Paid affiliate hosting advertisement
2006 hosting providers evaluations
Hi, let's start a new thread for evaluating hosting providers. The 2005 was getting too long to scroll through. This thread is continuing from
http://drupal.org/node/19674#comment-87655 (copied below)
I use opensourcehost. they install everything. will upgrade for free. replies to my emails usually within 5 to 60 minutes. will donate 10% to drupal. one apparent drawback is that servers are only in 1 city (dallas) as far as i can see on their website.
in general they've been great and I really recommend them.
highlandhosting.com, your site sounds great! it's got moodle, noah's classifieds, oscommerce. I'm going to check it out. oddly, drupal was not listed under cms. for others, i think highland could be a great place to test software. highland has the best collection i've seen.
i've been thinking about trying about bluehost. they have toll-free 800 support.
do not use interland. the tech support person does not know what ssh or sftp is.
ae2005
Dreamhost
I've been using Dreamhost for about 6 months. I'm very impressed. Not only are their prices amazing:
unlimited domains, unlimited subdomains, 20 GB disk, 1 TB Transfer,
600 mailboxes, 75 Shell/FTP Users etc. etc. for $8 a month
but they have very good support too, responding to my two queries within a few hours.
There is no default drupal install, but with shell access to a fairly complete linux machine it is easy to install. They also have a complete custom web panel much better than cpanel.
I haven't hosted drupal anywhere else, so no other benchmark, but I'd recommend these guys.
Yes Dreamhost
Same here, happy dreamhost customer. I'm used to a lot less capabilities for the price. Dreamhost exceeds what I would expect to get, and they keep increasing my disk space. :D
I feel like the only way I would move somewhere else is if someone gave me a hosted server for the same price. That probably won't happen.
Thomas G. Willis
skeptical but still interested
Even though I haven't gotten a response from sales yet about a couple simple questions I had I'm still considering them. It's all those big numbers I suppose.
I'm skeptical, due to some complaints of slowness of Drupal on their servers.
Does anyone know the refund policy? I can't seem to find it anywhere on their site.
To answer my own question
To answer my own question, it's a 97 day money back guarantee, but only if paid by credit card.
mySQL?
It is not clearly listed that Dreamhost supports online database apps, specifically mySQL. Anyone?
Sean
Cambridge Community Television
http://www.cctvcambridge.org
Yes
If you mean database apps like drupal, wordpress, gallery2 rails apps etc. Yes.
http://www.dreamhost.com/shared/comparison.html
"MySQL Databases Unlimited" across the board.
Thomas G. Willis
DreamHost coupons
Here's the coupons that I mentioned below (can't edit the post)
DH02SETUP - Free setup fee for monthly plans (instead of $50 setup)
DH75OFF - $75 off yearly plans (~$45/year for L1)
Plan comparision
--
Also DH works great for all those scripts. They also have automatic installs of these:
WordPress Weblog (v2.0.2) - wordpress.org
phpBB Forum (v2.0.20) - phpbb.com
Advanced Poll (v2.03) - proxy2.de
ZenCart Store (v1.3.0.1) - zencart.com
MediaWiki Wiki (v1.6.6) - wikipedia.sourceforge.net
Joomla (Mambo) CMS (v1.0.8) - joomla.org
Gallery Image Album (v2.1) - gallery.menalto.com
WebCalendar Calendar (v1.0.3) - k5n.us
And with unlimited subdomains and domains, you can do multi-site Drupal setups or install several different scripts on each subdomain.
-- Ben // profilefx.com
More coupons
DH60PERCENT -60% off yearly L1
DH990MO - $9.90/mo
--
Cheap, reliable Drupal hosting: 20GB | 1TB
Save $75| DH75OFF coupon for 1 year ($3.75/mo!)
Save $50| DH02SETUP coupon for monthly ($10/mo!)
Thanks, 200 GB are not bad
Thanks, 200 GB are not bad !
------
DruChess
WinDict
------
Yes DreamHost works great for Drupal
I signed up with them 7 months or so ago with a coupon for $30-40/year instead of the usual $110. I didn't expect much for that price but they give you more control than any other host I've used in that price range. It has ssh access, unlimited DBs, unlimited domains/subdomains, and you can install your own versions of php-cgi and other (processor-friendly) apps. You can also switch between php4 and php5 with a checkbox, takes 10 seconds. It's cool not feeling restricted.
If you sign up with them, be sure to ask one of their current customers for a coupon so you can both get a better deal.
Godaddy's the worst for hosting, but fine for domains. ASmallOrange is very reliable (great reviews on many sites and good personal experience with them) and comparable to DreamHost, but their deals aren't even close to the same disk/BW.
-- Ben // profilefx.com
GoDaddy hosting - should I switch to another?
Hi benthere,
I've had GoDaddy for years for domain names and I really like them for that product and service. Last week, I switched to them for a LAMP shared hosting account when my account with another web host was about to expire.
I'm slowly coming to the realization that GoDaddy takea a REALLLY long time to respond to my emails, and their autoresponder emails state, "Your question has been received. You should expect a response within 24 hours." That's too long, in my opinion.
But worse than that, it seems their tech support is very limited in terms of LAMP knowledge, although I could be wrong. That's just the initial impression I get, and it didn't help that when I told one of the tech support guys on their tech support phone line earlier this week that I used CuteFTP Pro, he mentioned that he didn't use a Mac but would still try to help me. Huh??? Gee, I don't use a Mac either, "but what's a Mac got to do with file transfer?", I asked him. I felt bad because I think he was very embarassed, but not using a Mac when discussing CuteFTP is not the type of response I would expect from tech support. It just made me wonder about the type of training they have received...or not received.
I also asked GoDaddy why it was taking so long (about 10 minutes) for me to access a newly created database or to delete a database as well as even longer (about 30 minutes) for a database password change to take effect, and they told me it was because "...the database is located on a remote server for security as opposed to locally on the same server as the site." For a newbie like me, is having the database on a different server an issue? I noticed that in at least one spot, the
$db_url = 'mysql://username:password@localhost/database';
line in the settings.php file I will need to insert the correct database server location in place of "localhost". Are there other Drupal files (core and/or contributed modules) that I'll need to worry about in terms of inserting the correct database server location in place of "localhost"?
So, benthere, what else have you found with GoDaddy? I need to make a decision on hosting and I'd rather know more about what I'm dealing with sooner rather than later. So lay out the pros and cons of your experience with GoDaddy hosting.
Oh and by the way, you mentioned about asking a current DreamHost customer for a coupon in order for both the current customer (you, in this case) and me to get a better deal. Can I get a coupon from you? You can contact me via my Drupal user name's contact form. Looks like if I sign up with them, you'll get $97, correct? :) But I haven't yet decided so don't buy that beer just yet! ;) I may go with site5 or PowWeb or...
Thank you in advance for your reply!
