Anybody know a good webhosting company?

[John Shumate]

Hello.

I hope this is in the right spot, if not, I apologize.

Anyways. I've been with integrahost for a year and a half now. They had a server failure during thanksgiving of 06 and I, aswell as some of my clients that I do websites for, were affected by it. Things cleared up after a week or 2, and then I experienced more downtime. Finally, near the 2-3rd week of the month, they got everything straightened out.

Then we get to today where I go and look at my outlook and all of my HTE Radio (My website, I run an internet radio station) accounts are down. I go to see the site, and its down yet again. I go to Integrahost to find out that its not there anymore, so I go to their supposed partners website, which was US NetworX http://www.usnethost.com/. I got support and they said that my server was undergoing maintence. The server has been down since this morning..and I know maintence shouldn't take that long, and it shouldn't be done during the day. (They are located in Kentucky where as I'm in Philly..no time difference)

So, they say wait a lil bit, and the site should be back up before the night's over. I really hope so as I have no choice but to take them at their word.

I checked out their site and I also noticed that my plan has been changed from unlimited bandwidth to 500 GB per month. I don't mind if they put a limit on it, but eventually, I'll be getting more visitors, so I need a bigger bandwidth limit. They also lowered my space from 30GB to 20GB

So, I'm a lil fed up with this crappy service I've been getting lately. I thought about using GoDaddy since they've treated me very well when I buy domains from them, and I hear very amazing reviews about their web hosting, so I say..lets give it a shot.

They have everything (2,000 GB Bandwidth, 2,000 email addresses, multiple websites, etc.) except what I really need, and thats a site builder. Yes, I know HTML, ASP, PHP, etc. But, when I'm in a hurry, I rather use a site builder to do a news update etc, and I'm not a fan of using content management systems since I've seen one too many get hacked into.

So, with that said..I have a choice.

1. Stay with US NetworX...9 times outta 10..out of the question
2. Go with GoDaddy and learn Dreamweaver again, since I'm not that big of a Frontpage fan.
3. Ask everybody here at Videohelp what would their pick be for webhosting

So, I would like to see what everybody would pick for webhosting, preferably people that have had very good experiences with the company. I'm looking for a place that has the following:

1. At least 30GB of space (GoDaddy has 200GB just so that ya know)
2. At least 2,000 GB Monthly Transfer Bandwidth..or unmetered would be nice (2,000 GB Transfer is GoDaddy's Max, which is fine)
3. Number of emails I would like to be at least around 1,000..or unlimited. (GoDaddy has up to 2,000 emails)
4. At least 20 MySQL databases. (GoDaddy has 50 max)
5. Gotta be able to have multiple websites on it (GoDaddy does)
6. SSL Certificate option (GoDaddy includes it)
7. Website builder (The only thing GoDaddy doesn't have)


Really..its like..what do you think would work better: Using GoDaddy and use Dreamweaver since they're a trusted company and won't be going anywhere anytime soon..well..I hope not...or do any of you guys have a better option?

Also, one more thing, I'm looking for an annual plan, Credit Card of Money Order will do fine, and I'm only looking to spend between $6.00 a month, which is what I spend now, and $12.00 a month, which is the pricing plan I would choose with GoDaddy, thats if you pick the 2 year deal, which I actually like.

So please, any and all help from anyone here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to everyone's replies.

[Soopafresh]

Just did an evaluation and these guys ended up on top for reliability and responsiveness. Dunno if they fit your other criteria. Remember, you get what you pay for


http://www.hostgator.com/

http://www.hostingassured.findmyhosting.com/fullratingdetails.htm?id=6184


http://www.hostingassured.findmyhosting.com

[zoobie]

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ is the biggest web hosting forum on the net

soop is right...hostgater is favorable last i looked

[John Shumate]

Ah yes...I noticed alot of problems with Integrahost now..I guess I'll be getting something else very soon then. Thanks.

[Exousia]

I use 1and1

https://order.1and1.com/xml/order/MsHostingBus;jsessionid=6FBD856B21A19E2A153548EC376E...op&__lf=Static

to host my site at www.viewpixmedia.com. I have been completely satisfied with the low cost, high speed and reliability of 1and1.

[thecoalman]

I've been using aplus.net for about 5 or 6 years now without any significant issues. can only recall once that my one was unaccessible and that was only for a short time. They do have have a website builder in the control panel and whole lot of other gadgets like auto installing a phpbb forum but I haven't used them...

1. At least 30GB of space (GoDaddy has 200GB just so that ya know)
2. At least 2,000 GB Monthly Transfer Bandwidth..or unmetered would be nice (2,000 GB Transfer is GoDaddy's Max, which is fine)
3. Number of emails I would like to be at least around 1,000..or unlimited. (GoDaddy has up to 2,000 emails)

Most hosts are offering that or quite close, unless you have a pretty popular site serving a lot of audio and video it would be pretty hard to max that anyway. Additionally if your site is using php and MySql you'll most likely max out those resources beforehand, that's the one thing most hosts don't list is the max CPU and conqueries you're allowed. They get used up before anything else unless you have a site that is strictly HTML .

