Web Hosting Solutions

[Marcus]

I have been out of the loop for a while now but I am looking for a decent Web host. Who are people using these days? I was using 1&1 for a while but I really didn't care for their control panel that they used which was kinda a pain in the ass. So does anyone have any suggestions? I don't need anything hardcore.

[TimElhajj]

Yeah, I'm sort of curious about this too. I have been thinking of moving some of my blogs from wordpress.com to self hosted.

[chequers]

Marcus, what do you want to do with it?

Tim, like Jamie Madigan, you're not technically competent enough to run a Wordpress blog without it getting infected with malware. Unless you're planing on using this as a springboard to becoming a systems administrator stick to managed hosting.

[Marcus]

Uh I guess that is a good question. I'm not sure quite frankly. I guess services like drop box and flickr really kinda eliminate the need for a dedicated hosting solution like I used to have. I wouldn't mind something that I could have as a dedicated place though. I just have a good domain name that I want to scoop up and use!

[TimElhajj]

Tim, like Jamie Madigan, you're not technically competent enough to run a Wordpress blog without it getting infected with malware. Unless you're planing on using this as a springboard to becoming a systems administrator stick to managed hosting.

Ha! I won't argue with you there.

Nevertheless, my wife and I want to start a business, and Wordpress.com is too restrictive to accomplish our goals. I think I may have to jump into the deep water. Any suggestions for how to prevent the most obvious attacks? Or perhaps a really good web host who will protect me from myself?

[chequers]

First, you can register a domain name without attaching it to any web hosting, if you want to save money. Anyway, if all you want is a cheap website you can access with FTP for file hosting, try Dreamhost. Like you say, and I implied in the above post, if you're not deeply technically literate I suggest using as many managed services as possible.

[chequers]

Tim, my suggestion to you would be Google Sites, with your own domain name.

[TimElhajj]

Tim, my suggestion to you would be Google Sites, with your own domain name.

Hey, thanks for the tip! I just watched the little Google Sites video and it looks pretty cool. I'll have to spend some time there. I wonder what their content management system is like? I have become so used to Wordpress, it's hard to imagine using something else, but I agree that trying to host without an abundance of knowledge is dicey. I had a Web host and it was cool until we ran into problems and then I would get unintelligible emails asking me, for example, "Was I running any cron jobs?"

To which I would reply, "Well, I don't think so! How would I know if I were running a cron job?"

[TimElhajj]

I actually know a lot about systems administration, but it's all Windows related information. I have never found what I know about Windows of much use with my single attempt at self hosting becasue all the web hosts use linux. Minor issues like deleting multiple files on the server (or something) seem to take an inordinate amount of time to figure out how to do, but it's not unachievable.

But what sort of malware threats are we talking about? It sounds like you may have already had this conversation with Jamie, but I might have missed it. Most of the web hosts who support Wordpress have adopted Wordpress's easy one step install/update. Wouldn't recovery just be a matter of nuking your Wordpress files on the Web host and then (re)installing the latest bits?

[jerri blank]

I've had good luck with Hostmonster for my personal stuff and Hostgator for work-related stuff. They're both a good value for me because none of my sites need tons of bandwidth, but I run a lot of them. Both hosts include a ridiculous (if not unlimited) number of add-on domains and MySQL databases.

I no longer use Hostmonster for work stuff because they've been under a DDoS attack for probably a couple of years now, and apparently that prevents them from doing even simple things like installing SSL on an account. Once I needed SSL for a work account, moving was unavoidable. But I haven't felt the need yet to move the personal stuff away from them.

[Brian Rubin]

I've been using Dreamhost for several years. Affordable, unlimited hosted domains, bandwidth, space, etc, easy installs for wordpress and so on. Really like 'em a lot.

[RyanMichael]

I've been using Inmotionhosting (http://www.inmotionhosting.com/) lately. Cpanel based, good customer support thus far, no performance issues to date. If you decide to go with them, let me know; I've got one of those affiliate links.

[Athryn]

My guild site uses site5.com, we like 'em, been using them for several years.

[Marcus]

So I guess there is no real clear solution but I do have two people saying Dreamhost is good!

[nutsak]

Make that three.

[krayzkrok]

I've been using Datarealm since 1995. I've little idea how they compare feature-wise in the grand scheme of things right at this moment, but their quality of service has been exceptional.

[jason]

I'll chime in for Dreamhost as well. Been using them for years and am very happy.

[Clay]

I like Eleven2: http://www.eleven2.com/

I usually register names with http://www.dynnds.com however, because I sometimes need to point a URL to my development server here in my living room and they provide a tool and service that make it super easy. Lots of services don't provide that option. I have a dynamic IP at home, via Comcast, and their tool updates my IP with them every time it changes.