-----
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA, Captain - U.S. Marine Corps (Veteran)
President, Wellness Corps, LLC
-----
Drupal Users and Developers by Geographical Location
http://drupal.org/node/46659
RE: switching from GoDaddy to DreamHost
I found that as far as support, they're very slow by email and you're on hold for quite a while if you call. Neither method lets you contact anyone all that knowledgeable, and they'll often email you canned replies using template emails. The emails were very strange: they were HTML and had a special place between two lines that you were supposed to type your reply so that it could be processed properly. I didn't like it at all.
The database being located on a remote server shouldn't be a problem with Drupal. It's the same way with DreamHost and seems to be fairly common for hosts to do it that way. They're not being particularly honest IMO about that being the reason for it to take a long time for new databases to appear and password changes to take effect. It's their scripts or their long queue of requests that makes that take longer.
DreamHost says that changes like that may take "up to 5 minutes" but in my experience it's only a couple. You can create as many databases as you want on DH, as opposed to GoDaddy's single DB (if I recall correctly). And I did have some problems on GoDaddy where the database connection slowed down or caused errors in the rest of the site. That occasionally happens with DH, but it doesn't last very long before things are back to normal.
Nothing to worry about. After you set that $db_url correctly, it works for all core and contributed modules that I've come across (probably all of them).
GoDaddy was actually the first host that I used. I used them for one high-traffic site that I developed for but didn't own a while back, and used them again when I was setting up my own domain and got a deal on the first month of hosting with the domain purchase. I cancelled after that first month and switched because I already had bad experiences the first time. But as I said, they're fine for domains alone, just not hosting.
GoDaddy makes you feel like you're just another customer in a big system of theirs, with their canned tech support, restrictions on databases, domains, subdomains, etc. Both ASO and DreamHost have provided tech support that treats you as an individual, and are willing to help with any issues with setting up products like Drupal and other forum/blog software, at least as far as their configuration is concerned.
I got into DH because of the deal that I got on a yearly plan, that I passed along to you through your contact form. I don't get anywhere near $97 for giving coupons out, and I don't want you to think that I am biased because of that.
I am probably sticking with DH after this first discounted year is up because I have several domains that I am building under the same plan. DBs, domains, and subdomins are all unlimited, and the bandwidth/disk limits are so high that I can fit everything under one plan for quite a while I believe. I don't stream video or offer huge downloads but with the 1 TB limit I probably could get away with it for a while! I've got my videos offloaded to video.google.com so that they can pay for it instead. ;-)
My sites aren't anywhere near high-traffic at the moment, so I don't know if you'll run into any problems down the road with that, but it works well for my purposes and I have confidence it will continue to work as they grow. I'll just keep building more sites under the same plan until I hit that limit.
So you have: 20 GB disk (grows 160 MB/week), 1000 GB bw (grows 8 GB/week), unlimited domains/subdomains/DBs/email addresses, shell access, Jabber server, Quicktime streaming server, Subversion version control server, and their own administrative panel (similar to cpanel) that works pretty well and lets you do anything I can think of. I tell you this because I didn't know they had so many extras until after I became a customer.
I looked at site5, and I used and liked ASmallOrange. And on the surface the deals look about equal. But with the coupons that I sent you, you end up with a much better deal with DreamHost. The setup fee is only the outrageous $50 if you don't have a coupon. ;-)
Well I hope that helps. Can you tell I'm liking DH? Again, I don't have huge traffic sites, and I can't tell you whether they'll have perfect reliability, but they give you more options than GoDaddy for sure, and possibly others, with a huge discount with coupons. My $0.02...maybe more like $1.
-- Ben // profilefx.com
Wow, thanks! Excellent deal with DreamHost
Benthere's feedback was definitely more like $1 AND $0.02! ;) Thank you so much to benthere for a very thorough reply which really helped me make my decision.
After a LOT of looking around for a few days in mid-March 2006 and comparing features, pricing, etc., I went with DreamHost.
DreamHost has A LOT OF FEATURES to offer, including a really nice control panel they developed. Also, the COUPONS I created for folks to use when signing up should make the DreamHost offer all that more attractive. I created two coupons: (1) a NO4995SETUPFEE coupon to waive the $49.95 set up fee that appears on monthly plans and (2) a 50DOLLARDISCOUNT coupon to obtain a $50 discount on the initial cost of any plan that's for a year or two. For example, you'll pay an average of $5.78/month on the Level 1 "Crazy Domain Insane" 1-year plan with the $50 coupon vs. $9.95/month without the coupon. You simply enter the coupon code when signing up to get the discount!
Another Drupal user here on the forums, benthere, gave me a great deal by allowing me to use his coupon and so I'm extending a discount to other folks that are in need of hosting like I was. You'll be able to offer other folks a discount like I did and also make a small amount of money by recommending DreamHost and having folks use your coupon, so everyone wins! :) Take a look at http://dreamhost.com/rewards.html
If anyone has questions about the coupons, please feel free to contact me via http://drupal.org/user/15083/contact.
For my UNscientific ;) web host research, I used these three web sites to help compare many web hosts to each other. They may help some folks make a decision:
http://www.webhosts.thelist.com/
http://www.webhostingratings.com/
http://www.webhostinginspector.com/
Which web hosts did I take a look at? In addition to some reviews via the three web sites above, I took a look at ALL the following in this alphabetized list:
http://www.101sitehosting.com/Hosting_Plans/
http://www.gate.com/unix/compare_plans.htm
http://www.highlandwebhosting.com/
http://www.hostingzoom.com/services.html
http://www.hostmatters.com/plans.html
http://www.hostpc.com/http://www.westhost.com/
http://www.ipowerweb.com/
http://www.opensourcehost.com
http://www.pair.com/
http://www.serverfly.com/webhosting/index.html
http://www.site5.com/hosting/comparison.php
http://www.startlogic.com/products_prologic.html
http://www.webhostingbuzz.com/
...and I reviewed many of the others listed here on this page although I may not have listed them above.
Good luck to everyone in their web host search and I hope the info above helps!
-----
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA, Captain - U.S. Marine Corps (Veteran)
President, Wellness Corps, LLC
Affiliate sites
Be careful when using sites like those. Check their link URLs for affiliate IDs and even for masking of destination URLs in the statusbar. Referring people to hosting plans can be very profitable, so many "hosting comparison" sites are actually just referring you to certain companies for a profit. The site owners make between $20 and $100 for each person that they refer. Most "hosting plan directory/review/comparison" sites cannot be trusted.
Thanks for the very insightful info
Thanks for your insightful observation. Yes, I've noticed the links here and there on some of the "hosting comparison" sites and I'm sure some of the ones I don't see are in fact masking the URLs.
Overall, I find the sites helpful, even if they have an agenda in making money through referrals. I visit the sites, see what they say, look around at features, and, in the process, learn a bit and also whittle down the choices. It's the process I used for DreamHost, and I'm happy thus far with my decision.
I think everyone has to "pay the light bill" in some manner, so you see the activity you described and other activity such as consultants posting their "services" signatures here and there. I see nothing wrong with it and it just goes back to the old saying, "caveat emptor" (let the buyer beware). As a discerning buyer, it's not so much a matter of trust/no trust as it is gleaning bits of data to make a decision.
