FAO: London and/or UK Drupal users
RE: A webhost that supports Drupal websites well
I currently use Freehostia.com to host my 2 websites. One I made around 2008/2009 before I knew about Drupal and the other one: www.jbmjk.com I made using Drupal.
Freehostia are good for hosting my non-Drupal site. They are a good all round host. When you ask for help by opening a help ticket from the control panel they usually respond pretty quickly with their “24x7 buddy support”.
However I feel that their servers are not really designed to host Drupal websites and everytime that I need to update my Drupal version there’s some kind of a problem.
At the very least, I need to add # to the options directives in the .htaccess file to make my site accessible after running an upgrade; because their servers do not allow the options directive. This time that alone did not make my site accessible and I was asked to rename the file to _htaccess so that the server ignored it. My website was then accessible but none of my links were working, including all the administration links , so I had to control over my site. When support contacted me after that they said that they had undergone ‘maintenance of the script’ but that my installation appeared to be corrupt and I would have to restore my old database and attempt the update again. I visited my site this morning for a final check before restoring and my links were then working. I therefore finished my upgrade by taking my site out of maintenance mode and re-enabling required modules. I even updated a module. I was really happy that I wouldn’t have to restore my old database and attempt the update again.
I’ve just gone onto my website now into Advanced Administration and ‘views slideshow’ link to continue trying to develop my website and again I’ve got the “White screen of death” quoting Internal server Error 500, that I seem to get all too often with freehostia on jbmjk.com . Sometimes I get errors like this just because their servers are generally down.
I have an ambition to design websites as a freelancer, but I halted the business idea when I found out about Drupal and the benefits it can offer me. I’d like to learn Drupal more thoroughly and have a good understanding of a Drupal website before I start using it professionally, hence my project website: www.jbmjk.com .
I’m looking for a webhost that has servers that are more geared towards Drupal websites and do not require lots of modification of coding just to make a website accessible after a core update and preferably as well one that doesn’t have much downtime. What I find with Freehostia is that when I make time to work on my website (having a full time job as well) it’s very frustrating when I can’t because their servers are down. All of this stuff is time consuming and won’t look very good to an end-client I’m sure if I’m relying a lot on webhost support to fix things at their end.
This time when I asked the support team what “ maintenance of the script” they had done to make my website accessible , so that I knew for next time , they couldn’t tell me , perhaps another reason why another host may be more suitable to host: www.jbmjk.com
I am hoping that the Drupal London and/or UK groups can recommend a webhost that supports Drupal websites well and doesn’t have much downtime.
Thanks
jay
P.S. My friend recommended that I see what the local Drupal user group suggests, but unfortunately the posting to a forum facility on Drupal.org.UK seems to be permanently broken , so I've posted here hoping to find London/UK Drupal users that can help.
Comments
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what is the price point you seek?
most every value host will cause issues at some point. The site may work well while being developed only to hit resource usage policy limits shortly after going live.
if the site in question is important, conisder pantheon
if not all that important, there are many shared hosts which you can investigate. Many of which have been discussed in this form you are posting to. Keep in mind that when researching shared hosting the results can be hit or miss. as it's not simply about the host but what machine your account landed on.
Hi Well I currently pay about
Hi
Well I currently pay about £22.31GBP for one year's hosting plan which features the following:
Hosted Domains. max. 10
Subdomains. 30
IP Addresses. 0
SSH. Optional.
MySQL Databases. 2
MySQL Quota. 25 MB
PostgreSQL Databases. Optional
PostgreSQL Quota. Optional
Disk Space. 500 MB
Traffic. 12 GB
Email Addresses. 100
Mailing Lists. 0
FTP Accounts. 2
Customer Support. Active
SSL Hosts. 10
Template Credits. No
Site Studio. Optional
Backup -0.00 MB
Cronjobs No
CPU Usage 2.50%
My previous post indicates what I'm actually using it for. And I usually pay them about £6.30 GBP PER domain name renewal for a year and about the same again PER ID Protection on a domain name.
So Round it up to about £55.00GBP a year for what I'm currently using it for the hosting plan and my 2 domains with ID protect.
I had a quick look the other day. Drupal Specific ones at a quick glance seemed to be considerably more :-o .
I need to look into it more before considering a switch next time jbmjk is up for renewal.
What would you guys suggest is a good price to pay for what I'm looking for - without me paying over the odds?!
Many Thanks
Jay
With thanks for the advice from everyone on here so far. Very informative :-)
Let me have a stab at prices
It varies immensely. But:
I register my domains with Domain Monster. They're £5.58 + VAT for two years for .uk; clearly international TLDs like .net, .com or .org cost more. If they're UK domains your registering, you could shave a little off there.