[chequers]

I actually know a lot about systems administration, but it's all Windows related information. I have never found what I know about Windows of much use with my single attempt at self hosting becasue all the web hosts use linux. Minor issues like deleting multiple files on the server (or something) seem to take an inordinate amount of time to figure out how to do, but it's not unachievable.

But what sort of malware threats are we talking about? It sounds like you may have already had this conversation with Jamie, but I might have missed it. Most of the web hosts who support Wordpress have adopted Wordpress's easy one step install/update. Wouldn't recovery just be a matter of nuking your Wordpress files on the Web host and then (re)installing the latest bits?
The malware could come from a variety of sources, but a popular one is themes with malware embedded inside them. While theoretically nuking everything and restoring a backup of post/image data would work most people I've run into with Wordpress problems find it very difficult to properly remove the virus stuff and have to invest substantial time into the process.

I'm picking on Jamie because I reported a problem with one of his sites a few months ago, and he's never fixed it, and he's on this board so mentioning it might remind him to stop spamming the internets.

[Tracy Baker]

I'm using www.asmallorange.com (the Tiny plan) and it's been great for Wordpress-based stuff, especially for the price. If your storage/bandwidth needs are small I highly recommend trying it out.

I've also found that www.cloudflare.com is great for keeping your site live and running fast. Cheap shared hosting always has issues no matter who you do it through, and cloud flare does a good job of making it look like you use a dedicated host while bringing some security features to the table. Chequers will shit all over both of those suggestions, I'm sure, but good luck finding something Chequers doesn't shit all over (not without reason, mind you, but if the world was held to Chequer's standards we'd still be perfecting the wheel).

[Lorini]

You can attach your own domains to Wordpress for $17 a year ($10 overhead there but that's still less than a dollar a month more). www.jenstechwriting.com is my Wordpress domain.

Wordpress can do A LOT that you will have trouble doing on your own. You can also run Wordpress through your own server. I had that set up but couldn't see the reason to keep paying the server costs.

[Lum]

If you just need a blog hosted, start with wordpress.com for free, see if you outgrow it. As Lorini said, the domain name cost is minimal and if you use Google Apps for email you can route your email through your blog domain as well.

If you need anything else, I *strongly* recommend these guys. I've used Dreamhost, inmotion and a number of others and the level of service I get from them blows them all out of the water. (And I don't get a commission, really...)

http://mediatemple.net/

Simple hosting: get (gs) for $20/month. Pros: very rare if any service outages. Cloud hosting so you won't get bumrushed by someone running a rogue process on your shared server. Massively cheap for what you get. Cons: because it's cloud hosting there are some quirks to a few applications (though mt has push-button deployment for all the usual ones). A couple years back they were hit by a targeted security exploit.

If you want root and know what you're doing, you can get your own virtualized Linux box (ve) for $30 a month. This is what I use (for about 5 wordpress sites, a vbulletin site, and a few various daemons), and it's exactly what it advertises - your own linux box. Starts with an off-the-shelf install of your preferred distro, then you get to build everything from there. (I upgraded mine to the $50/month tier as Wordpress can be a memory hog.)

If you want root and aren't that sure what you're doing, you can get the (dv) service which is a CentOS distro with all the usual LAMP web server stuff already set up, for $50/month. Not quite as flexible as the (ve) service, but you don't have to spend a day setting up Apache and tuning it, either.

Mediatemple runs a ton of big iron web servers for large corporations (Adobe, Starbucks, Sony, ABC, etc.) so their control panels are extremely spiffy and the service is well above par. Can't recommend them highly enough. Feel free to shoot me any ?s about the service if you have any, I've been on them for a couple of years now. (and no, I don't get a commission... really should given the amount of customers I've gotten them here...)

[TimElhajj]

You can attach your own domains to Wordpress for $17 a year ($10 overhead there but that's still less than a dollar a month more). www.jenstechwriting.com is my Wordpress domain.

Wordpress can do A LOT that you will have trouble doing on your own. You can also run Wordpress through your own server. I had that set up but couldn't see the reason to keep paying the server costs.

3.92 GPA!?!

Holy cow, Lorini! :)

[stusser]

The mediatemple ve pricing is pretty great, although they do gouge on bandwidth. Also ve doesn't include backups, you have to pay extra. Their dv pricing is decent at best, and it gouges on memory.

Neither one is ideal, but interesting offerings.

[Gendal]

I think this is like my 3rd edit now, wow, I totally misread the mediatemple dv vs ve. VE is what I want and the price doesn't seem bad at all. The lack of backups is annoying, curious as to the pricing and if anybody has more recommendations for similar 2GB setups with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS or even just pointers to forums that actively discuss this I would appreciate it.

[chequers]

Linode is what I recommend.