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA
President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing
DH to site5
I signed up for a monster code plan with dreamhost. The package is incredible, but the speed is quite hard to deal with. I've only tried developing a few drupal 4.7 sites with a fairly basic core code and a few extra modules running. Sometimes my page loads are about 1 to 1.5 seconds and often each page takes over 30 seconds to load. On my other server where I have 3 fully developed 4.6 and 4.7 drupal sites and the page load time is almost always under 1.5 seconds. I'm thinking of moving away from my current host for many reasons I'd rather not get into, but one of the things I'll miss most is the query and page load speeds.
Another problem I've had is when I set up a mySQL db for a fresh install it has taken hours for the subdomain to be usable. In other words I've had to wait over 6 hours for to use phpMyAdmin for a project I'm ready to start work with. This has happened about 3 times and 3 other times the subdomain becomes usable within 15 minutes.
So, I'm just about to sign up for site5 and opt out with Dreamhost. One of the main reasons I choose DH was the 97 day moneyback guarantee. I'm in a lucky position to have the convenience of continuing to use my current host while shopping around. I hope the site5 proves to be a good trial. I'll post back here in a few weeks after I develope a little with site5.
DS
Any updates on site5?
Hi DS,
It's almost been a month since your 2/27 post and I was wondering if you've had a chance to work with site5 in order to post any feedback here. Any pros or cons would be great to read.
Thank you in advance for your reply!
Much appreciated!
-----
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA, Captain - U.S. Marine Corps (Veteran)
President, Wellness Corps, LLC
-----
Drupal Users and Developers by Geographical Location
http://drupal.org/node/46659
Site 5
I just started hosting with Site 5 about 3 weeks ago, so far everything has been excellent. I had a trouble ticket opened and it was answered promptly. The entire issue was handled well, with responses to my question being given sometimes within minutes of the request. The offer pretty decent hosting plans and if you prepay you get the best deal. Their interface is very easy to use (especially for a novice user such as myself) So far thumbs up for me with Site 5!!
DreamHost and site5
Well, I've been usng site5 for a little over a month now, and doing pretty much the same thing that I did on the DreamHost Account I had; setting up a few Drupal 4.7 beta 5 and 6 test sites, and am now developing 3 full drupal sites with site5 as the host. I can honestly say that site5 is excellent. I think it is better than Dreamhost due to ease of use, as it uses a modified version of cPanel that I am familiar with. I haven't really found any cons yet, just all pros.
I'd like to preface the following by stating that this is hardly a scientific comparison, it's only one users experience.
The difference between Dreamhost and site5 is:
1.) Page Load Time
DH - was simply awful for about 2 weeks, but the rest of the time is was wonderful. When I complained that my server was sluggish I did get a reply after 2 days about moving servers, and/or they were looking into the problem. It seems they did get things running faster on the same server because I did note that the Page Load Time was back to mostly under 1 second per page which was great.
site5 - I have been very satisfied with page load time, almost always under 1 second.
2.) Mysql
DH - It took sometimes up to 12 hours for me to create, and then be able to use, a mysql databases. This was eventually fixed. A lot of people have written about Dreamhost using a seperate server for databases. I don't feel I'm technically conversant enough to speak on this, but query times (using the devel module) were quite slow when the 2 weeks of Page Load Time I mention above occured. They were excellent when things were runnng well.
site5 - creating new databases is almost instant, so no problem there. Query times are excellent, and comparable to DH when DH was runnng well.
3.) Usability
DH - is pretty good. I was not confused by much. The DH Control Panel is fairly straight forward.
Site5 - Coming from using a cPanel envronment for the last three years it was simple for me to get used to site5's home-rolled cPanel. They have little features like site jumping, so you can easily move from account to account that are helpful.
Both DH and site5 give you the ability to have a SSH Shell Access, which is one main reason I looked into the two. On my old host I'd have to ask, then if I didn't use it for a while, the server person would turn off shell access.
I'd like to finish by saying that DH would have gotten my vote if site5 didn't exist. The problems I had with them were not insurmountable, and they were all fixed and relatively quickly. Since I haven't had any reason to contact site5 tech support I can't rate site5 for support. That is a good thing. DH support was relatively quick, between 4-48 hours response, with an average of 8 or so hours. Each problem I had was eventually fixed. My main problem was those 2 weeks when the server I was on was very sluggish.
DS
THANK YOU!
DS,
Thanks for your excellent reply! It's very thorough and easy to follow!
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA
President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing
After 14 months with Dreamhost
I'm a very happy customer. It works exceedingly well with Drupal because of the freedom they give you in setting up multiple sites, and administering multiple databases. I have about 10 domains setup on Dreamhost now, and I've only seen 1 connection problem that lasted less than 30 seconds in those 14 months. Not bad for hosting that cost me about $4/mo with a $65 off coupon.
I've noticed that they've improved the database creation process a lot since I first signed up. It used to take up to 12 hours or so to create a database (avg. 2-3 hours), but now most are created within 30 mins in my experience. They also changed it so you could have all your databases on the same server and administer them all from the same phpMyAdmin just by pulling down a menu. I have the same connection settings now for each of my sites, which is another bonus for Drupal especially.
Shell access is also really helpful. I don't really know how I lived without it before. Now I just wget to download large movies or Drupal modules directly to the site and unpack them, and backups are a quick command away so I do them much more frequently.
They also have daily MySQL backups that you can restore yourself, and even if you delete your whole development database by accident, they'll restore it for you within a few hours. (don't ask how I know that, haha) Their support has always been within 24 hours or close to it, and they have such good deals now I might upgrade to the plan that has phone support.
I also made good use of the Darwin Streaming Server that is included. One of my sites was a Drupal media site, so I could use the Drupal video.module and Quicktime to create MP4 videos that load instantly and let you seek to any part of the video quickly. It's something that I've never seen offered on any of the other managed hosts, especially not for free with a very affordable plan.
They're by far the best hosting I've used in terms of reliability, support, and even affordability. I'm really surprised that I was able to get all 3 from the same host. Needless to say, I'll be sticking with them for much longer than these 14 months.
--
Cheap, reliable Drupal hosting: 20GB | 1TB
Save $75| DH75OFF coupon for 1 year ($3.75/mo!)
Save $50| DH02SETUP coupon for monthly ($10/mo!)
Affiliate links
Advice on hosting that also includes affiliate links cannot be trusted.
Not really.
I used the same deal when I got my hosting at DreamHost over a year ago. Around $4/mo for hosting that has much more bandwidth and disk and better reliability than most $5-10/mo hosts is a good deal to me.
I recommend them because I use them. I host several sites at DreamHost. I've seen one significant period of downtime so far, just recently, that lasted about 2 hours, in over a year with them.
You can take my experiences with a grain of salt, as you should any hosting advice, but if you actually read it, it's based on firsthand experience. I host with them and I'm happy with them.
--
Cheap, reliable Drupal hosting: 20GB | 1TB
Save $75| DH75OFF coupon for 1 year ($3.75/mo!)
Save $50| DH02SETUP coupon for monthly ($10/mo!)