For hosting, there's no one price. I'd say that for 500 MB your needs are fairly modest, and you should be able to do that for about £3 per month. Looking up a couple of UK hosts that people recommend freely on WebHostingTalk, one came in at £2.99 for a plan that would give you that much, and another at £3.95. You can save a bit by paying annually, but only do that once you've kicked the tyres and know you're happy. Give that 2-3 months paying monthly minimum. So you could probably do the hosting for about £30-£40 a year. Never mind which hosts I just looked at - that's not the point, and I don't want to skew your investigations. The point is that they are UK hosts with a reputation for good support, and for not overloading their servers.
Now, do you need "Drupal-specific" hosting? Some people would say "yes, always". I'd say it depends on your site, on how you develop, and on your budget. You pay more for that, so the question is whether you need it. If you would use the Drush command line to develop your site, you need a host who supplies that. You probably need a host with a good amount of memory for PHP - 96-128M is a good minimum, which isn't something uniquely supplied by Drupal-specific hosts. You need a server that isn't overloaded, but how much resource you need depends on whether you use any modules that are real CPU hogs, and how many visitors you get per day. I'd say: Find a good, solid shared host, having checked their reputation carefully. If you find they can't run your site, you could look to upgrade to a Drupal-specific host, or to another type of hosting altogether. But, as I say, some would say every Drupal site should use a Drupal-specific host regardless.
One thing your current host doesn't give you that is definitely worth getting is access to cron. That allow you to schedule cron runs on your site, which is far better than the built-in "poor man's cron" that Drupal 7 has. Better at a number of levels.
HTH
James Oakley … my Drupal sites
OakHosting.NET | Oakleys.org.uk | Mandelbrot Explorer | Mary Oakley's Books
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sound advice.
The only thing I'd add to the above is that its a good idea to have some undertanding of how many queries a site is using per hour/day and database size quotas. Some hosts limit DB activity (I can't speak for UK hosts). Drupal being database driven it's important to make sure a site isn't going to hit any query limits set in the RUP. DB size quotas can also be an issue. 25M as mentioned above can be used pretty quickly on a Drupal site. Cache tables alone can reach that quota depending on how much content a site has in it.
Hosts are recognizing users switching from static sites to dynamic sites run on CMS's. As such, RUP's seem to be changing to keep up with the shift in resource demands.
db size
VM
Where can I find out how close my database currently is to the 25Mb Limit? I've had a look on the phpMyAdmin interface but don't know where exactly to look. There seems to be a lot of info. on there.
Thanks
Here's how
I'm not VM, but let me have a go:
Go into phpMyAdmin. On the left you have a list of databases - perhaps you only have the one. Click on that database name. The main part of the screen, on the right, then fills with a list of all the database tables. At the bottom, you'll see a total in the Size column, and also a total in the Overhead total. You are currently using those two amounts added together.
James Oakley … my Drupal sites
OakHosting.NET | Oakleys.org.uk | Mandelbrot Explorer | Mary Oakley's Books
Thanks James
Thankyou very much James Oakley. That shows that I haven't even used up half of my Mb allocation yet - so I'm ok on that front at least.
Keep an eye on it, though
As VM says, it can grow quickly.
James Oakley … my Drupal sites
OakHosting.NET | Oakleys.org.uk | Mandelbrot Explorer | Mary Oakley's Books
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I would venture a guess the DB size is somewhere in your host panel. Else, you can export the DB and check the file size.
Register a domain with one host & host it thru another provider?
James you mentioned that you register your domains with Domain monster and then vary the hosting.
My domain name is due for renewal next month.
If I renew the domain name with Freehostia because I haven't yet decided on a new host , would it then be easy to host my domain on another provider?
Would it be as easy as just uploading all my files and db to the new webhosts servers?
Sorry it may seem like a silly question but I've only ever hosted my domains through the provider they're registered with.
Thanks
jay
It should be
Here's how you'd do it: Log in to the Freehostia control panel, and look for how you change the "nameservers" for your domains.
They'll be currently set to something with freehostia.com / .net / .org in. Or, they'll be set by ticking a radio button that is labelled something like "Host your sites with Freehostia". As long as they let you enter your own values in there, and change those nameserver settings for something else, then yes this is really easy.
Once you've checked you'll be able to do that, there's no reason why you cannot renew the domains with Freehostia. When the time comes, sign up with the host you wish to use, and their sign-up email to you will contain the settings that need to go into those nameserver slots. Put those settings in, and your good to go.
