Basic Web Hosting Recommendation

[raydar]

Hello All,

After a year of what seems like impossibly slow load-times for my blog, I've decided that it's time to leave Netfirms and find another hosting company. I was originally going to go with the "top-of-mind" choice - godaddy, but decided to do a quick google search, which resulted in my deciding to find another place to host the site.

I've narrowed it down to three choices, but am now at the point where I'm not sure if what am basing my decision on is well placed SEO marketing, or legitimate user reviews. Any assistance you could provide would be much appreciated - basically, if you use (or have used) one of these hosts, did you like it? If yes/no, why?

Technically, I don't need a lot - basic hosting, email access, >1 but <10 MySQL DB, Wordpress Install, and multiple domain name hosting (but not more than 10 domain names).

The 3 I'm considering are:
bluehost
justhost
hostgator

Thanks in advance!

 

[ldcdc]

I have an account with Hostmonster, which is essentially Bluehost's twin, and two with Hostgator. I also have one with Netfirms, and it is indeed slow. Netfirms is about 2 times slower than Hostmonster, and Hostmonster about 2 times slower than Hostgator, at least from my tests there. Uptime-wise Netfirms is doing pretty good, as does Hostgator, with well above 99.9% uptime. My Hostmonster account is at 99.8% uptime right now. True, it may be a bit early to really judge uptime for me, but the number of service interruptions is still a significant measure of reliability.

 

[PolurNET]

Just be aware of what is collectively known as "overselling" policies before making a decision. The hosts you've picked up are all in the market that targets users looking for cheap prices and large numbers. If you're trying to move away from Netfirms, which is in the same league as the other hosts you've listed, it looks like you may be sacrificing a considerable amount of reliability, availability and performance that you could have obtained with other mainstream webhosts, even if they are more expensive.

Thus, you'll need to decide how you'd like to choose your next host -- obtain a large amount of space/bandwidth in order to potentially sacrifice performance, or obtain a moderate level of features while maintaining a good balance between reliability and cost. Doing a bit more research on your requirements and contacting hosts you've come across may help you decide this more easily.

Hope this helps! Good luck with your decision.

 

[raydar]

Polur, what are some examples of the other mainstream webhosts your thinking of? I've seen Rackspace thrown around a few times & although I know from my "other" job that they're reliable with great service, they're priced much higher than I can handle to pay for a blog site.

Technically, my sites don't need a lot of bandwidth and the only real features I'm concerned about are ability to host Wordpress, ftp access & email accounts. Downtime and loading times are the biggest factors for looking for a new host.

Thanks!

 

[Keeper]

Hello All,

After a year of what seems like impossibly slow load-times for my blog, I've decided that it's time to leave Netfirms and find another hosting company. I was originally going to go with the "top-of-mind" choice - godaddy, but decided to do a quick google search, which resulted in my deciding to find another place to host the site.

I've narrowed it down to three choices, but am now at the point where I'm not sure if what am basing my decision on is well placed SEO marketing, or legitimate user reviews. Any assistance you could provide would be much appreciated - basically, if you use (or have used) one of these hosts, did you like it? If yes/no, why?

Technically, I don't need a lot - basic hosting, email access, >1 but <10 MySQL DB, Wordpress Install, and multiple domain name hosting (but not more than 10 domain names).

The 3 I'm considering are:
bluehost
justhost
hostgator

Thanks in advance!

I think you will find that JustHost's popularity has largely been due to their generous marketing budget, and questionable sales tactics. You can get similar if not better quality than the three of those with smaller hosts, and for cheaper to boot, especially considering all you're looking to make is a blog.

There are a lot of great hosts out there that will meet your basic needs at an affordable price, but if you go with the three oversellers you mentioned, all you will be getting extra is a higher price.

 

[rumsfo]

You get what you pay for. If you think one company is better then another so good luck and go ahead.
But if you are serious you need to estimate how much you really need and how much that realy costs

 

[CrazyTech]

I hate to say it, but you've noticed the SEO tactics of all of the hosts there and the line is simply so blurred you don't know when you're reading a real review these days. So many of the top lists are based on how much the hose pays in.

Out of those three, I'd look at HostGator based solely upon reputation. Given the nature of your requirements, I don't think you'll run up against their process limits for quite some time. Other than that, I do agree with Polar that it's better to find a more reasonable offering so there aren't guessing games. Two you might want to look at, reputation-wise, are Shared Web Hosting provider - Multi Domain Hosting - PHP Web Hosting - Web Site Hosting - Web Hosting Service - Multiple Domain Hosting - Reseller Hosting - Blog Hosting - Downtown Host LLC and Hawk Host - Shared Hosting, Reseller Hosting and VPS Hosting which are a little more reasonable.

