Advice on hosts...?

[bunnny]

Hello guys,

I'm going to buy a new web hosting provider in the next month and, thanks to the many great posts and reviews that I've been searching through here on NP and at some other webmaster forums, I've narrowed my choice down to three -- HostGator, blueHost, and Lunarpages. All three seem to have all the features I'm looking for and are all priced extremely well. I've been researching their support history and have read lots of good things about all three of these providers. My main goal will be phpBB or may be VB forum, website.

So... I guess my question is:

Is there any reason I should pick any one of these providers over the other? I'm looking for any advice that anyone here would like to offer before I take the plunge and jump into the world of hosting intrigue.
If you know of any "red flags" or anything(pros & cons)I should be warned of before choosing any of the hosts I mentioned, please let me know.

Thanks for your time. And many thanks to Admins & Moders for maintaining such a great community here. I've learned a lot from this site over the past couple of weeks, and wish I'd known about it before I chose my first/current provider.

Regards,
Emiliano

 

[shockie]

in comparing the three, lunarpages only allows for 10 addition websites on one account, whereas hostgator and bluehost both have unlimited. other than that, it's down to price since all three will be able to handle phpbb and vbulletin.

p.s. welcome to namepros!

 

[bunnny]

In terms of finding the right hosting provider for this, what requirements are going to be my essential from a service perspective to ensure that this solution works for me?

 

[ennui]

To make your forum active and comfortable for members ang guests, make sure there's no overload on host's mail server, as a person should get an activation email a few seconds after he registered. That might be one of the problems, so check it beforehand.

You might also want to check serverpoint.com php hosting and vbulletin hosting plans.
You'll see lots of their testimonials along with sites hosted on their site as well.

 

[andygen]

For my oppinion, you may try to live chat or direct call in in order to know how thier response. Else may try email them some question and check out how long will they reply it. Hope this will help you.

 

[fcolor]

You're not going to "buy" the whole company I guess those mentioned above are well known. I think you must not have troubles with them.

 

[Aguila]

If your going to be buying shared hosting for your forum make sure you ask the specs of the servers.

Lots of hosting companys don't mention they only run there shared hosting on low end chips instead of a high end chips like quad core xeon.

 

[iHubNet-Matt]

Emiliano, Shall I ask you what are your requirements on disk space and Bandwidth? You can see both BH and Lunarpages are overselling. So it will depend upon your requirements and budget. Are you really going to use that much resources or you simply picked them because they are offering huge?

 

[hanz]

If you are planning to run an active forum then I would suggest staying away from these "all for nothing" hosts, you will have nothing but problems with them. Better just take a look into hosting offers forum and find a real host.

 

[moonlight77]

If you plan to run a forum, you'd be better to do it on a VPS. Semi-dedi may be also good for you if you don't have many unique visitors a day. Webhostingbuzz.com offer semi-dedis for $35 per month andthey have sprcial offers that can be ineteresting for customers too.
Onthespothosting.net provides managed as well as self-managed VPS solutions. Their price ranges are quite affordable. For experiences clients $24.95 isn't much at all IMO.
Vpshosting.net is also a realible company that should be taken into consideration as a hosting one.

 

[iHubNet-Matt]

If you are planning to run an active forum then I would suggest staying away from these "all for nothing" hosts, you will have nothing but problems with them. Better just take a look into hosting offers forum and find a real host.

Thats a point. If your forum is going to be an active one, go for a host that is reputable and non overselling. I would suggest you to keep away from overselling hosts if you are looking for reliability.

 

[bunnny]

Thats a point. If your forum is going to be an active one, go for a host that is reputable and non overselling. I would suggest you to keep away from overselling hosts if you are looking for reliability.

what is the meaning of "overselling hosts", please!

 

[Aguila]

Overselling is when a host offers outrageous web hosting plans.

They do this because they know most people will not even use that much space or bandwidth.

Then when you do use that much space ect, they tell you to buy a dedicated server or vps.

 

[bunnny]

Overselling is when a host offers outrageous web hosting plans.

They do this because they know most people will not even use that much space or bandwidth.

Then when you do use that much space ect, they tell you to buy a dedicated server or vps.

As you've already noticed, I am a newbie in the business so I'd really appreciate if you or all good people in here, suggest me a good advice what and how to handle my situation. My idea was to establish my own Forum(nothing special) just for local communications between friends and may be in near future to be expanded overseas(e.g.Japan). And that is why I did post a few questions(same root, different saying) to the most attractive for me Forums in this particular business and the conclusion is...I'm completely confuse. I have some sparks, but I'm still chaotic. I'd really don't want to make a mistake and to choose the wrong way to host my nice idea. So, if you or the rest of the guys in this wonderful place can give me more light, I'd be greatly appreciated and I will keep remembering your valuable favor.

 

[BitcoinDK]

Hi, Im also in your position and surfed the web and read I think thounds (no im not lying ) of reviews and posts from users from the different hosting providers.

I have come upon iweb8, which I have heard good things about, try look at following http://iweb8.com/dedicated/.

There hosting prices looks fair and they look like a reliable hosting provider. I my self are thinking about using them.

They also have flat-free bandwith 10Mbps, which look like a good idea if there going to be much up and downloading.

Hope this is a help to you, good luck searching.

Best regards

 

[Brown Boy]

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[iHubNet-Matt]

Tell us how much disk space and bandwidth you will require? You are only going to start your forum. right?
So I guess it is better to start with a small account with a good host with a decent pay structure. Avoid oversellers as you won't need hundreds of GB disk space. What you need is reliability. make sure you have good upgradable plans with the host.