

Ask HN: What web hosting service do you use? (2011 edition) - marketer

Hosting companies seem to have the same packages since 2006 - 512 MB RAM, 40 GB disk, etc... What kind of hosting companies are you using these days? Any new and innovative ones out there?
======
latch
using <http://stormondemand.com/> (liquid web). When we started, a year or so
ago, we ran unixbench on a few of their servers, linode and ec2. I don't
remember the results, but I remember Storm won across the board (and, in some
cases, like disk IO, by huge margins).

I had 30 second downtime last week. First time.

I like that they offer, ok priced, dedicated machines (though I'm on their
"bare-metal" machines for now).

The only problem is that they don't innovate. They are where AWS was back when
it started. Shared storage...dns...virtual ips..load balancers...queues...(and
the list goes on), doesn't exist.

If I wasn't such a cheap ass, I'd use Amazon.

------
manuscreationis
An acquaintance of mine actually runs his own hosting company. Feel free to
check it out. I don't believe they offer windows solutions, pretty much just
Linux based server support, but I could be wrong.

<http://www.thetemplehost.com/>

In terms of the hosting providers I've worked with in a professional capacity,
they've all had their ups and downs.

I couldn't really recommend one over the other, but a lot of people seem keen
on Rackspace, and I don't think anyone has ever told me that they enjoyed
dealing with 1and1.

------
MatthewB
I use Dreamhost for my little sites that I don't pay much attention to and AWS
for anything bigger. I recently deployed some rails apps on Heroku and have
been loving it so I will probably be using that for a while.

------
Autonomy
Webfaction are the best hosts I've ever used.

<http://www.webfaction.com/why-webfaction/>

~~~
decadentcactus
Agreed, I use them as a general host and test area, although I'm hoping to try
out some other "PaaS" inc. Heroku soon. Still, a good place for anyone who
just wants something simple.

------
davidandgoliath
Been happily hosting my own personal content on my own hosting company for
nearly a decade now. Can't go wrong when you're signing the paycheques and
need support.

(Owning a hosting company has a few perks, finally!)

As for innovators are concerned, Linode is doing good stuff. Can't think of
anyone else in the space doing anything remotely interesting quite frankly.

------
ez77
Ruby Ring Tech [<http://rubyringtech.com/>]. Dirt cheap, and in principle
unmetered. (As I have not tried to test this claim, I just get the peace of
mind I look for in unmetered plans.) Yes, they are probably <99% in uptime,
but then I expected that, as my sites are just learning sandboxes.

~~~
tamersalama
Seemed like a good service - until I saw the Adult hosting.

~~~
ez77
What do you mean?

Edit: I just saw it [1]... Is your qualm performance-based, or ethical?

[1]: <http://rubyringtech.com/hosting/adult-hosting/>

~~~
tamersalama
ethical

~~~
ez77
I believe they are tacky and shady in explicitly soliciting for adult content
providers, but bear in mind that pretty much everybody is happy to host it,
unless we're talking about illegal content. You'll have a field day if you
traceroute any of the major porn sites. Or, to take everybody's darling, AWS,
consider [1]. My bet is that pretty much _everybody_ is glad to do business
with adult content providers; they are just quiet about it...

[1]
[https://forums.aws.amazon.com/message.jspa?messageID=44204#4...](https://forums.aws.amazon.com/message.jspa?messageID=44204#44204)

------
inetsee
I don't know about new or innovative, but a recent post comparing VPS
performance ("<http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-performance-comparison/>)
concluded that Linode gives the best bang for your buck, at least in the low
cost ($20/month) space.

------
chubs
Heroku for anything dynamic, and S3 for anything static. If at all possible, i
try to make my sites static.

------
samarudge
Live servers: LiquidWeb (Physical and virtual, not StormOnDemand but we have
12 big servers with them so they cut us a special deal). Dev/messing about
servers: OVH - Dirt cheap, functional, decent hardware, but don't expect
support if something goes wrong

------
mfkp
I use Webbynode for my personal projects, awesome deployment process, and
cheap. Joyent Cloud is my pick for the bigger apps I run. Pretty similar to
AWS, about the same price, way better performance. Just my two cents.

------
GBond
Using modwest for PHP based sites for years. Been stable as a rock. The only
knock has been they are slow to add new plugins but probably the reason they
are very stable.

------
saiko-chriskun
in terms of 'different' or 'innovative' the first one that comes to mind is
<http://nearlyfreespeech.net>

~~~
ez77
They are indeed different! From [1]:

 _Will you design my web site for me?

No, we will not. Our design skills are horrifyingly bad anyway. We like to
stick to what we're good at, which is hosting sites, not creating them. Our
current public site reflects this._

[1] <https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq#Design>

------
wbracken
Been wondering the same. I am stuck on godaddy for several of our company's
sites and they are driving me nuts for both operational and political reasons!

------
dholowiski
Prgmr.com - two servers and counting. Because they don't Assume i am stupid.
And of course, heroku for quick crazy ideas.

------
shadgregory
Been using Linode for years now. Cheap enough, and you can install just about
anything you want.

------
Axsuul
I have a few sites hosted on Rackspace Cloud Servers and some on Amazon EC2.

------
booz
I have been very happy with using Linode for the past year.

------
LarryMade
Bluehost has been good for me.

------
Mankhool
In Canada, Blacksun.

------
thigbee
I use HostGator and am happy with it. For a while I used GoDaddy and HATED it.
GoDaddy hostin was down relatively often and always slow.

~~~
willpower101
I hate godaddy's interface.

Hostgator's 10/mth plan and cpanel is plenty easy for me to put all my simple
forums and blogs on.

I set up my university design department with Dreamhost because it's easy for
the layman and you can add multiple accounts with different lvls of access. If
you need that...

I hear MT is good like AWS if you are like to configure everything on your
own.

