So who do you host with?

The one question that we are all asked sometime or another - who do you host your site(s) with? Who do you recommend and who have you had the greatest experiences with?

 

I use HostGator. I do recommend them, though I don't have as much experience using any other provider as I do HostGator. All I can say is I've never really had a problem or something to complain about, so that's good enough for me.

 

I have a VPS with ServInt, for the past two or so years. They are a little pricey but downtime has been nil and support, even when it's my fault, is top notch.

I've been thinking of going with another provider for a fully dedicated solution, I could do that and spend a little less than I am with the VPS however I'm afraid of what kind of support I'll end up with.

 

A friend of ours (Nick and I) sponsors us with 2 free hosting accounts.

In the past I've used IXWebhosting, and I wouldn't recommend them.

 

For small forums I always recommend A Small Orange | Web Hosting, Design, Software and more!

Great service and support.

The large forum that I run (~525k posts) is hosted with BlueHost (shared). I have to say I'm extremely surprised that it's working, and it's working quite well. For one, BlueHost is known to oversell a LOT which of course should lead to problems. So when I heard that we were switching to it I kind of frowned and thought it would kill the forums in a day. But nope! It's even working better than our old host...

...before bluehost we used HostGator who, for the most part, worked fine. However, after passing 450k posts they started getting a little unstable (frankly I'm surprised that shared hosting still works for a moderately sized forum) and the site would go down sometimes or just be really slow, and they also blocked us from using LiveTopic because it was using up too many resources.

BlueHost has not said anything about LiveTopic yet, and I doubt they will since we've had it on for a while now.


I expect that sooner or later we'll have to move away from shared hosting.

 

And these accounts are with Cartika on clustered hosting which is great service. I don't think we've had downtime once and I'm very satisfied.

 

I've used A Small Orange in addition to HostGator. I recommend them as well.

 

I am with Hostgator because they purchase RECs to offset their energy use. I am not happy that they don't allow SFTP though. Might look for another green hosting provider that allows SFTP and offers cPanel in the future. Had solar hosting a while back but they used Plesk and the servers were slower than molasses in January.

 

GoDaddy.com

 

I heard GoDaddy hosting is unreliable. Feedback?

 

I also have an ASO account for a few of my other sites. I started an account in Jan or Feb of this year..so far so good. No complaints support has been knowledgeable and fast. Once in a blue moon my sites are unreachable but not for long..I haven't even bothered to contact support about it.

Dreamhost: Have an account with them -- Sites were slow as all hell moved to ASO, now just waiting for the account to expire and am not renewing.

HostGator - Was a major PITA between saying I could have SSH access then making me send a copy of my driver's license to get that access and not telling me before hand.. to not being able to have anything with 0777 permissions, everything has to be 0755 due to some 'security policy' which in turn messes up some scripts. I killed my account with them in about 2 days.

GoDaddy - Shared is a wasted of time - VPS, their custom CP is so bad I couldn't even figure out how to setup up the name servers support was canned responses. Cancelled the VPS within 2 days.

1&1 - Slow as all hell, have had a couple of accounts with them and cancelled them all over slow sites, useless support, and poor business practices.

I've been through a slew of other hosts but those are the ones I remember because they were listed here.

 

I've experienced a bit with GoDaddy. I worked on a Radio Forum and the owner originally had her hosting with GoDaddy. She started on shared but as the forum grew, GoDaddy 'told' her she had to move to a VPS. She didn't question anything just said go for it. Problem after problem, too many to list and in the end she just cancelled her account and moved somewhere else (Forgotten who now, was a while ago).

 

I use Knownhost for my VPS. Customer Service is excellent, no down-time whatsoever so far *knock on wood* - I absolutely love them


@ Savage X - every client I've had who was with GoDaddy, is no longer with GoDaddy.
Their servers don't play nice with vB forums once your forum starts on an upward trend.

 

I host with myself. Currently located on a dedicated server from WiredTree.

 

Then they try and use the "Your site is outgrowing shared hosting, we recommend you upgrade to VPS or Dedicated"

 

Ah yes, I've heard some very sketchy stuff about GoDaddy's hosting services.

 

I'm hosted on DreamHost. I personally haven't had any problems with them. Their custom panel is actually rather nice and you can't beat their company blog.

Considering the sketchy stuff they do with their domain services, I doubt their hosting services are any better.

 

On the contrary, I've never had any problems with them when it comes to domains.

 

I'm not sure if I can really help since my experience is limited with websites and host. My site is only 6 months old and only had one issue. During that time I made a call to customer service and they got it fixed quick.