4. At least 20 MySQL databases. (GoDaddy has 50 max)
5. Gotta be able to have multiple websites on it (GoDaddy does)

I'm pretty sure you can host as many domains as you want on single plan for an additional charge. Each $10 plan gets 3 MySql databases but these can be an unlimited size, unless you need to restrict access 1 is plenty.

[oldandinthe way]

I use CIHOST.com. Wide choice of plans shared, dedicated and colocated. Choose from Linux based and Windows 200 based.

Low prices, good reliability, speed. Servers are backed to tape.

[Ron B]

My main business site is on www.hostway.com, it's very dependable, but pricey. I have another site on http://ace-host.net/ , about $75 a year for lots of bandwidth and disc space. Sometimes they are a little slow, nothing major.

[lordsmurf]

See http://www.webhostingtalk.com

- Goddaddy is a horrible registrar (they do their damnedest to force you to use them forever), and an equally shitty host.
- 1and1 is a crappy host (bad support).
- Hostgator is often talked about, but I don't remember if it's good or bad, or both.

Those fake host "ratings" sites do nothing more than advertise hosts that pay them. They are not true reviews. They are fake bullcrap.

The reason you got a bad host is because you expected to pay almost nothing for unrealistic resources. That's the way the world of hosting works.

There's a lot of hosts out there run by 13-year-old kids and some junior high friends, they're not "companies" in any sense of the word. It sounds to me that you have one of those. It's sad how easily any dumbass can buy a domain, buy some space from a real host, and resell it as a fake "company". They usually lie, have bad quality, and just generally bad business practices. Lots of Asian/African foreigners too, folks that want to "get rich" off North American and European customers. They're easy to spot, using garbage templates and lots of crap grammar.

Site Builder is a feature included with certain control panels, and I know Plesk has it as an option (some hosts give it free, some make you pay a tad extra [some one-time, some monthly]).

30GB of space = insane, dedicated hosting required
2000 bandwidth = insane, dedicated hosting required

I doubt you actually need that. Either re-evaluate your plans, pay for all this resources to the tune of a few $100 per month, or find some half-crap-quality host that says they have it (but of course they don't, so expect more bad service, site downtime, etc)

unlimited e-mails = many do this, if not most. Only money-grubbing whore hosts charge extra for e-mail accounts

at least 20 MySQL databases = good hosts do not limit the MySQL databases, it simply comes out of your total allocated HDD space. Again, only money-grubbing whore hosts charge extra here

multiple websites = these are often called "reseller" accounts

SSL Certificate option = good hosts do this for the SSL fee only, some tack an extra little fee, nothing is "free"

You may want to check into EuroVPS.com or CanadaVPS.com for any number of options. Dedicated or a high-end VPS may be for you. Shared is not, nor is reseller.

[Exousia]

lordsmurf:

I have had excellent tech support from 1and1 when I needed it. I guess with most enterprises these days things can vary somewhat, dependent on a number of different factors. I'm sorry to hear that your experience with them has been less than positive. Thanks for all the excellent advice you provide on this site - it has helped me on several occasions.

[ozymango]

Plenty of good companies out there, I'm sure, so any of the above recommendations sounds good. My own personal experience is with www.surpasshosting.com, they offer all that you listed, rates are right along with what you're looking for, I've been using 'em for several years and always had great service and quick support from them.

[Towncrier]

I can heartily recommend www.hostmoster.com. Their prices are great and I have been able to get tech support on some issues that I had hosting two domains on the same page. The tech support wasn't the speediest, but they did eventually answer my questions.

I'm sorry to hear about godaddy.com's registration problems. They were able to re-take a domain name that I wanted to re-register that was being monopolized by a domain sniffer. I do intend to move the registration to Network Solutions before the year is up.

[John Shumate]

Ok..1st off...30GB of space and 2000 GB of bandwidth doesn't sound insane to me and wouldn't necessarily be dedicated hosting LordSmurf. That I do know for sure.

I need as much bandwidth as possible because I do attract at least 2-3,000 unique visits per day from people. and I think that 2000 GB a month is more than enough as I will be doing videos on the sits eventually, etc. etc.

I also have been seeing multiple websites can be done...more or less a trick of sorts if you wanna save money, making subdomains and then pointing a domain that I buy from GoDaddy to the site.

Resller is an option I could think on, as in total, I have 4 radio station websites, a computer consulting firm website, and a Magazine site..all ran by me of course. Its just that I may not be able to do that until I get more financial flow.

