Anyone else not trust application specific hosting services?

Like how a bunch of 'WordPress hosting' services have sprung up recently, complete with the only script allowed on them being WordPress?

Because I have to say, I don't. For one thing, they seem to be made on the assumption sites should only use one script for absolutely everything on the website, which is probably a bit of a dangerous assumption. Put simply, there are many things any one script doesn't do well. So any solution only letting you host that script is basically forcing its customers to use a bad solution for that issue.

There's also the whole 'vendor lock in' thing. Okay, you can take your data from most of these services (which is good), but come on, not everyone finds the right script the first time round. I mean, what if you sign up for WordPress hosting or Drupal hosting or XenForo hosting and find it's not the right solution to your problem? Then you've got to find another host, and are likely lumbered with a hosting account you can do absolutely nothing with. Not great to be honest.

So does anyone else think this way, and prefer a host that lets you install anything you want within reason? Because to be honest, if I'm ever given a choice between something like WP Engine and a dedicated server, I'm choosing the latter.

 

I think it comes down to how knowledgeable you are, and which layer you are comfortable with:

Excuse the crappy naming, but generally it's...

• Productized/specialized hosting - for people who don't want to or can't maintain their site. Recognizing "product name" builds a little more trust.
  
• One-click install X / heavily productized hosting - for people or developers who don't want to maintain any infrastructure, but more product agnostic
• Managed hosting - a VPS or similar where they can do anything for you, but more expensive, less specialized
• Unmanaged hosting - VPS or similar where you have less support, but it's still easy to install products onto (with cpanel, etc.)
• Barebones hosting - VPS / VM that is empty - install the packages you want and manage it yourself
• Dedicated hosting - similar to above, but lower level access
• Bare cloud hosting - AWS or similar

Eventually you get down to bare hardware sitting in a datacenter, or even locally, that you SSH into.

What ends up happening, is many of those upper layers are actually running on companies on lower layers, running on companies on lower layers.

You can get the most bang for your buck if you know where your skill level lies, and how much extra help you need. I just set up a $5/mo (with 2 months free promo) from Digital Ocean, and it's powerful enough to run XenForo fast enough for my needs. Sadly, it's comparable to the last $60/month VPS I'm about to retire.