Page load time
How can you tell if the page load time is an issue with your website or with the server? I'm having some issues with my website page load times, so am trying to figure out if it's just because I've misconfigured my drupal installation or if it's a slow server. I'm using Site5 myself.
Major problems with Site5
Once upon a time they may have been a good company. But nowadays they seem to be way oversold. Today I had a site shut down with 256 pageviews. Yes, you read that right. 256 pageviews.
My other site was taken down twice a few days ago with 575 pageviews for the day. This is with major IP blocking in action, bad behavior working -- doesn't matter. In the past, that site has hit 25,000 pageviews -- real visitors -- in a day, without a problem. Now I don't think it could it 1000 without being shut down by their techs. I've had to strip down the site to a basic blog just so it doesn't disappear altogether.
Oh, and that scaling up option they've been selling? Doesn't happen. They'll take you down for "resource usage" way before you ever come close to hitting your bandwidths. An Inktomi crawl of your site could take it down on Site5.
Not recommended (any more). What has happened to Site5?
--
mediagirl.org
The biggest problem nowadays
The biggest problem nowadays seems to be overselling and limiting server resources through cryptic TOS.
It's very difficult to find a good host, many people go with dreamhost, site5, etc. because of unrealistic claims of space and bandwidth, but in the end they turn down sites using certain amount of resources because they want to squeeze every bit of server resources overselling.
mediagirl, I'm very happy with my current host http://www.dwhs.net, I highly recommend them they have a limit of 150 accounts per server. Check this thread for more info: most reliable shared webhost
--
Webmaster Resources | Canadian Directory
Hmm...Site5 experiences are
Hmm...Site5 experiences are swinging back and forth from the positive to the negative.
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT
IM NEW @ THIS & I DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS IT A CHATROOM OR WHAT?
BBB gives dreamhost an "F" rating
I'm reluctant to try a company with an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau.
Click for BBB Rating.
Interesting
Would be better if I could find any other hosts mentioned in BBB for comparison. They don't even list GoDaddy.
-- Ben // profilefx.com
Do you have GoDaddy?
Please see http://drupal.org/node/46707#comment-104644
Thanks for any feedback and have a great day!
-----
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA, Captain - U.S. Marine Corps (Veteran)
President, Wellness Corps, LLC
-----
Drupal Users and Developers by Geographical Location
http://drupal.org/node/46659
dwhs BBB "A" rating
Glad to know my host has an "A" rating. Thanks for the link James, it's going to help me alot with a webhosting project I have.
dwhs BBB Rating
--
Webmaster Resources | Canadian Directory
DWHS bad service
My entire hosting account was suspended by DWHS because a call to the cron.php script that supposedly maxed out the server resources. Nothing unususal being done on my site, so I can't confirm or deny this.
However, I didn't get a single email or courtesy call about the suspension. It was automatically switched off, no site access on two domains, no cpanel access, no EMAIL access, for almost 24 hours. No ticketing service as available because my login was also disabled. None of my calls were answered, the outgoing message on their phone support said to leave a message and it would be emailed to their support team.
I was originally enthusiastic about DWHS, as most people are when the see the site and services offered, but when issues like these pops up the company has the opportunity to show its real colors. So, I'm back in the market for (yet) another wehbost.
My sites are still on DWHS
I have been with DWHS for more than a year now, and I haven't being suspended or have had any serious issue. In favor to them I have to tell that they have a public support forum and a backup system ticket.
In my experience this has been for me one of the most reliable hosts and I'm still very impressed by the rendering speed of my drupal sites.
I'm also aware of the limitations of inexpensive shared hosting accounts, and therefore my sites are very optimized.
There certainly is a
There certainly is a ticketing system, but you must have an account with them to use it. if your account has any issues then you will certainly face a world of hurt. Their phone support is spotty. Usually I have to leave a message and hope for them to call back. On a previous call I asked them how large their staff was, I think the answer was less than 20, and that makes for tough times ahead if each of their server is capped at 150 clients.
There are two ticketing
There are two ticketing systems, one of them didn't require any login details, that's what I meant about a backup ticketing system.
It's on their support page:
http://www.dwhs.com/support.htm
DWHS is a small company. People living in LA California can visit their datacenter and talk with some of the staff. From my perspective they are a very human company. Recently they upgraded their servers and backup systems so they also plan ahead of contingencies.
I don't mean to go back and
I don't mean to go back and forth, I just want to point out my personal experience with DWHS so that people can take my feedback and weight it against others (like yours) and make their own decisions on a web hosting company.
I want to wrap this up by saying that there ARE two ticketing systems, one that requires a login and one that doesn't. I could not post on the login required ticket system, obviously my account was disabled. When I posted on the system that DID NOT require a login, I got a response 24 hours later that said something like "this ticketing system is no longer in use, for technical support please login here: (link to login required system)." It didn't help much, obviously because my account was disabled.
Aside from their sales team (a very knowledgable and responsive sales team for sure) I haven't experienced much human-like behavior from them in the world of support. So I'm giving them the benefit of doubt based on others strong opinions about DHWS. For the time being, I'll assume that this issue was a once in a blue moon problem like they said. But if I experience another problem of any variety or caliber, it will be goodbye time. And I'll be sure to report back.
Done with DWHS
Just to follow up on my experience with DWHS from last month.
My account was again disactivated, the reasons unclear. I suspect some operation took up a larger than average CPU percentage, all services shut off. This includes my two sites, my admin access, ALL of my email accounts.
I got no courtesy message from them so I don't know how long my site has been down. I called tech support 6 hours ago, no answer. No call back either. The message on their "Live Chat" said there was "no staff member available at this time" and I should please open a support ticket. The ticket has been open for three hours.
I am just bringing this up because its a repeat of the same situation I had last month, I hope you all consider this before you jump onboard with DWHS. If you site doesn't have any problems, great, their services are awesome and the price is right. BUT, if you do have a problem prepare to get hosed. Their tech support is one of the least accessible I have ever used. This has cost me one full day's worth of work already.
Good bye, DWHS, I can't wait for them to reactivate me so I can grab my database and abandon them.
Bad DWHS experience
Seanjuan, I couldn't agree with you more. I wish that I had seen this post month earlier. DWHS was great at first when I had questions about their service. They sold me on a vDedicated box - which their site stated was an IBM blad server running it's own CPU and RAM - with a clustered harddrive and mysql server.
However, about a month in, my server started going down. I was told that this was because my scripts were overloading the server. They suggested I rewrite my PHP, use static HTML front pages, not run cron, not run gzip, etc. - all good advice if the problem was with CPU overload.
However, after a week of daily back and forth, they finally admitted that I was on a completely virtual box and that they just hadn't rewritten the description on their site for what their vDedicated package included after moving from blades to totally virtual hosting. Their justification for this was telling me that the fully virtual machine I was on was actually allocated more CPU power than the CPU that was installed on their old blade configurations.
My experience has been the virtual dedicated hosting is still pretty buggy technology. Regardless, I was most upset that their sales materials didn't match their product. I don't know how you can maintain an "A" BBB rating that way.
