

Ask HN: What web hosting do you use? - tpyo

I'm considering getting hosting for something like a blog, so I'm wondering: what do you use?<p>I want to pay in GBP, but it doesn't really matter.<p>Edit: I won't be able to reap the comments till tomorrow; that is, the 10th of February, 2010.
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carbocation
I started off with HostGator's shared service. I started going over their
limits years ago (mostly CPU, IO, memory, and execution time). The execution
time was a real kicker for me - they have reapers that go around looking for
processes that have been running for more than 120 seconds, and kill them. So
if you have a large MySQL database that you're trying to back up, good luck...
At any rate, I'm not saying their policy was unreasonable - it was just a
dealbreaker for me.

At that point, I looked around for another host. I was impressed with
MediaTemple's managed VPS offerings, as they had 3 levels of 'scaling' (for
$50/100/150). Over the past 8 months, I've had major IO issues. Oddly, my IO
issues have little correlation with my traffic patterns, so I suspect that I'm
on a heavily loaded server - though they state that they see nothing but
normal disk/CPU/etc utilization. That may be true, but I'm moving on.

In the end, I decided that Linode offers a level of granularity that was not
matched by MediaTemple. At Linode, they expect that you may well want to
separate your production server from your MySQL server from your dev server,
and their backend is built with multi-server management in mind. I've set up
separate MySQL and PHP servers so far, and things have been going very well.
This will allow me to scale each in proportion to its needs, instead of having
to scale a monolithic server instance.

For just a blog, do you want to mess around with the shell? If so, Linode or
similar (SliceHost?) might be good for you. They start off small ($20/month
for the cheapest), and they allow you to upgrade in small chunks.

If you don't want to deal with shell, I find HostGator to be quite reasonable,
and they are extremely cheap. I still host a bunch of personal sites with
them.

~~~
sil3ntmac
Hostgator shared accounts actually do have shell access, you just have to ask
for it. Go into the live chat and ask a rep and they'll activate it for ya.
They also have cheap dedicated servers called "unmanaged servers", they're
kind of an unpublicized deal, its $75/mo for your own box, which I think has a
2.4 P4 and 1gb RAM, 5 IPs.

~~~
carbocation
I do have shell access at HostGator, but when I got it there was a $5 charge
(perhaps they waive that now?). I was imprecise in my wording; when I said
"shell," I really was thinking "root." Certainly, if there are things you want
to do for your blog using shell, HostGator is an option.

Their $75/mo single-core DediKiddies seemed less desirable to me than an
arbitrarily resizable VPS with 4 virtual cores (which MT and Linode have).

Also, it's too late for me to edit my original comment, but HostGator did not
have VPS when I left them.

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csomar
I have around 1 year with Lace Host (lacehost.com), the website/user interface
are crappy but it doesn't matter since you have Cpanel and FTP.

They are cheap (around $22 for 1.5 GB hosting / year). You have got unlimited
Mysql DataBases, Very large bandwidth and an always (almost) online customer
service (it's the owner, he'll reply to your questions even if it's not
hosting related).

Overall experience: Positive. I'm running 4 websites (on 4 domains). 3 blogs,
1 personal website and a bunch of auto-scripts that runs via Cron Jobs. I get
around 250 hits daily.

\+ I got around 1,100 hit from Stumble Upon (i got a fav from a popular
member) and the host seemed to be fine with that traffic.

Currently, I'm keeping with them, for scaling, the admin told me that they can
move me from shared to private server in no down time.

My advice will be: Go for it! You can also Google for reviews about it.

~~~
sil3ntmac

      $ traceroute lacehost.com
    
      traceroute to lacehost.com (67.225.243.15), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
      ...
      16  209.59.157.44 (209.59.157.44)  43.978 ms  46.390 ms  43.979 ms
      17  lw-dc2-sec2-dist4-po1.rtr.liquidweb.com (209.59.157.234)  45.439 ms  46.016 ms  50.775 ms
      18  dc2-vps1-302.liquidweb.com (67.225.247.217)  43.915 ms  49.835 ms  46.735 ms
    

He probably just has a WHMap account setup on one of liquidweb.com's dedicated
servers. That'll work fine, but hopefully he really is able to move you over
to a private server without any snags.

~~~
ishan
Hello, I am the owner or LaceHost. We host our company website offsite on a
vps with Liquidweb. Our shared hosting servers, power distribution units and
network switches are completely owned by us and located in our private cabinet
at the Uberbandwidth datacenter in NC, USA. We also have 3 support operators
and 8 technicians working round the clock. Also, we use WHMCS and not WHMAP :)

Thank you, Ishan

~~~
csomar
So why don't you use your own server to host your site?

I think he's doing that to mislead websites that track hosts uptime, like that
his main site never run down.

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alttab
I've had great success and ease-of-use with Bluehost (bluehost.com) and its
subsidiary Hostmonster (hostmonster.com). They are an affordable shared host
that do all the domain stuff as well. Their support is great and they have the
latest version of CPanel. If you wanted to make LAMP or Rails applications
they have support for that as well. Overall with domain, connersc.com was $120
for two years.

Sometimes when the shared server is getting pounded, remote-ssh development
can be a little laggy but if you are running Wordpress (which is in CPanel as
a turnkey installation), you should be fine.

There are probably other hosts out there, but as far as service and price its
been working for me so far. I even put clients on it (before moving the others
to rackspace).

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aarongough
I use HostGator... I've noticed several other commenters have said they left
Hostgator when they needed root access, or more resources. I had the same
issues, but instead of leaving I switched to their VPS service.

The service has always been great, I didn't have any problem installing
Passenger and the VPS is still going strong!

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albertsun
I like WebFaction a lot. It's shared hosting and you don't get root access,
but their servers are set up such that you can basically install anything you
want. They are also a UK company.

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DanielStraight
I used HostGator until I wanted root access, then switched to Linode. Both are
excellent.

~~~
aarongough
Hostgator offer VPSes with root access now.

I don't want to come across like s shill for them (I have no affiliation) but
I can't overstate how happy I've been with their level of service and support
in general!

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cb33
Mediatemple is great.