[jpinard]

Powweb (http://www.powweb.com/)is absolutely phenomenal. You get real American support, their tools are fantastic, their forums are amazing, it is clean, fast, affordable. I've had them forever and can't say enough good things about them. We're also moving our CF charity to their web-hosting off 1&1 who has been a royal pain to work with.

[Gendal]

Linode is what I recommend.
Nice, I like their web site and prices. Signed up for a month to test out and so far everything is going swimmingly. Rackspace and media temple drove me up the wall trying to figure things out from their site. I want facts, specs, pricing - not fancy cloud speak and reports on how much money I can save.

[Talisker]

I've used Linode in the past, no complaints whatsoever.

[chequers]

Right. Linode still have a few issues, the ones that bug me are:
* The Dallas location is located at one of The Planet's DCs, who apparently host every wannabe IRC scriptkiddy's bouncer, and thus gets ddossed at least once a month. Unless you have really strict latency requirement I'd suggest the Fremont (HE) location instead.
* Their DNS service is not particularly awesome. There have been actual full outages of the system over the past three years. It's not a major problem in itself but it's worrying when other providers charge peanuts and have 100% uptime going back years.
* In the past they didn't always put outages up on their status page, and they hid past outages from view so you couldn't go back more than a week or so. It appears this is changing but I still get a dismissive vibe from them about public reporting of faults.

Pluses:
* Fantastic support.
* Billing is per-day, so you can cost-effectively spin up a bunch of nodes for a few hours if you need scratchspace.

[Gendal]

* Their DNS service is not particularly awesome. There have been actual full outages of the system over the past three years.
Good to know, was having a minor debate about switching DNS so that solved that. Transfer went very well, been awhile since I have had 80MB/s transfer speeds - two bonded T1's just ain't what they used to be.

Only problems were backups and they auto created the dist image with 32bit - everybody else doesn't even offer that as an option so I was halfway through the config when I found the x64 only package I was trying to install wasn't going to take.

The backup/restore was also a little flakey, it failed a few times before taking. Once was because you have to have enough space and I forgot about the 512Mb swap drive, and twice after that it failed image creation for unknown reasons. Maybe I was too quick deleting images? Worked fine after that.

Performance is great so far and overall it's been a fast, pleasant experience.

[chequers]

They still use 32-bit by default because of the lower RAM usage. I don't use their backup system, on the assumption that any backup done by the same provider as your hosting will be unavailable when you really need it.

[Lum]

Looks like linode is $20 cheaper a month than mediatemple for the service I get (1GB ram + backups, $70 vs $50)... not worth moving unless I get some issues. :)

[stusser]

Anyone have experience with 6sync (http://www.6sync.com)? They are very well reviewed and seem to be a better deal than linode, which is stingy on bandwidth.

[Gendal]

I noticed you switched QT3 over to a new provider, did you end up going with 6sync? Happy with linode so far, but I don't have near the bandwidth requirements QT3 probably does.

[stusser]

Yes we did, so far so good. My feeling is the real problem was with the virtualization platform used by our old provider, virtuozzo. It allows them to oversell capacity. Real virtualization platforms like Xen (linode) and KVM (6sync) don't allow for that.

[chequers]

That's not (http://blog.xen.org/index.php/2008/08/27/xen-33-feature-memory-overcommit/) true (http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Virtualization/sect-Virtualization-Tips_and_tricks-Overcommitting_with_KVM.html).

[stusser]

That's a bummer. Well it was true, at one point.

[chequers]

I do agree Virtuozzo (and OpenVZ) are correlated highly with bad hosts though.

PS would love to hear how your new host is going after a few months, please update us with pretty graphs.

[stusser]

Servint is actually fairly well-reviewed as far as fully managed hosts go. They just oversold their hardware and wouldn't admit to it. The server we're on now is basically the same thing, another 256MB of RAM, but it's not oversold and it performs pretty great.

Part of that may be using lighttpd and mariadb rather than apache and an ancient mysql, but still. I'm pretty convinced they just plain oversold their hardware.

[Talorc]

I used bluehost for two websites where I abused wordpress to make it a content management system to do the site. For a kludge it worked great (and the first blog/website I ever made). Didn't have any problems and it was all quite intuitive. I even managed to restore a backup after I accidentally broke everything (breaking was completely my fault not theirs)

You can install a bunch of stuff with their simplescripts - wordpress, drupal, ruby on rails etc. Pretty much all the major ones. (drupal was too hard for me to figure out in the required time though)

I would use them again for a similar project.

I suspect REAL Internet admins might laugh at my choice though :-)

[Dawn Falcon]

I strongly suggest you buy your domain name from somewhere other than your web host, incidentally. Had too many issues with them not properly putting the domain into your name, etc.

Talorc - Most places support Fantasico, which does the same thing.