Also *slaps himself in the head* I sooo forgot about 1and1 hosting. I saw alot of rave reviews from PC Magazine, and alot of their ads are in Computer Shopper..how the hell could I forget those guys? lol

I will look at everyone's choices before the day's over. I appreciate everyone's help, and I will write back my results.

If anybody has any other suggestions/reccomendations, please feel free to add them as I will check them all out.

Thanks alot everyone

[oldandinthe way]

CIHost also has a site builder, and a reseller plan. Check out their options and their specials. This ain't 3 teenaged hobbyist but a large company with multiple datacenters.

[lordsmurf]

Ok..1st off...30GB of space and 2000 GB of bandwidth doesn't sound insane to me and wouldn't necessarily be dedicated hosting LordSmurf. That I do know for sure.

Quite frankly, I don't think you know what you're talking about. If you've got a high-use site with a lot of large content, great, you need loads of space and bandwidth. But it's going to cost money, and it's going to pretty much need dedicated resources. You'll need ads, sponsors and maybe even investors (unless you're personally wealthy).

Otherwise, as you're learning (although apparently not learning "from"), is that low-rent, high-promise services fall flat on their face. Why? Because what they offer is not possible in the real world. You'll hit crashes, poor tech support, and just generally have so many problems that your attempts to be online will suffer or completely fail.

Again, go to www.webhostingtalk.com and do a lot of reading. Please.

[ozymango]

Quite frankly, I don't think you know what you're talking about. If you've got a high-use site with a lot of large content, great, you need loads of space and bandwidth. But it's going to cost money, and it's going to pretty much need dedicated resources. You'll need ads, sponsors and maybe even investors (unless you're personally wealthy).

Well, you can certainly get a dedicated server with genuine actual usable disk-space and bandwidth for far less than that requiring ads and sponsors -- and not just run by 13-year-olds. :P Much, much more depends on the aim of your site, whether you're running a web-based business (with all the fun that entails) and a lot of other considerations that aren't necessarily technical ones.

Again, go to www.webhostingtalk.com and do a lot of reading. Please.

I also advise that you read as much as you can about whatever providers you're interested in ; the track record of paying customer satisfaction (or lack of it) can be quite useful.

And don't pay too much attention to strongly-opinionated voices in user forums who don't back up their proclamations with actual data! :P

[John Shumate]

Money is not an option..but I do know what I'm talking about.

So.lets see here..I goto CanadaVPS.com and I see this dedicated server plan:

256/512MB DDR ECC RAM
10 GB SCSI Disc Space
250 GB Data Transfer
Unlimited Domains
Unlimited Email Mailboxes
from €42.95

so..let me get this straight 10Gbs is a dedicated Server?!?!?!

I highly doubt that 10GB is a dedicated server. 30GBs on up sounds more proper for a dedicated server plan.

I'm not a cheapass or anything, but I'm also not gonna pay €42.95 just for 10GBs..20GBs makes more sense.

The only thing redeeming about that particular plan is that you can have unlimited Domains..big deal.

Anyways, ozymango, thanks for your post..I've been reading up on this all day long and I'm also a guy who like reviews with stats so I can easily evaluate the situation.

So far, 1&1 and HostGator seem to be the ones sticking out in both choices of either shared hosting or dedicated hosting. I will call both of them probably in the late hours to test how good their support response is.

Any more opinions/reccomendations will be greatly appreciated.

[Jim44]

Any more opinions/reccomendations will be greatly appreciated.

I've been using Aplus.net for a couple of years now for shared hosting for my personal web site & email. I've been very happy with their service & uptime.

Just another recc.

Jim

[John Shumate]

Thanks for your reccomendation Jim.

I talked to 1&1. Support is very reliable..didn't have to wait long to get into contact with them.

Hostgator I got in contact with online..so they seem to be whatever gives me the better deal.

Thanks a bunch for everyone's help..well..almost everyones..I will be bacl soon with my result.

Thanks again

[thecoalman]

so..let me get this straight 10Gbs is a dedicated Server?!?!?!

I highly doubt that 10GB is a dedicated server. 30GBs on up sounds more proper for a dedicated server plan.

This kind of goes back to what I posted above. It's the CPU and conqueries that you are paying for. A single site with 2000-3000 unique visitors per day is going to blow through those limits pretty quick on a $10 plan. The plan you listed has some pretty fast hard drives and I wouldn't doubt a very fast processor, most likely that is more suitable for a high volume dynamic site that doesn't need a lot of space.

TW I don't know how that converts to US dollars but most deicated plans I've seen start around $100.

[lordsmurf]

I don't know how that converts to US dollars

www.xe.com

And usually another 50 cents for "international use" by the credit card companies.

[ricardouk]

well im also looking for a reliable host but like someone said here when i look for reviews all i see is those "fake" reviews, ive heard also good stuff from bluehost, anyone using them here?