I switched to Atjeu dedicated hosting. They are great - with an average live response time of 33 seconds for "server down tickets." If you are just getting into dedicated hosting, they provide great support. At this point, however, I'm looking at fully managed dedicated hosting - particularly Rackspace. I just don't want to have to worry about managing my own server. Plus, I don't want reactionary support - I want proactive monitoring and support.
What experiences have Drupallers had with fully managed hosting in the $500-$1K/month range for a single entry level server with a RAID 1? I need uptime. Rackspace seems great - but for what they claim to provide, I'm not sure how they can come in with such low prices. I've seen similar fully managed packages for twice the price, same hardware.
-s
They have a "C" rating now...
http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Business/CompanyReportPage_Expository....
Thanks for the update
Here's what the "C" rating means, per the BBB:
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA
President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing
DH blogged about the rating
I came across mention about the rating in this comment from an employee on the official DH blog:
I had realized that the grade was based primarily on complaint resolution, and that most of DH's complaints were resolved, just apparently not well enough resolved to get a good grade (see the bbb page for a detailed break-down of complaint status). It's interesting, though, that they say that "In our view the matter is between us, our customer, and the 10,000 or so people who read that customer’s weblog. :>" And yeah, 11 complaints in 9 years isn't so bad. Not "F" bad.
--
Cheap, reliable Drupal hosting: 20GB | 1TB
Save $75| DH75OFF coupon for 1 year ($3.75/mo!)
Save $50| DH02SETUP coupon for monthly ($10/mo!)
BBB Rating for DreamHost
When I click your link it shows a "B" rating.
can dreamhost let you change php.ini upload "file_size"
can dreamhost let you change php.ini upload "file_size"
a note on dreamhost
Hello!
After reading the generally good reviews on dreamhost here at drupal.org, I decided to try for myself. I set up a site using drupal 4.7, using ~10 contributed modules, and was quite shocked about the performance. While sometimes page generation times would be as 'low' as 2 sec, the average was around 10 sec, and 30 sec wasn't unusual.
I had already set the php memory limit to 20 M, so I sent a support request, which was answered after 2 days (in incomplete sentences) basically saying 'sorry, php is resource intensive, you will have to live with it'.
I was already starting to believe this was what I could get for what I was willing to pay, until I set up exactly the same installation on another provider I was using from before (it's all-inkl.com - unfortunately their website is in German only) - and suddenly, page generation times were always under 1 sec, averaging around 0.5 sec...
Good they have the money back guarantee at dreamhost! ;-)
Just my experience... I hope you have a better one!
Ben.
Which 10 modules did you use?
I'm currently using DreamHost and would like to know which 10 modules you used in your test.
I get concerned when I see posts such as yours because I plan on using DreamHost for a large community site and don't want long page generation times such as those which you experienced.
If you can post here the 10 modules you used, I'll try and see if I can replicate the situation, but hopefully with much lower page generation times.
Also, what country are you located in and what connection speed do you have: cable, DSN, dial-up, etc.? I use a cable connection. Your profile says Norway, but I just want to be sure. Does it make a difference that you're in Norway, that DreamHost is in the U.S., and that all-inkl.com is, I presume, in Germany? Or should all the pages load up at about the same speed regardless of what country you're in?
Thanks and I look forward to your reply.
-----
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA, Captain - U.S. Marine Corps (Veteran)
President, Wellness Corps, LLC
-----
Hello Walt, the modules I'm
Hello Walt,
the modules I'm using are:
- bad behavior
- banner
- captcha
- gmap
- image
- insert_view
- location
- nodevote
- pathauto
- search404
- userpoints
- views
(and later devel)
Yes, I'm located in Norway, using a 6 Mbps connection, and all-inkl.com is located in Germany. Bandwith was clearly not the problem: After I installed the devel module, I could see that single sql queries would sometimes take several seconds. Add up a few of them, and you're waiting...
They were typically (but not exclusively) coming from drupal_lookup_path and cache_get (I'm actually not sure what this means, but maybe it helps somebody else...). Now those take less then a ms.
Given the number of positive reports here on drupal.org I don't think this is a typical experience at dreamhost - I would just go and try, having 3 months for testing...
Hope it helps!
Ben.
Problems with Dreamhost
Dreamhost went down when CSS Reboot launched May 1st. They were down for like 2-3 days because of the server load so watch out! They are also quite expensive.
I have been using http://www.virtuosonetsolutions.com/affiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=80_0_... for my reseller account for just over a year and the amount of stuff they provide is amazing. They support just about any language you can think of and they will give you SSH root access. I highly recommend them and my customers are happy with all the options they have. Feel free to contact me with more questions!
The cost of reseller accounts is better in the beginning, but once your client base grows you can switch to a VPS solution for free.
CSS Reboot? Web hosting cost comparison
Hi malberty,
What is CSS Reboot? Was the server load issue directly because of CSS Reboot and not because of something else? If that ever happens to me, I would be sure to document everything. Of course, one runs a risk with any shared hosting company since one's "neighbors" on the server can, and often do, cause all kinds of problems. A "neighbor's" poorly written scripts can cause havoc and endless loops on the server, thus affecting one's web site in the process and, potentially, bringing the entire server down. In fact, the main advantage of having a dedicated server or VPS is that one has a much safer distance from one's "neighbors", but then again, that is not the price range I can afford at this time and thus I stay with shared servers.
Overall, I've been quite satisfied with DreamHost but they did have issues a few months ago. I also looked into Site 5, Go Daddy, ServerFly, and a multitude of others for my hosting a while back but then started seeing quite a few negative posts for quite a few of them, including Site 5. It seems to me a majority of companies mentioned on this thread have had issues, at one time or another, so I decided to stay with DreamHost and it seems to me things have worked out quite well.
My average monthly payment with DreamHost shared web hosting is under $6 US, thanks to a DreamHost discount coupon another Drupal user offerred me. And since I offer DreamHost $50 discount coupons as part of an affiliate program, I've actually been able to contribute part of my affiliate proceeds back to Drupal in order to fund further Drupal code developers in their work to help make Drupal an even better CMS. For every affiliate dollar I make because of Drupal (I track my sales), I contribute back to the Drupal project.
So how is DreamHost "quite expensive" when compared to Virtuoso Net Solutions? Are you referring to reseller accounts? I'm not aware of DreamHost offering those. Are you able to give out huge discounts through your reseller plan?
Cost comparison summary:
DreamHost without a discount, = $119.40 per year
DreamHost with a DRUPAL50DOLLARS Promo Code $50 discount coupon, = $69.40 per year
Virtuoso = $274.45 per year
Cost comparison details:
This isn't exact because the DreamHost Level 1 shared hosting plan, their lowest, offers more diskspace and data transfer than Virtuoso's highest shared hosting plan:
- - - DreamHost Level 1 Plan = $119.40/year for 20 GB diskspace, 1 TB data transfer, unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited domains, etc. With a DRUPAL50DOLLARS Promo Code hosting discount coupon good for $50, the first yearly payment comes down to $69.40, or $5.78 per month.
