­ing for over 3 years, its an excel­lent place, you cant find any­thing better.

  40. Posted by Connie on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    For­got to say, check their reseller pack­ages. *DROOL!*

  41. Posted by Brandon on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    I sug­gest you check out Advanced Inter­net Tech­nolo­gies’ Busi­ness accounts. For $18.95/mo you get 700MB stor­age, 40GB trans­fer, and unlim­ited data­base accounts. Win­dows or Linux. Check it out.

  42. Posted by JIm on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    I have used Dreamhost for about 2 years and no com­plaints. Sup­port is very respon­sive and they have more fea­tures than you can shake a stick at. They are the only host that I have found that has Jabber/XMPP ser­vice available.

  43. Posted by Dan Benjamin on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    Seg­ment Pub­lish­ing is, hands-down, the best web­host around. I was with Dreamhost for many years, and am very sad about what they’ve become. Seg­Pub brings qual­ity, sta­bil­ity, and cus­tomer ser­vice back to the host­ing busi­ness. Recon­sider, DH. The bang for the buck is there.

  44. Posted by Dan Benjamin on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    I should add … when you look at their prices, remem­ber they’re in Aus­tralian dol­lars (or Koalas or Kan­gas or what­ever they use over there).

    An AU is about 1/2 of an Amer­i­can dol­lar, and maybe 1/3 of a Euro. Keep that in mind when you com­pare prices.

  45. Posted by Rachel on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    some­one else men­tioned bloghosts, and i have to sec­ond that. they’ve been noth­ing short of amaz­ing to me in the year i’ve been with them.

  46. Posted by Mike P. on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004.

    http://www.bluegravity.com

    They migrate your sites for you and have the best cus­tomer ser­vice I have ever had.

    Unique IP’s for each site, are fast to set things up, not sure what the num­ber of mySQL db’s is but we have ten or so over 15 sites. They told me when sig­ing up that mySQL space doesn’t count against disk space for now, but it may in the future.

  47. Posted by Seth on Thursday, July 1st, 2004.

    A Small Orange! (http://www.asmallorange.com) Great sup­port and low prices. 2500MB / 60GB for $20 / month. Unlim­ited every­thing, data­bases, e-mail accounts (IMAP too!), domains, &c.

  48. Posted by Didier Hilhorst on Thursday, July 1st, 2004.

    Thanks all for your sug­ges­tions. I must say A Small Orange looks pretty cool. For one I dig their design. Not really a sell­ing point but it helps. Other than that their offer­ing is great, pretty sim­i­lar to Dreamhost.

    Dan B.: thanks for point­ing that out, I really thought those were US dol­lars. Maybe they should make that more clear (I know they state it, I should maybe read more care­fully) and add the prices in US and EUR cur­rency for inter­na­tional cus­tomers. It can’t hurt.

    My top three now is (in no par­tic­u­lar order): Seg­ment Pub­lish­ing, Dreamhost and A Small Orange (man, even the name is cool.) I will not migrate as of now, but prob­a­bly in the com­ing month or so.

  49. Posted by JoeBriefcase on Thursday, July 1st, 2004.

    I have been with OnS­mart for over two years, and about 75% of my clients are with them as well. I think I might have been one of their first clients. I knew them all by first name back then.

    This is a “Value Host” in that they are only $8 or so, but unlimted DBs, unlim­ited mails, etc.…. I have one of their old school accounts and I host 5 domains for $19.95. Their new plan is some­thing like $7.95 or up to two domains and maybe $2 for each additional.

    The Data­bases thing is huge. I’m always try­ing new PHP stuff and I scratch out a new DB every time, then delete it when I’m done with the exper­i­ments. Includes mySQL admin and is very easy to operate.

    The use the usual CPanel inter­face in the back. I’m pretty used to it. I’ve also used PAIR and found there’s to be a lot more key­strokes than I needed.

    But the real rea­son I love OnS­mart is they have Live Chat sup­port, and it’s not fake Live Chat. They really are there. They really do answer. I’ve solved every ques­tion I ever had in just min­utes with their chat sup­port. A cou­ple of times I’ve sent in email quieries too and those are answered quickly as well.

    Also the com­pany is grow­ing. They have new employ­ees, a new affi­laite pro­gram, etc. So I feel secure host­ing there. I’ve been screwed before when “value” hosts turned out to be guys in a dorm room who even­tu­ally just dumped all their clients (Yeah, I’m talk­ing to you WazooWeb!)

    So check out OnS­mart — http://www.onsmart.com

  50. Posted by Reinier on Friday, July 2nd, 2004.

    I have faith in textdrive as well.

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