Picking a Good Web Host

superchewie

I'm planning to move my site off wordpress to my own domain and hosting, but researching hosting companies is proving to be a headache. Mostly I'm finding places like bluehost, webhostinghub and similar sites where it's a pretty low monthly price (about $5/month), but after your initial term jumps to $10/month.

Is that normal? And is it a pain in the ass to switch hosts if I don't want to pay the higher rate after a few years?

In terms of features they've all seemed fairly comparable, but the reviews I've read aren't very informative.

So do the H/A boys and girls have any favorite web hosts to suggest?

Delzhand

Dreamhost is fantastic. I don't know what sort of promo rate they're running atm, but my annual bill is about 120. But in terms of service and support, they're the best.

Edit: My first year was about half of that.

wmelon

Delzhand wrote: »

Dreamhost is fantastic. I don't know what sort of promo rate they're running atm, but my annual bill is about 120. But in terms of service and support, they're the best.

Edit: My first year was about half of that.

I'll second this recommendation. I'll also mention that any dreamhost user can set you up with a promo code for some percentage off the normal rate. I've been using them for over 6 years now and have only had minor hiccups in that time.

Aumni

I always found GoDaddy a nice host. Used em for almost 2 years.

Sharp101

Dreamhost all the way.


Just don't use Go Daddy with wordpress, I've had nothing but trouble with my client's sites who used godaddy. They tend to overcrowd their shared servers and database traffic gets bottlenecked.

Lion

I'm also with Dreamhost and love it there. The few problems I've had were very technical and it was nice to talk to people that knew their shit. Made fixing things painless and quick.

superchewie

A fellow forumite hooked me up with a deal I would be unable to beat even with liberal use of a stick. I'll keep Dreamhost in mind if things don't pan out, though.

Thanks guys!

Seanron

We run www.qotpa.com with a wordpress template with Hostgator.

Reasonable prices and I've never had any problems with them! They've hosted our site for about 5 - 6 months now. I think they do a deal on multiple and single URL's also

EWom

I've used HostGator with great success, and they have a built in wordpress DL'er and manager. Don't know about any other hosts.

Infidel

Dreamhost is good for cheap and feature-filled hosting. You're not going to do much better elsewhere for similar pricing.

The hate on Dreamhost is based on loudmouths that think it is the end of the world when their site goes down. Shit happens, hardware is not foolproof, sometimes you get unlucky and are stuck in limbo for a bit. The vast majority are unaffected and quietly happy.

It's funny because most of these people try to convince us that they are losing hundreds of dollars during downtime. On their $10 hosting service. If you're running mission critical sites, get a real fucking host.

BoomShake

Infidel wrote: »

The hate on Dreamhost is based on loudmouths that think it is the end of the world when their site goes down. Shit happens, hardware is not foolproof, sometimes you get unlucky and are stuck in limbo for a bit. The vast majority are unaffected and quietly happy.

Except when they try to sweep failures on their end under the table. Like when they had huge issues with their MySQL and PHPMyAdmin recently. They claimed it had all been fixed days before and they told us both our wordpress site and another site were borderline unusable - frontend, backend, phpmyadmin, and FTP - because an included 16x16 image wasn't being found on one of them. Our storage is on a VPS, but the database is not. It took a number of complaints over the course of several days to get to a tech who wasn't retarded to admit they were having issues.

I mean, for the low price and general quality, they're one of the best. They certainly don't deserve any special praise though.

Fletcher

I'm gonna say do NOT go with godaddy if you want your site to be up all the time, or secure

Not sure about other companies, but I run wordpress on godaddy and i have been hacked several times due to security faults on their end

also my site is literally inaccessible for about an hour every day

you're definitely doing the right thing by asking around, I went with godaddy because it was the cheapest hosting i could find and it was a horrible mistake

BoomShake

I've had some success with A Small Orange for a site I did for a school organization.

SkyGheNe

Go daddy is the most disingenuous hosting company I have ever had the displeasure of working with.

Stay away.

Infidel

BoomShake wrote: »

Infidel wrote: »

The hate on Dreamhost is based on loudmouths that think it is the end of the world when their site goes down. Shit happens, hardware is not foolproof, sometimes you get unlucky and are stuck in limbo for a bit. The vast majority are unaffected and quietly happy.

Except when they try to sweep failures on their end under the table. Like when they had huge issues with their MySQL and PHPMyAdmin recently. They claimed it had all been fixed days before and they told us both our wordpress site and another site were borderline unusable - frontend, backend, phpmyadmin, and FTP - because an included 16x16 image wasn't being found on one of them. Our storage is on a VPS, but the database is not. It took a number of complaints over the course of several days to get to a tech who wasn't retarded to admit they were having issues.

I mean, for the low price and general quality, they're one of the best. They certainly don't deserve any special praise though.

Oh yes, I'm not pretending that Dreamhost is anything amazing. Just that they're plenty good enough for many people.

I was referring to the "hate" and bashing that I see on Dreamhost in a lot of places that is almost always overblown. It's not the plague those people make it out to be.

I've had pretty good luck with them for a few years now. I love the extra goodies at my disposal, such as SVN hosting.

mechaThor

Lithium Hosting is cheap and has worked well for me thus far. Also has an installer for WordPress and other CMS so it saves you the hassle of having to construct it all yourself.

DeathPrawn

If you don't have a lot of bandwidth or storage needs, Hole In The Wall Hosting is fantastic. If you click the link I gave you, you can get hosting for $10/year (disclaimer: it's the plan that's normally $20/year, but that's my referral link that gives you the discount). Very nice CPanel and feature support, and kickass customer service (every time I've sent in a ticket, I've gotten a response from a human within an hour or two). You don't get a lot of bandwidth/storage, but for $10 a year (as in less than $1/month) it's a hell of a deal.