- - - Virtuoso Net Solutions Developer Plan = $274.45/year for 15 GB diskspace, 500 GB data transfer, unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited domains, etc.
Thanks for your feedback, especially on what CSS Reboot is all about. Please let me know if my calculations above are correct.
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA
President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing
CSS Reboot?
Like Walt, I've never heard of CSS Reboot. I was a customer of Dreamhost during that time period (and still am), and I didn't experience any downtime. I got really lucky and caught one of my sites down for 30 seconds (less than a minute) once, before it came back and was working fine.
--
Cheap, reliable Drupal hosting: 20GB | 1TB
Save $75| DH75OFF coupon for 1 year ($3.75/mo!)
Save $50| DH02SETUP coupon for monthly ($10/mo!)
Affiliate links
Advice about hosting that contains affiliate links cannot be trusted. It is corrupting the quality of this thread.
Dreamhost rocks!
I've been a happy customer for the past 6 months, and counting.
Great value for money. Great tech support.
Love them!
Dave Ganner
Home Security Guru - The web's largest Home Security resource
I'm testing several hosters,
I'm testing several hosters, and I've used a lot for almost 10 years.
I have around 60 sites with DreamHost, and the best thing I like is the possibility of using just one ftp user. It's a real time saver.
It's SQL can be a little slower than some other hosters, but those are also really more expensive.
If you want a promo code to test it out, and pay only $23 for the first year, check my site:
http://www.dreamhost97.com
I referred almost 200 happy dreamhosters. Didn't earned almost nothing, but that doesn't matter. I also used a promo code when I signed up.
The next hoster I'll evaluate is LunarPages. Already bought a package, but didn't have much time to try it out.
NFS
I've got to plug Nearly Free Speech.net (https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/).
Pay as you go, excellent service, bare bones. You won't get everything*, but if you don't need everything, why pay for it?
I use it to put up demos of stuff I'm working on. Nothing hardcore, but then why pay $8 for something so simple? I'll stick to my $.10/month plan, thank you very much.
*Everything: SSL, subdir = subdomain hack, cPanel, e-mail hosting (you do get forwarding), Tomcat (this one they need to change - HTTP is HTTP is HTTP...), kitchen sink ...
interesting one
but they don't support static IP or https or
"A partial list of servers that will not work with our system includes: Shoutcast, Icecast, RealServer, video streaming servers (beyond what can be done with standard HTTP), Tomcat, MUD servers, email servers, anonymous FTP servers, gaming servers, and IRC bots and servers (though many web-based chat programs do work)."
HostRocket
They're solid. My site's only ever been down for rare routine maintenance. Bandwith and response speed is good to excellent. The 24/7 helpdesk has always responded to tickets within a couple hours, and the help has been of a high quality. Though I've not used it they have Fantastico ready off the control panel for point and click installation of most of the popular OpenSource aps (including Drupal). Price is competetive (US$11/month for 3 gig space on a quarterly plan is my current price)
opensourcehost $
opensourcehost is only $9 / mo for 1 domain.
Majordomo
I'm using majordomo.ru
Unlimited traffic
500mb space
10 domains
Unlimited subdomains
PHP 4.x, 5.x
MySQL (10 databases)
Free domain (ru, com, org, net)
24/7 support via mail or phone (only St. Petersburg :)
etc... It costs $7.2/month
---
Sorry for my english ;)
Greetings from Russia!
What About Hosting of Drupal For Russians?
Dear Friends,
I found a lot of good words about Drupal CMS. Nevertheless there is a problem of a cheep, reliable and effective hosting for it.
What about to start a host company for Russian-American Exchange Programs Alumni? We have a plan to create a new media for Russian professionals in the form of distributed high integrated portal on the base of Drupal. What is necessary: base software of Drupal installed on your host and many separate sites hosted by your company for money of some of 51 000 alumni here in Russia..
See information of "Professionals For Cooperation" Association at http://www.prof.msu.ru/eng/index.html for details. Now I am ready to start trial hosting of my site www.amo.ru which will be redesigned by Drupal soon.
Dr. Valeriy A. Zaytsev
"Professionals For Cooperation" Russian Association
For contacts:
54, Yubileyniy Prospect, the City of Reutov,
Moscow Region, 143969, Russia
E-mail: vaz@reutov.net
nice
It's nice if you have some projects mainly related to russia... but the website is in russian :(
http://goodidea.afiua.com
.....drupal coming soon
Thanks for the positive comment!
Thanks for the positive comments. We do try our best.
The scripts are changing fairly regularly since they go out of date so fast and more get added.
As for the hosting itself, we've been trying to make it as fast as possible, we claim instant account activation, and to be honest, it's as close to instant as i've seen so far. The account is accessable instantly, but the domain registration is usually complete within minutes so you can view your .com (or whatever) within minutes through your browser.
Our suport staff however are fully trained and highly qualified so that we can offer you the best possible support.
www.highlandwebhosting.com
What about EUROPEAN hosting providers?
Hi, let's start a new thread for evaluating hosting providers
all the posts I've seen in this thread and its 2005 edition seem
to miss one kind of info which I think is important.
I don't know about you, but having my data, content and servers
under direct influence of laws and judges which
I cannot (even just in theory) control or influence by voting or writing
to a Parliament which I elected would really bother me. Yes, I
do know that in many other cases having your local police unable to
immediately block your website is a plus, but this is not my case.
So, can anybody name competent, reliable, Drupal-friendly hosting
providers.. ...which are a company 100% based in any EU country,
not USA, with an EU based datacenter? The only one I've seen in
these nodes is flexservers.com. Any others?
Thanks,
O.
To be honest, so long as you
To be honest, so long as you are happy with the Terms and Conditions with a host, i can't really see an issue with where the servers are located.
What i mean by this is that hosts will obviously be bound by the laws and rules of the country/datacentre that their services are hosted in, and so these rules would be factored into the T&C's. If you aren't happy with those T&C's then move onto the next host on your list. that's about the best advice i can give on that.
Data propogation through the internet is that fast nowadays that it doesn't make much difference where the servers are geographically located, and for most the servers will be closer to their target audience.
www.highlandwebhosting.com
European Data Protection Act
Hi, a bit of education time
It has nothing to do with the hosters T&Cs, but with European law.
The European Data Protection Act is an all encompasing piece of legislation that all EU countries must follow as a minimum. Most have enacted much more rigourous protocals. In all cases there is an assumption of jurisdiction. A European company who is holding personal information on a European consumer *must* comply with the act as its enacted in their country. If it doesn't it can face significant fines or even prosecution.
I won't go into the various details of the act, but one of the key articles is an assumption of jurisdiction. A complying company must host personal data on a physical site within the EU. This has nothing to do with technical capability and everything to do with the law. If the physical site is within the EU, then the appropriate legal body has full legal control (ie it can force the hosting company to comply with all aspects of the legislation). For most countries it is adequate to be in another EU country as there is legal protocals and cooperation between EU nations. However, some EU countries are even more strict and legislate that data must be hosted within the native country. This is a disputed restriction as it goes against EU law.