The only gotcha to be aware of is that this appears sometimes not to have worked. In fact, it's worked fine, but you have to wait for something called propagation. Basically, to avoid every computer that browsers your site looking up your IP address every time they visit, their computer will "cache" the IP address for a period of time. This is typically 4 hours, but could be as long as 24-48 hours in some cases. After that time has expired, they'll look up your IP address again, and then they'll browse your site on its new server. Because you probably browse your own site relatively often, the chances are your own computer will have cached the old server's details, so you have to wait for that to clear.
HTH
James Oakley … my Drupal sites
OakHosting.NET | Oakleys.org.uk | Mandelbrot Explorer | Mary Oakley's Books
A few pointers
As has just been said, deciding on a budget is a key decision. It's not always as simple as "pay more, get better", but an increased budget does bring hosts with better resourced servers into reach.
To be honest, you've got excellent value for money out of freehostia. You did well to stay with them for as long as you did, so you've managed to save a bit of money by doing that.
Watch out for two things that draw in many people and they regret it later: 1. Hosts that offer you unlimited disk space. There are one or two who seem to offer that and manage it well; most of the others attract people who try to eat all they can at the buffet, and you end up hitting either slow servers, or hidden limits that the host has to set because they don't have unlimited hard drives. -> More 500 errors. 2. Websites that offer reviews of web hosts ("top ten web hosts for Drupal", etc.) because these are almost always affiliate driven. The hosts you see are those who paid the most to feature there. That doesn't mean they're the best - it might even mean they've spent money on affiliate marketing that they could have better spent on hardware.
One excellent website to dig around a big is webhostingtalk.com. The great thing there is that nobody is allowed to post a review of a host that they haven't actually used themselves, and this is carefully checked on by the moderators.
For now, it sounds like it's just a host for you. In time, as you develop client sites, you'll be tempted to host client sites out of your hosting account, adding them on as "add-on domains". That compromises the security of those client sites, so (once those sites are live) it's far better to host them in their own account, but you'd have to budget for that as you quote for work. You'd then be looking either for a reseller account (but, again, watch out for overselling - don't touch any host that allows resellers to create their own reseller accounts - that's a pyramid going nowhere), or talk to prospective hosts about whether they'll discount you for having multiple plans.
I hope that's some help.
James Oakley … my Drupal sites
OakHosting.NET | Oakleys.org.uk | Mandelbrot Explorer | Mary Oakley's Books
Hi Jay, Drupion is not only
Hi Jay,
Drupion is not only "more geared towards Drupal" but in fact all about Drupal. Please consider Drupion as a fully managed Drupal-specific hosting company. Moreover, European customers now can take advantage of special campaign http://drupion.com/blog/promotional-campaign-hosting-europe
There some other Drupal-specific companies listed on http://www.drupalspecific.com
Drupion.com — Drupal-centric, Drupal-specific, Drupal-optimized hosting company.
If you're familiar with
If you're familiar with servers, getting a good VPS plan is always better to host a Drupal CMS, but shared cPanel hosting is also fine if it's well configured. Euro-Space.net is a UK based hosting provider, which supports Drupal CMS and offers professional 24x7 customer support.
A2 Hosting is one of the
A2 Hosting is one of the recommended drupal hosts: http://drupal.org/hosting
We recently just launched a data center in Reykjavik, Iceland which may server your UK clients well. We also just launched SSD hosting out of our Southfield, Michigan data center which has shown an huge improvement in page loads speeds for Drupal.
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Great support a reasonable fees. Drupal scripts and most open source cMS for automated installation
thanks
Thankyou all.. A lot to think about for sure :-/
Latest Drupal installation
Latest Drupal installation comes with Softaculous 1-Click script installer, which makes website building and configuring much faster and easier. I'd recommend to check that solution at EURO-SPACE web hosting provider
Cheers!
With all php configurable
With all php configurable options.
webfaction.com
I am currently using webfaction.com and for their price, they offer a LOT. SSH access, ability to install a lot of things (git, apc, etc). As long as you don't run out of memory(you can buy more), you can install/run, anything you like.
Webfaction
I very much agree, Webfaction offers an incredible amount for a very modest cost. I previously hosted a number of small Drupal sites with a high profile shared host.
Performance was really poor so moved over to Webfaction, never looked back.
Webfaction
Thanks :-)
Mostly, web hosts run shared
Mostly, web hosts run shared accounts with PHP memory limitation (by default 64MB or 128MB) to avoid overload. For the good Drupal performance, it's recommended to search for a hosting provider which offers memory (and other functions) adjustment via custom php.ini file, also offering SSH access.
cPanel / Drupal Hosting from €1.99 | VPS hosting from €12.99
EURO-SPACE - Reliable Hosting Solutions Since 2007