Have you considered a reseller hosting plan for organization purposes, or are you just wanting to stick with a shared account?

 

[raydar]

Crazy, I don't really know the differences between reseller hosting plans or shared accounts. From a quick glance, it looks like the reseller hosting plan is more than I need (and costs more.) Or are you suggesting I purchase hosting from a reseller? I tend to want to go with a more "established" company to avoid any potential of companies going out of business, or getting hosting from a company that keeps their servers in a storage closet.

I think I should be OK with the process limits as well....it looks like I'm running <500MB bandwidth/month (according to Netfirms WebStats) and current disk usage is under 3GB.

 

[iHubNet-Matt]

Actually reseller accounts are for reselling the hosting as it's name suggest. But in this context if you want to use multiple domains with separate Cpanel accounts, reseller is a better option. As from your requirements I think you need to host one blog only and it uses only reasonable resources for the time being at least. So a reliable shared host with upgrade option seems to fit your needs. Best of luck to find your best provider.

 

[raydar]

I think I'm going to give Hawk Host a try and see how that goes. I've already contacted them with a couple of questions via email and they responded in less than 3 minutes, which is pretty quick.

Thanks to all for the great advice & info.

 

[Ray]

--HOST GATOR--
I recommend Host Gator.. By far one of the best. They have been around for a while and their services are actually pretty reasonable for the price. Their support is pretty decent as well.. Not to sure on blue host, but I can tell you to stay as far away from Godaddy as possible...

 

[SiberForum]

I would vote on HG as well. I have never used them personally but I have met only positive reviews about them

 

[Bushidoho]

--HOST GATOR--
I recommend Host Gator.. By far one of the best. They have been around for a while and their services are actually pretty reasonable for the price. Their support is pretty decent as well.. Not to sure on blue host, but I can tell you to stay as far away from Godaddy as possible...

Host Gator is good if you don't use lots of space. If you have a huge forum, video website you will have problems with Host Gator. They claim to give you unlimited space, but the truth is there is no such thing as unlimited space. They're oversellers, and I've experienced some people at my school (I'm on webdesigning school) that had huge websites and had to move to another host, because their so called unlimited space wasn't unlimited. Of course, they will give you more space if you need, but that means they need to add it to the server manually which costs time and if you have a huge website with lots of visitors you can't afford that to happen often.

So I suggest you search for a host which doesn't oversell.

 

[iHubNet-Matt]

I think I'm going to give Hawk Host a try and see how that goes. I've already contacted them with a couple of questions via email and they responded in less than 3 minutes, which is pretty quick.

Thanks to all for the great advice & info.

You are welcome. Wish you the very best with your new host. Hope they will provide you a wonderful service. Share your experience after a couple of months.

 

[webhostuk]

I think I'm going to give Hawk Host a try and see how that goes. I've already contacted them with a couple of questions via email and they responded in less than 3 minutes, which is pretty quick.

Thanks to all for the great advice & info.

Good luck with your new host ..Do post us review about there service if possible.. that will help few forum members searching for host.

 

[alemcherry]

Like the majority, I too would recommend Hostgator.

 

[~ServerPoint~]

Like the majority, I too would recommend Hostgator.

It seems OP has found web hosting solution he was looking for.

 

[raydar]

Hawk Host Update

Hi All,

I just wanted to give a quick update with Hawk Host. I've been with them for about a month now, and so far everything has gone VERY well. Attached photo shows the significant drop in load time after switching from Netfirms. There wasn't any change in code/html structure - it was just simply transferring hosts.

Their support team has be incredibly helpful. I usually get a response within a couple of minutes, and they've even helped me with some issues that technically didn't fall under their responsibility.

While the Control Panel isn't as elegant/pretty as the Netfirms control panel, it does it's job and I'm still able to manipulate/control/manage whatever I need to with ease.

I'll post if I notice anything else, but to-date, Hawk Host has 2 thumbs up.

 

[iHubNet-Matt]

Thanks for the update raydar. Happy to see that they have been providing you very good service. Hope that will stay the same in future also. Update us again after a couple of months.

 

[thebutler]

Update-thanks

Raydar, the update is appreciated. Plenty of people never report back. I've been happy with Hawkhost for some of my sites and it great to see that you choose someone who's not one the "big one's".