Some companies do try to get around this by gaining positive consent from the consumer (Microsoft significantly). This is both technically incorrect and also against the spirit of the legislation.
Any hosting body outside the EU, irrespective of its personal morality, or compliance with its local laws, can legally ignore any foriegn legislation.
So, the request is valid. What EU Drupal friendly hosters are out there?
What you said is true, but
What you said is true, but im not going to start a debate in this thread.
As you have already stated, if there is a host based outside of the EU, it doesn't have to face the rigours of EU law (which in my opinion, could do with a review, but that could be said about any nations law lol), so you could use a foreign host for your site. Just so long as you kept data yourself, and as long as you aren't resident in one of the said EU countries that only allow hosting on hosts within that country.
This however i feel is a breach of that persons (i.e. the Owner) rights as it may be more cost effective to have hosting elsewhere.
www.highlandwebhosting.com
"Data propogation through
"Data propogation through the internet is that fast nowadays that it doesn't make much difference where the servers are geographically located"
To be honest, "it doesn't" my ass. It does make a whole world of difference. As
Bullfrog already explained, it has nothing to do with T&C. If webmaster,
hosting company and datacenter physically and legally reside all under
one set of laws (whateve that is) it is one thing. If not things change completely: do you really fail to see it?
Who cares if on average users get
data one second earlier? Or if the monthly bill is a few dollar higher?
Say I publish my opinions in a way legal where I live (country A) on a server
hosted in Country B, by a company registered in Country C. This means that
if "freedom of speech" and privacy have, shall we say, a different legal
meaning in either Country B or Country C, anybody in those two countries can shut me down, WITHOUT any possibility for me to legally complain, or
VOTE to make the applied laws change. As a matter of fact, I am simply
amazed this issue doesn't come out every other day.
European or UK hosting
Without restarting the debate on legal issues, can anyone suggest any European, or UK hosts?
How about a list of questions to ask a potential host - that could be helpful to many users.
And apart from reading opinions in forums, how do you evaluate the responses and test reliability without signing up?
Typhon
As I suggested in a previous thread on this question, Typhon is a hosting company in the EU (France, actually), which I find efficient, and that can help you abide by your EU data protection obligations (check with your lawyer, though).
See http://drupal.org/node/19674 for details.
helderhosting.nl
if you're looking for a simple clear host i suggest www.helderhosting.nl
there servers are located in AMSIX
for opinions about helderhosting, you can always look in: http://webhosters.nl/gegevens.php?id=1805 (dutch)
site5.com
I posted a while back also looking for a good host provider that was fast. I had been hosting with ixwebhosting.com, which had 24hr chat support, and an inexpensive plan. But, my site was incredibally slow. My website was hosted on 1 sever, and my database on another. I don't think this is a good solution.
I've just moved to site5.com, and I'm amazed how much faster everything is. It responds like I expect it to. Click, and there is my page! wow. no 5 sec or 10 sec or 30sec delay. They have 24hr email / trouble ticket support, which is not quite as fast as the chat support. But, they seem to be very helpful and responsive. They don't do domain hosting, which is the only draw back I've seen. I'm hosting 3 sites there right now through a multisite package. It's 7.77-8.77 per month depending on the amount of time you pay for in advance. They also offer fantastico, which is nice since it'll automatically install/setup everything for your for drupal and other software.
My sites:
www.liberalthinkers.com - ported over from old server, but I am looking at changing to the new version of drupal.
www.herringimages.com - ported over from old server. still working out a few bugs.
www.thehateguild.com - freshly installed via fantastico
___
www.liberalthinkers.org - a community for liberal viewpoints.
Fastest hosts
Thanks for the pointers to your sites ryooki. The top one I think should be liberalthinkers.org like in your sig.
Anyway, I've been scouring this thread and the previous one trying to find the drupal sites that are running the fastest (for those who gave examples). Lots of factors behind that I know but it looks like site5 and hostpc really cook.
I'm on a 1and1 package right now which was one of the free 3yr deals so I can't complain but it does have that 2-5 second delay. Their mySQL hosting is on another server which can't be good. I'm not impressed so I'm looking to move.
Thanks,
Tim
more site5 examples
I've been using site5 for about six months now and love it. Their True Multisite setup is one of the things that has really sold me on them.
Here are a couple of my site5 hosted sites:
kairosnews.org
cyberdash.com
Note that Kairosnews has over 4600 nodes and 4400 comments, so you can see a little of how Drupal runs on a medium sized site hosted on site5.
what them did u use for ur kairosnews.com?
what them did u use for ur kairosnews.com?. thanks
theme
It's a combination of more than one theme with some personal touches.
-----
Charlie Lowe | cyberdash
Tips for posting to the Drupal forums
hostpc examples
Have been running on hostpc for a couple of months now and things are going well. I did have to tweak some settings to get php to allocate more memory with some modules, but otherwise everything is running smoothly.
Peter
----------------------------------
neish.net | botanicalartistry.com
another Hostpc example
I've been running my band's site on hostpc for about half a year now. Overall, I'm quite satisfied. Check it out: www.vcsb.com. They have an Installatron - Drupal 4.7.2 installer, and use Directadmin control panel.
Their shared hosting is (currently) $35/yr for 1 GB of space, 10,000 MB monthly transfer..
I have used their support for some small hosting things via their Ticket system and IRC, and got great fast help.
::hugs and kisses::
down for 1 minute
my hosting provider keeps going down for 1 minute at a time.
This is the explanation they gave me
The server isn't going "down". There is software on the server that limits the resources of all the daemons. If httpd begins to get out of control it will kill the offending processes. If there are too many open processes it may kill the main httpd thread which causes httpd to stop serving pages momentarily. httpd is never offline for more than a couple of minutes when this happens. I've actually increased the limits slightly to try and keep it from killing the main thread, however most times it is best to kill the offending processes rather than having the server really go down.
is this a common way to do things? do you have this problem? it's not good for my users to keep getting "cannot connect to site"
my host says tries try again after 1 minute
Happened to me
This happened to me sometime back ...
Check the acceptable use policy of the hosting company.
You will probably find that they limit memory (e.g. 8M), CPU (so and so seconds per process) and number of process (8 or whatever) for your account.
They have a watchdog process that monitors if you exceeded resources, and kills the processes that do.
This means that cron will die sometimes (you will see "previous cron run did not complete").
Once your site gets over a certain size (page views, number of nodes, ...etc.), this will be a no-win situation.
You have to upgrade your hosting pages for less restrictive limits, find another host, or go VPS/dedicated.
--
Drupal development and customization: 2bits.com
Personal: Baheyeldin.com
This is happening to me too
When my cron jobs run -- occasionally I can't get onto my site
and my cron job fails.
Using: Siteground.com
I emailed them. They told me to change how frequently I run my crons (I was running them every 30 mins). We'll see how it goes.
I guess these guys are ok, but mostly, probably, for smaller sites.
Albert
www.ithou.org
Not so sure anymore
I used to love them, support was quick and all, but after a few tickets (7 maximum they tell me) then each request for support costs $12.
That includes any questions of a technical nature, even reporting that your site is down it seems.
Gérard
Agree 100%
The new 7 ticket limit for Siteground is a killer. And I'd advise people not to use them for that reason.
They *were* good, but now after this limit, I'm gonna move when my time is up there. No question about it.
Albert
www.ithou.org
No longer a limit...
I recently contacted them and asked them about the limit. Siteground said they no longer have the ticket limit. For $4.95/month, it has worked out for me. Not the fastest site though. I did notice that they throttle down loads. Initially downloads are fast and then slows down a bit for large pages. I'm happy.
Rich
Site5 seems to be it
Hi
I have done some looking and I am going to go with Site5 for my site (Xtreme package) unless someone here has a good reason not to. Has anyone got any complaints about Site5?
They've answered my questions, have active forums and I like their FAQ sense of humour so I've made well-educated and thought-out decision :)
Mark
Me too
I am also thinking of going with Site5. I have yet to hear anything bad about them... They have been quick when I asked them questions over email.
Site 5 - so far, so good
I went with Site5 (Xtreme package) a week ago, after GoDaddy failed miserably( a key change which is necessary to run Drupal is "not available" on their shared hosting plans).
So far so good - they have Fantastico with Drupal 4.6.5 in their control panel, so the install took a couple clicks and all of 10 seconds. The site has been responsive, their control panel is very flexible and powerful, and has features I have to manually request for my other sites hosted at APlus.net (they have been a fantastic host for 5 years now, and I have 7 sites with them - but wanted a different host for this particular site). They do not have telephone support (one thing I miss from APlus.net which has 24-hour tollfree support) but they have 24-hour email support and responded in about 25 minutes the one time I had to ask them something.
Their price is attractive, and they provide plenty of storage space and bandwidth.
Plus - one HUGE feature I haven't seen other places - they have an automated backup system called Flashback that allows you to restore your site the way it looked at any point in the past with a couple mouse clicks. Did you mess something up this morning? Put it back to the way it was last night. It uses auto-versioning to make backups each time you change a file, and it keeps all the older versions. Unfortunately, it doesn't auto-version mySQL databases yet, but they are working on that. Almost all hosts make backups, but very few give you anyway to restore those backups at will by yourself. For more information see:
http://www.whatisflashback.com/
I'll post a follow-up should my opinion of them change at any time in the future........
aplus
i like that aplus has phone support. I'll try them or site5. what's aplus missing for your new site? (do both have ssh?) thanks.
My APlus Pro plan is $19.95
My APlus Pro plan is $19.95 per month, plus $1.95 per month for any additional domains you host in the same account. They have cheaper plans (the Solo XR plan is pretty comprehensive for $9.95), but I needed an SSL certificate in my name rather than the included shared certificate for my eCommerce site, and you can't do that without the Pro plan.
Site5, I believe, does allow you to use your own certificate for a one-time $15 installation fee, so I may wind up moving all my sites over there. Plus Site5 allows you to host 5 domains in the same account for free - so the same thing with APlus will cost you $20 plus $8 for the additional 4 domains - $28 per month compared to $8.77 per month at Site5 ($7.77 per month if you pre-pay for 2 years).
I wanted a different host for this account because one of my sites has very good Google PageRank, and is in a category that is related to my new portal site. I would like to put links to the new site on the old site, but if you do that on a shared account (same IP address), Google will penalize you. From everything I've read on the Google forum at WebmasterWorld (THE place for everything web-related at http://www.webmasterworld.com ), hosting multiple sites on the same account that link to each other can really hurt you with Google. I had a good friend who had a PR6 site drop to PR4 after he started linking his other related sites together. He dropped from top 5 on Google for his search terms to the 3rd page overnight - into the Google penalty box you go!
I have another account at Hostway that's costing me $45 each quarter for a single domain - I did a lot of custom work on that one that's specific to the host, so I just haven't had time to re-do all my custom scripts to move it elsewhere.
Hope that helps.
downtime
pakwan, that's really useful information! thank you very much. sounds like site5 has ssh. I may migrate over there because my host (opensourcehost) goes down for 1 minute a lot. Has site5 done that to your accounts?
I wouldn't put up with that
I wouldn't put up with that any longer than it took to set up a new account with someone else. I looked at opensourcehost when I was shopping around - their website was down twice when I tried to get information, and decided there was NO WAY they would get my business when they couldn't keep their own site up.
osh
interesting. 2 other users have said they've seen no downtimes. you are the first person who has confirmed my impression. thank you. (the downtimes frequency has gone down)
Yes, site5 has SSH, but this
Yes, site5 has SSH, but this is not available for any of the additional FTP accounts you create. Those will be plain FTP only, unless their policy has changed in the last couple of months.
thx
thank you. i'm looking at vps on westhost. good price. tollfree phone 24/7
Can you please elaborate on GoDaddy?
Please see http://drupal.org/node/46707#comment-104644
Thanks for any feedback and have a great day!
-----
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA, Captain - U.S. Marine Corps (Veteran)
President, Wellness Corps, LLC
-----
Drupal Users and Developers by Geographical Location
http://drupal.org/node/46659
1AND1 Hosting
I've been using 1and1 for 2 years now and switched to the developer package in January while it was on special for $9.95.
The package includes :
Space 30,000 MB
Transfer 1,500 GB
FTP Accounts 50
100 X 100MB MySQL db's
5 free domains etc. etc.
My sites is low volume (for now) and up untill now I have had excellent service from them. The only gripe I have is the naming convention they use for the MySQL db's and ftp accounts.
Drupal installed and runs like a dream and the tech support from 1and1 was good the few times I had to use it.
Ian
www.pcs305.com
Another 1and1 user...
1 and 1 has been very good for me as well. For those looking for a European host 1 and 1 is also a good choice. They have a presence in Europe and the US.
1and1...
1and1.com - The good, the bad and the ugly. This is my critique about 1and1.
With 1and1, you are a number. Better not have some troubles with them, cause you'll have those cut and paste answers right away.
Alexandre Racine
www.gardienvirtuel.com Sécurité informatique, conformité, consultation, etc
www.salsamontreal.com La référence salsa à Montréal
Westhost
I just moved my personal site to westhost.com. I have a client there and I like the fact that I have 'server' type access (unlike a lot of the shared hosts). Its not as cheap as a lot of the shared hosting plans out there, so that may deter folks a bit.
Was using Crystaltech and they were fine but I went to westhost for a Linux host (Crystaltech is windows).
Stay away from GoDaddy.com. OK to have as your domain registrar but not for hosting.
I'd stay away from GoDaddy
I'd stay away from GoDaddy for domains as well. Their control panel is way too slow, their transfer process is overcomplicated, and there's advertising every time you change an option.
I'm transitioning all of my domains to NameCheap as they expire from GoDaddy. It's less than a dollar more expensive, but it saves a lot of frustration.
--
Cheap, reliable Drupal hosting: 20GB | 1TB
Save $75| DH75OFF coupon for 1 year ($3.75/mo!)
Save $50| DH02SETUP coupon for monthly ($10/mo!)
ipowerweb